Arthur E. Sowers is a resident of Harbeson.
John Drennen’s recent Opinion (“Writer’s research on Trump is ‘flawed’”) said my earlier letter involving my research on Donald Trump (“President Trump’s magic isn’t magic at all”) was flawed.
Drennen also used words like “lacks objectivity” and “(d)oes this sound fair?” in further judgment of my letter. Here, I challenge his thoughts.
In all of human society, there are only two kinds of debate. The first kind is to find the truth. The second kind is to win the debate and call “phooey” on truth. The second kind is also called “dishonest debate,” and there is a lot to learn about it if you do an internet search on that.
Drennen “picked on” only one or two of the 18 points that I listed (and referenced) in my letter. Since he could not come up with a single valid refutation for any of the other 16 points, then I would claim that I was at least 16/18 or 88% right.
Drennen implied that two of my references (CNN and Fortune, a business management website) were not fair. That is a common “liberal media bias” claim from those on the right. But notice that Drennen named only one source, the Media Research Center, for his information. I checked on the MRC with an internet search, and the first links I got said it’s conservative. That fact shows how Drennen’s letter itself could be judged as flawed or not objective. A story about the research center, given at the InfluenceWatch website, is that it went from conservative to radical pro-Trump, so it could get more and bigger donations. Lots of people talk about media bias, but reader bias exists, too.
Drennen questioned my CNN and Fortune references because ABC and CBS settled out of court — for $15 million in December 2024 and for $16 million in July 2025, respectively — for something they said that somebody else didn’t like. Usually, these mainstream networks get trashed as full of liberal bias by Trumpers, as well as by Trump. But what about Fox News’ $787 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems in April 2023? And the fact that Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network are now all in various high-dollar litigations with Smartmatic, as well as with each other and other litigants? Is it fair to talk only about the other guy’s dirt under the rug and not acknowledge your dirt under your rug?
But let’s look at two issues Drennen brought up in his letter. First, Drennen implied that Joe Biden is responsible for high inflation. But, when I asked the internet about all that inflation, the response was that it is due to the pandemic, not Biden. For the next issue, Drennen credited Trump for closing the Mexican border. But Trump used sweeping, overreaching, dictatorial, allegedly illegal and unconstitutional executive orders that are now being challenged in many court cases. I did an internet search on this keyword string: “Is Trump deportation doing net good or net bad,” and I can tell you that there are a lot of links to a lot of articles that say Trump’s deportation project is doing a lot of bad things. Drennen should look at that side of the story, too.
Tell me if this Trump-Biden comparison is fair. Look at the 2024 debate. I and most people thought Biden looked pretty wobbly and rickety compared to Trump. But, after the debate, I read some of the written commentaries, in which fact-checkers were saying Trump was incorrect more often than Biden was. I used three free artificial intelligences online to dig deep and find transcripts and fact-checks, and the results were that, yes, Trump did lie three to five times more than Biden did. Now, why don’t more people just think about that for a few seconds? Why is it that Trump got enough extra votes — like several million — to win the 2024 election, when it is a fact that he is a much bigger liar? Or were a lot of Trump voters just attracted to Trump because he makes bigger sparks, more smoke and louder noise? It looks to me like substance, reality and truth didn’t matter to them.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
