Christmas in September: Trump gave us ‘source methods’ gifts debating Harris

Christmas in September: Trump gave us ‘source methods’ gifts debating Harris

Commentary by James Downard | FāVS News

In my last post on the threat of crazy train Christian nationalism and their connection to a much larger network of often well-heeled ideologues, I opined how the media need to drill politicians on their source field, the better for us voters to decide who among them should get our vote.

In last Tuesday’s debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris there was certainly some fact checking when the former president left the fact path and made incendiary statements that were flat out wrong, but not a single source methods question was asked of either candidate.

But that doesn’t mean we didn’t get some answers on some anyway. For between his constipated glares and hyperbolic rants (“Marxist” Kamala was a preposterous example), Donald Trump inadvertently let slip something of the sort of sources he has been drawing on to arrive at his own version of crazy train.

Do not be misled, Trump is not that imaginative a fellow to come up with fiery nonsense all on his own. Instead, like creationists who think there were dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark, or Marxist-Leninists manning the barricades to defend Stalin’s virtue to this day, Trump is the sort of shallow secondary source addict who merely circles the table of poisonous absurdities and grabs whatever they fancy.

So at one point Trump let slip that an accusation against him had been fully “debunked” by none other than the Three Stooges of FoxTrumpravda: Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Jesse Watters, none of whom (collectively or as individuals) could “debunk” their way out of a paper bag if their lives depended on it.

The Blindered leading the even-more-Blindered

Trump has long been known to draw on the mythology of Fox News (Hannity has Trump on speed dial), and sometimes the trail is plain enough, as some drivel appearing on that channel materializes promptly in the rhetoric of “The Convicted One.”

In the debate, though, Trump for once blurted out exactly who he drew on, explicitly identifying the secondary punditry whose oracular certainty was apparently unsullied in his view — people he would never in a million years try to fact check (or even know how to), even as they have never been caught fact checking anything they say either.

But it got even worse, as Trump dived off the mental board into what had never been a filled pool: the preposterous (and nasty) accusation that Haitian refugees in Springfield, Ohio, were rampaging and cooking up their neighbors’ cats and dogs. The look on Harris’ face spoke volumes, and David Muir had to leap in to note ABC News had contacted health authorities in that community and nothing was known of it.

To which Trump replied, in the manner of any deranged uncle doubting we landed on the moon, that he had seen some video of it.

Well gosh, that settles that, doesn’t it? What better qualifications could we have for a president than that he can suck up junk from the internet?

Enter the “Ghost of Source Methods Present”

The source for the pet cooking myth wasn’t hard to trace. Trump’s own VP running-mate JD Vance was pushing it, perhaps as a snarky way to troll the media after the quickly debunked rumor Vance had an inordinate fondness for couch cushions.

Acting in his capacity as a senator (our employee, be reminded), Vance waved about innuendo and hearsay from his constituents about what had supposedly been happening to somebody’s cousin’s neighbor’s pets. Though he did not use the weight of his (or rather OUR) high office to actually investigate any of this to find out if any of it was true in the first place, before shooting off controversial tweets about it.

This thinly veiled racist dog whistle was quickly picked up in the bottom feeder echo chamber, from Ted Cruz (also a senator and so theoretically better than that, when not vacationing in Cancun), smarmy Christian nationalist ideologue Charlie Kirk (whose Turning Point operation is knee deep in the Project 2025 dystopia alluded to in my previous post) and from his “X” Olympus Elon Musk (whose latest product triumph, the Cybertruck, is a hot contender to become the Edsel of Yugos, and dubbed by one wag as the Deploreon).

Just imagine what insights we could obtain were it to become a common practice to intentionally ask source methods questions of political candidates and public figures, instead of waiting for them to accidentally vomit them our way now and then.

The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. FāVS News values diverse perspectives and thoughtful analysis on matters of faith and spirituality.