TrackTrump.com speaks truth to lies

Handy one-page handouts to fight the BS

(CONTENT WARNING: The following article contains MAGA lies, untruths, and photos of Donald Trump.)

By Bruce Watson

Like all wild beasts, Donald Trump is hard to track.  Where is he now?  What venom did he spew yesterday?  And just how many lies, threats, and whines has he strewn in his path?

But face it.  Eight years of tracking Trump have left most of us thoroughly exhausted.  Often when face-to-face with someone who still supports him, we simply don’t know where to begin.  That’s why TrackTrump.com distills truths about Trump into a one-page handout.

Issue by issue, lie by lie, Tracktrump.com catalogs the wild beast’s offenses.  If you can still stomach all this, you’ll get concise summaries of Trump’s outrages against:

— abortion — “I was able to kill Roe v. Wade.”

— climate change — rolling back 100+ environmental regulations

— jobs — lost 2.9 million in four years

— civil ri—

But wait.  Really?  Has no one been paying attention?  Sure, it’s hard to keep your head above the rising sludge, but why does America need a Trump tracker?

“Because the lies out there are so vast,” said Laurie Grossman, a teacher who started Tracktrump with her sister, Jane.  “This information is absolutely crucial when the firehose of lies is so gi-normous.  Our idea is to just show people what they’re voting for and when you do that, you often see them reconsidering.”

Tracktrump.com is designed to help you spread the word.  The site offers printable charts about Trump (above) plus Republican Senate and House vote trackers.  Each chart can be personalized with the names of local candidates.  Use them, the site advises, while “door knocking, talking to college students on campus, at events, talking with friends, family and neighbors - and so much more. Be creative!”

Based in the Bay Area, Grossman works with “a group of concerned grandmothers, moms, aunts, sisters and friends” who are “terrified about what a second Trump term would mean for our country.”

“What it would mean” is precisely detailed in Tracktrump.com.  Along with an alarming page on Project 2025, the site contrasts the “Biden vs. Trump Track Record,” and details “Harris vs. Trump Plans for the Presidency.”  The most expansive section, “Trump Lies,” offers links to whoppers ranging from Democrats favoring post-birth abortions to, of course, the Big Lie.  That’s some scat to track.

Grossman’s favorite section of Tracktrump follows another trail that’s hard keep up with — Republicans for Harris.  The page begins with a letter:  “We firmly oppose the election of Donald Trump. As President, he promoted daily chaos in government, praised our enemies and undermined our allies, politicized the military and disparaged our veterans, prioritized his personal interest above American interests, and betrayed our values, democracy, and this country’s founding documents. . .”  Signatories to the letter, including former officials at all levels of Republican administrations, run down the website for pages.

Tracktrump.com was inspired by the Republican Vote Tracker compiled in 2022 by a staffer for the late Congressman Bill Pascrell of New Jersey.  Grossman and her sister leaped on the Vote Tracker, copying and distributing thousands on the University of Nevada campus near Jane’s home in Reno.  With their help, Democrat Senator Catherine Cortes Masto narrowly won re-election in Nevada.

Then Grossman sent the Republican Vote Tracker to Georgia in time for the Senate runoff election that December.  Progress Georgia handed out 200,000 printouts of the Republican record.  Democrat Raphael Warnock won the runoff.  Draw your own conclusions.  Grossman concludes that facts matter.

“Republicans don’t know all this because their news sources don’t tell them all this.  Their news sources say FEMA is taking away people’s houses in North Carolina.  Just lies.”

In canvassing and in casual conversation, Grossman proudly presents her one-page trackers to Republicans.  Most, she said, have no idea that 100 percent of Congressional Republicans voted against child tax credits, student debt relief, a climate change bill. . .  She is often thanked.  “You’ve given me a lot to think about,” one Arizona Republican recently told her.

But in our Post-Truth society, do facts really change minds?  Change votes?  Grossman can’t track that, but with so much at stake, she is determined to speak truth to Trump.

“Many people who support Trump, when faced with these facts, hesitate and tell me, ‘You know, it’s just so hard.’”  Grossman agrees.  “Let it be hard for people.  Let it not be easy to vote for Donald Trump.   And maybe when they get in the booth, they’ll think ‘I just can’t do that.’”