US election:
Donald Trump's
convention speech and 'the truth'
Did Donald Trump
tell "the truth and nothing else" as he promised in his speech to the US
Republican convention, accepting the party's presidential nomination?
Here we hold the
candidate to his promise
by checking how well he built his case on three top
voter issues:
crime,
terrorism
and the
economy.
Half Truths,
unfinished statements and downright lies, again!
You
read his lies and I will print the truth?
Some of
Mr Trump's hardest-hitting lines were on law and order:
The city murder
figures appear to be broadly accurate (though complete FBI crime statistics for
2015 are not yet available) but what Mr Trump does not say is that they are
still very low by historical standards. For instance, half as many people were
killed last year as in 1991 in the 50 largest cities, according to a Washington
Post report in January. Nor does the candidate acknowledge major spending
increases by the Obama administration on state and local law enforcement.
Context is also key
to the second claim. A reliable count of overall police deaths up to 20 July
comes up with 67, compared to 62 for the same period last year. So where did Mr
Trump get 50% from? Presumably from the figure for police deaths from intentional
shootings, such as the Dallas massacre: 32 this year compared to 18 last year.
The third claim is
much harder to defend. Hillary Clinton, Mr Trump's Democratic opponent in
November, has not proposed revoking the constitutionally protected right to
bear arms. She has proposed banning certain military-style weapons and
expanding existing criminal background checks.
Violent crime is an
issue for Americans but by no means the top one, according to the latest survey
of US voter concerns by the Pew Research Centre (widely respected for its
impartiality and expertise).
Gun policy (the only
law and order issue put to Pew respondents) ranks fifth, cited by 72%. Among Mr
Trump's supporters, the figure drops to 71% while it rises to 74% among Clinton
voters
Mrs Clinton's
policies, both as a former secretary of state (2009-13) and a presidential
candidate, were portrayed in the speech as a recipe for national insecurity:
Blaming a US
secretary of state for the chaos and violence in the Middle East since the Arab
Spring of 2011 is sweeping. More specifically, the US did not lead the Western
military intervention in Libya and Mrs Clinton had no role in the military
decisions made during the attack on the US diplomatic post there in 2012. By
contrast, she did work to impose nuclear sanctions against Iran - which were
only lifted
under her successor, John Kerry.
Syrian refugees
actually are screened by the US government, which conducts rigorous background
checks. Processing of a refugee can take 18 months to two years. Refugees are
also subject to interviews and fingerprint and other biometric screening.
After a year of
domestic attacks linked to so-called Islamic State, from San Bernardino to
Orlando,
terrorism ranks number two on Pew's list of voter concerns, chosen by 80% of
respondents. Among Trump supporters, it is singled
The economy
Compared to its
peers in the developed world, the US hardly comes across as a high-tax country.
Taxes made up 26% of the total US economy in 2014, according
to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. But for
Sweden, they constituted 42.7%, for Germany 36.1% and for the UK 32.6%. Based
on available data, only three OECD members had a lower figure than the US:
Chile, South Korea and Mexico.
Mr Trump's figure
for Hispanic poverty is accurate but what he does not say is that America's
Latino population has climbed considerably since Mr Obama took power in 2008.
Between 2010 and 2014, for instance, it rose by 4.6 million, according
to Pew. Pew estimates that those
living in poverty as a percentage of the Hispanic population actually fell from
24.7% to 23.5% in the same period.
Trump as donkey:
the
US candidate
and his famous hairstyle
mocked at a festival in Mexico this
spring