Bloomberg’s Jennifer Epstein is no stranger to Trump Derangement Syndrome, but she might be jumping more than a few sharks with this beef:
https://twitter.com/jeneps/status/987021112252030976
Oh, come on!
https://twitter.com/MetricButtload/status/987031824181280770
https://twitter.com/BecketAdams/status/987034491536531456
Can’t think. Must narrative.
There are stats that suggest he's right, at least in raw numbers. There are around 40 million slaves in the world now. Can't find actual numbers but not sure there's ever been more than that (perhaps more per capita).
— neontaster (@neontaster) April 19, 2018
The 1860 US census counted about 4 million slaves. I guess it's possible there were another 40 million elsewhere in the world around that time but the global population was only 1.2 billion, which would make that much harder to achieve.
— neontaster (@neontaster) April 19, 2018
Trump says a lot of dumb things, but perhaps it's worth checking the numbers a little before dismissing him just because it sounds wrong to you. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
— neontaster (@neontaster) April 19, 2018
But fact checking is hard.
— Jeff Webb (@Jeff99669) April 19, 2018
Still worth it, though. A little fact checking can go a long way toward avoiding embarrassment:
https://twitter.com/BecketAdams/status/987035085244456960
https://twitter.com/natemcdermott/status/987036177294340102
Your own news organization: ? pic.twitter.com/BwiPvMGWk5
— T Sanchez (@TourDPants) April 19, 2018
Oooof.
I'm dubious about some human trafficking statistics out there b/c a lot of numbers thrown around aren't reliable. That said, I do think this is one of those things you can point to as to why so much of the country hates the media.
— Alex Zelinski (@A_Zelinski) April 19, 2018
By the way:
It's funny how "human trafficking is worse than ever before" is unacceptable hyperbole but "thousands of Americans will die because of this tax cut" isn't.
— neontaster (@neontaster) April 19, 2018
Isn’t it, though?
Even if Trump is exaggerating here (which I don't think he is), you can't even forgive him an exaggeration in the service of combating human trafficking? That seems… Counterproductive.
— neontaster (@neontaster) April 19, 2018
Just a little bit, yeah.
https://twitter.com/PPearl05/status/987040366816841729
If people can't come together and agree on something like human trafficking and instead want to be all "But Trump!" then we have severe problems as a country
— Burn It All Down (@TimHaas70) April 19, 2018
https://twitter.com/BecketAdams/status/987035907554529285
***
Update:
Epstein tried to memory-hole her ridiculous tweet. Too bad it didn’t work.
***
Update:
It’s not just Epstein. WaPo’s Aaron Blake is going the dunk route, too:
Trump says human trafficking ‘is worse than it’s ever been in the history of the world.’ Where to even begin? https://t.co/02kRuziXTW
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) April 19, 2018
Sigh.
There are 40 million slaves in the world right now. Per capita stats look impressive, but when you're dealing with actual people who are slaves, raw numbers are more important in my opinion.
— neontaster (@neontaster) April 19, 2018
12% of the US population in 1860 was about 4 million people. I doubt there were an additional 36+ million slaves in the world back then considering the global population was only 1.2 billion.
— neontaster (@neontaster) April 19, 2018
You could argue it was more endemic in the past, but more people are afflicted by it now than ever before.
— neontaster (@neontaster) April 19, 2018
this is one of those things trump does where he has literally no idea about anything you just said or even any relative statistics or perspective but just assumes someone else will argue the hyperbole if he says it anyway
— Women For Kilgore Trout (@KT_So_It_Goes) April 19, 2018
I've said before that Trump tends to do right things for the wrong reasons, but here my issue is more that the overwhelming desire to dunk on him is sometimes counterproductive.
— neontaster (@neontaster) April 19, 2018
Let's assume for a second that he was just exaggerating. He's doing it to highlight the problem of human trafficking. When Al Gore says the planet is doomed, people understand why he's using such grave language…
— neontaster (@neontaster) April 19, 2018
Yeah let's downplay the problem of human trafficking because that way Trump looks like a racist. Totally worth it.
— neontaster (@neontaster) April 19, 2018
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