Oh, you've got a very good point. I mean, look at these completely tangible and incontrovertible cases where Trump is known to be wrong. They're material things right? I mean, the size of his crowd is a really big deal, and has bearing on... what exactly? And you know, insisting that Clinton got a bunch of illegal votes... that's so much worse than insisting that Trump only won because of bigots, and stupid people, and misogyny, and the reasons that Clinton tossed out... right? These two things that keep coming back around as such absolutely solid evidence of Trumps lack of credibility... they're very meaningful... aren't they?
Ahh, yes, of course. You've got a sparkling point. I mean, it's not like he made these claims at vastly different times or anything, right? They're occurring in the same time span, aren't they? I mean, it's not like a hyperbolic bombast could possibly consider exaggerating a brief encounter with someone important when that reflected glory makes them seem more important, right? It's clear, of course, that there's no reason to think critically at all about the veracity of what he said on an interview where he was trying to make himself seem important. It makes perfect sense to accept that statement as the one that's totally and completely true, and use it as justification for alleging collusion! It's perfectly reasonable and objective, no cherry picking at all here, but my this fresh pie sure is yummy.
And yet, they aren't dismissed as evidence of nothing. They aren't ignored. They're not treated as being impossible to determine. If his statements disagree with the current narrative, then they are presented as yet more evidence that Trump is a liar without credibility and he's untrustworthy. But on those occasions where his statements strengthen the current narrative, then those statements aren't questioned at all - they're accepted as being perfectly 100% true... and are often spun as being an admission.
That's the nice thing about this game. You get to pick and choose which statements work best for you. If they disagree with the narrative you're pushing, you just get to say that they're false statements, lies, dishonesty from a known liar. If they agree with your narrative, you get to say that they're evidence, admission, and just go to show how bad a person he is. If his empty rhetoric (and make no mistake, it's almost all empty) contradicts what you want reality to be, then you can investigate and keep on investigating, and if nothing comes up you can claim there's a cover-up or that someone is a shill or whatever you need to say in order to justify continuing to dig and dig and dig. And if his empty rhetoric supports what you want reality to be, you don't have to bother with fact checking anything - he said it, so by god, it must be true!
I mean, she's a woman, right, so that's totally the only thing that could go there!
