Op-Ed Pages #10: Trump, the habitual liar…
[Note from Steve: If you’re afraid of the truth, don’t read this article…or maybe you should!]
“The Trumpian lie is different. It is the power lie, or the bully lie. It is the lie of the bigger kid who steals your hat and is wearing it—while denying he took it.”—Masha Gessen, in Surviving Autocracy.
Of course, Trump’s lies are much more than that, especially in the danger they represent for American democracy. He says he won the popular vote in 2016 if you don’t count all the fraudulent votes; he didn’t, because studies have shown that the number of fraudulent votes was minimal. (He’s expanding that lie to mail-in voting.) He states that the Obama administration spied on him, even wiretapped him; there’s zero evidence for that too. (On the contrary, he encouraged the Russians to go after Hillary’s server—they obliged, releasing the emails via Wikileaks as organized by Roger Stone.) He claimed that Mexico would pay for his damn wall; it didn’t and won’t, and now Trump is now stealing funds that Congress allocated elsewhere to pay for that “beautiful wall” (after putting people in cages, including mothers and children.)
Some Americans (probably not his supporters, though, who always turn a blind eye) might remember that Hitler’s propaganda minister Goebbels said that if you tell a lie often enough, people will accept it as truth. Trump has taken that fascist trick even further: He states a lie as truth, the Washington Post or some other fact-checking “dirty liberal organization” show it’s a lie, but only once, so when Trump keeps repeating it ad infinitum a la Goebbels, the public forgets it was proven to be a lie. That’s how he’s destroying our democracy. It’s like trying to hear a pin drop (the proof it’s a lie) when there’s a pile driver running (Trump’s habitual lying). You can’t hear the signal (“It’s a lie!”) over the noise (Trump’s bla-bla-bla over and over again). His lies, in short, are exhausting.
Trump even contradicts himself with other lies. While all CEOs and politicians lie to some extent—even Ike lied about U2 pilot Gary Powers for national defense purposes, causing an international incident when the lie was unveiled—Trump’s lies far outnumber any president’s…16,000 and counting, according to the Washington Post fact-checking team. And most aren’t even “good lies” in the sense that they can be easily fact-checked and proven wrong. And many are evil lies meant to insult, bully, and harm, as Gessen indicates.
And then there are the immoral lies (some would believe all lies are immoral, so the Christian right must tie themselves in knots when it comes to Trump!). His claim that he knew nothing about hush payments to two women he’d had affairs with (many others have denounced him as well) wasn’t proven a lie until Cohen’s testimony—that was an immoral humdinger in accord with his Access Hollywood statement released just before the 2016 election. One woman, a porn star, and the other, a playboy bunny, should have sent the nation’s self-proclaimed morality police, the Christian right, into apoplexy, but they just held their noses against the immoral stench and looked the other way—Trump knows they’re faux moralists, hypocrites more interested in shoving their crazy beliefs and agendas down everyone’s throat.
His followers bow down to their liar-in-chief, be they the Christian right, haters, racists, misogynists, white supremacists, or other psychotic and paranoid fanatics, who are also big liars in general, even if they’re only lying to themselves. After three years of this liar showing what an immoral pig he is, you’d think those followers would be ashamed of themselves. They’re not, and that’s more telling about America’s current lack of morality too. America is becoming the immoral leader in the world, competing with China for top position.
Trump has been lying all his life. It’s part of his deranged personality. No wonder his niece considers him a danger to the country and the world. He lies to create his own reality because he’s delusional. I tend to give incompetence a pass—Gerald Ford, for example—but I can’t give it a pass when it’s coupled with habitual lying. What you and I and anyone sane see as reality doesn’t matter to Narcissus le Grand. Trump’s imaginary world, where he’s the all-important great fascist leader to whom we must bow down, is the overarching lie his diseased mind has created. Unfortunately, he’s forcing everyone to live in his cesspool of lies.
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Comments are always welcome.
Binge-reading #3. While I’m binge-reading other authors’ series, you’re welcome to binge on mine. In the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, Esther, a Scotland Yard inspector in the Art and Antiques Division, obsesses with recovering a Rembrandt stolen by the Nazis in WWII (Rembrandt’s Angel) and with finding St. John the Divine’s before others do (Son of Thunder). Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden tries to keep her on an even keel. You might not consider this series binge-worthy—there are only two books so far (#3 is in the works)—but there’s a lot of fun reading here. Available on Amazon and at the publisher’s website, as well as on Smashwords and at its affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and library and lending services (Scribd, Overdrive, Baker & Taylor, Gardners, etc.). Enjoy!
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
