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POLITICS OF LYING - One of the most perplexing political puzzles facing America today is a simple one: While the President consistently and persistently lies, distorts and fabricates about just about every issue he addresses he is rarely, if ever, held to account.
This pattern of mendacity is neither new nor, sadly, surprising. For years, Trump and his cohorts have relied on a long-standing – and inevitably disproven -- lie: his loss to Joe Biden was the result of a “rigged” election. No lie is more persistent, yet none is more easily refuted. Trump and his supporters presented something more than 70 lawsuits challenging that election. They lost every single one; no judge, no independent inquiry, no research, no audit has produced a single fact supporting Trump’s position. Still, he’s repeats it so often that it has become the one thing Trump himself cannot abide – it is boring.
That colossal lie is hardly unique. Consider a handful of recent examples.
The President has blithely circulated the assertion that Joe Biden is dead and his tenure in office was conducted by robots or clones. That lie is literally laughable.
The President told Germany’s Chancellor that the World War I “began and ended” in the oval office. Neither half of that construction is true.
The President has granted special status to enable white residents of South Africa to come to the U.S., an act based on the assertion that white farmers in that country are the victims of genocide. There is not a shred of data to support that claim.
This affection for the false is not confined to the Chief Executive. The DOGE team famously miscalculated the “savings” it generated by a billion (yes, billion with a B) dollars. ICE and Homeland Security officials constantly assert that their efforts to deport thousands, if not millions, of immigrants are necessary because previous administrations (Obama, Biden) generated a flood of immigration. It is a matter of fact that both those administrations deported hundreds of thousands more immigrants than the Trump administration has rounded up.
What is so confounding about all this mendacity is its acceptance.
There are, of course, many who simply believe what the President says because he says it. These MAGA-driven zealots – call them the Kool Aiders – simply accept Trumpisms as gospel. “If he said it, it’s true.”
A second group – call them the Cynic Cohort – are of the opinion that all politicians routinely lie. They are quite certain that every last politician on earth is, by nature, a liar, so “What’s new?”
An additional, though limited, contingent of deniers, the Cowardly Caucus, resides in Congress
These elected officials may or may not actually believe that WWI began and ended in the White House, but they are so frightened of offending their leader that they usually shrug or walk away when asked if they agree with such nonsense.
For all that, there is a far more distressing trend which allows the President to lie at will. In general, the public has even less faith in the media than they do in the Liar-In-Chief.
Our hopelessly fragmented reportorial landscape runs the gamut from far right to far left and the resulting silos enable those seeking information to find – and rely on – “news” which conforms to their beliefs. Everyone can find a version of “truth” which conforms to their beliefs and, inevitably, nobody trusts most news sources. Polls consistently report that we trust media even less than we trust the President.
Thus, we find ourselves in a strange version of a circular firing squad. The President continues to lie and those who report the lies are not credible. “Truth” no longer exists and trust becomes permanently elusive. The problem is the lie and the lie is the problem.
The bedrock premise of democracy – well-informed citizens making well-informed decisions – cannot exist in such an environment. Until and unless we find a way to change that, we are in peril.
Truth and trust are vital to our future. Neither appears to be readily available.
(David M. Hamlin writes novels, short stories and commentary focused on civil liberty issues. His website is www.dmhwrites.com. He is a regular contributor to CityWatchLA.com.)
