We Must Never Accept Donald Trump's Incessant Lying As 'Normal'
Opinion | In Defense of the Truth
Of the statements by Trump that the fact-checking site PolitiFact has checked, just 5 percent were deemed absolutely true. Another 26 percent were just “mostly true” or “half true.” But a whopping 69 percent were found to be “mostly false,” “false” or “pants on fire,” the site’s worst rating.
Indeed, it seems that every major publication has taken a stab at trying to chronicle and explain Trump’s lying.
The Washington Post calculated that Trump made 492 false or misleading statements in his first 100 days — “That’s an average of 4.9 claims a day” — and that there were only 10 days without a single false claim. There were five days with 20 or more false claims.
But Politico may have been the most insightful. In an article there, Maria Konnikova pointed out in February that all presidents lie — all people lie — “but Donald Trump is in a different category.” She continued:
“The sheer frequency, spontaneity and seeming irrelevance of his lies have no precedent. Nixon, Reagan and Clinton were protecting their reputations; Trump seems to lie for the pure joy of it.”
Citing the work of Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, Konnikova gave this glib assessment of how the brain deals with all this lying:
“Our brains are particularly ill-equipped to deal with lies when they come not singly but in a constant stream, and Trump, we know, lies constantly, about matters as serious as the election results and as trivial as the tiles at Mar-a-Lago.”
She continued: “When we are overwhelmed with false, or potentially false, statements, our brains pretty quickly become so overworked that we stop trying to sift through everything. It’s called cognitive load — our limited cognitive resources are overburdened. It doesn’t matter how implausible the statements are; throw out enough of them, and people will inevitably absorb some. Eventually, without quite realizing it, our brains just give up trying to figure out what is true.”
Trump is quite literally overwhelming our human capacities with his mendacity. It is not only hard to imagine that any person could lie this much — let alone the leader of the free world — it is also impossible for us to keep pace.
There a strong impulse, I believe, in each of us struggling against fatigue, to register the pattern and manage expectations. We begin to build into our processing of politics the caveat: Yes, the “president” lies. That’s not new. That’s just what he does.
But we must resist that impulse. It makes normal, or at least rational, something that is neither normal nor rational.
Trump’s incessant lying is obscene. It is a collapse in morality; it is an ethical assault.
This notion that Trump is damaging the sanctity and purity of truth, that truth in the Trump era operates on a floating scale, that for the Trump apologists truth has become a minor inconvenience, should have us all objecting in earnest.
It seems odd that we have to defend the merits of truth, and yet we do. We must.
This is not simply about a flawed man, this is about the function of our democracy and American positioning in the world. How is one supposed to debate policy with someone who almost never tells the truth? How can a liar negotiate treaties or navigate international disputes? Without truth, everything falls apart, or more precisely, nothing can be established.
I vacillate between rage and sorrow that our country has come to such a pass. And yet, what is done is done. America made a colossal mistake, and it cannot be easily undone.
It is cold comfort that most of the country now believes that Trump isn’t a steady or moral or compassionate leader and half believe he isn’t honest, according to a Fox News Poll released last week.
But that acknowledgment doesn’t change the fact that we must develop a societal strategy for protecting the true in a post-truth world, and the first step is that we must never stop saying: Donald Trump is a liar.
Donald Trump's file
Republican from New York
The PolitiFact scorecard
Mostly True 52 (12%)
Half True 64 (14%)
Mostly False 92 (21%)
False 147 (33%)
Pants on Fire 69 (16%)
Recent statements made by Donald Trump
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Not backed by Border Patrol data
Many ways to read claim; always wrong
Thousands of people protesting
Permit was signed, sealed, delivered
Historians: 'Nonsense'
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/
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Less than 1 out of 5 of Trump's 445 public statements as analyzed by Politifact are even "Mostly True". Less than a third of them are judged as even "Half True".
Wouldn't it be "deplorable" to support such a person?
"words don't mean much to me, its deeds that matter." President trump.
I'll say whatever I want to get what I want.
What a leader of men....Not !
Not even a good role model for anyone.
In my opinion when the most powerful human on earth is a habitual liar we may just be in serious trouble.
The president of the United States only tells the "truth" 5% of the time, according to a major fact checker.
This is an "existential" issue for the credibility of the office of the presidency . The country needs to come to it's senses and get him out of there.
The president of the United States only tells the "truth" 5% of the time, according to a major fact checker.
Seriously, it's pretty funny you would tell a deliberate falsehood to criticize Trump for being dishonest.
You are smart enough to know that's a false statement.
Eventually, without quite realizing it, our brains just give up trying to figure out what is true.”
I can't imagine this is an accurate statement, unless you're a lemming who wants just wants to believe the moron in chief. On the contrary, the constant lying seems more likely to make one accept that if there is any doubt about what Trump is saying, the default position will be that he is lying. I wouldn't call that giving up, I'd call it common sense reasoning.
the constant lying seems more likely to make one accept that if there is any doubt about what Trump is saying, the default position will be that he is lying. I wouldn't call that giving up, I'd call it common sense reasoning.
That's the position I take. If his lips are moving, he's probably lying. If he says he's donating a million dollars to Harvey relief, I want to see the cancelled check, because we've heard that one before. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, and he's lied so much in the past there's no reason to expect he'll stop now.
These articles are funny if nothing else. Charles Blow and his fellow travelers went to war for a President who perjured himself in office and escaped removal because the Charles Blows of the world wanted to protect their political party. That message, that lying, even perjury, has no consequences, normalized lying by Presidents. That's what precedents do.
In a world where Clinton was removed from office, Donald Trump would never have been a serious politician. Hell, Bush would have almost certainly lost to an incumbent Al Gore in 2000. But once the democrat party decided that sexual assault and lying under oath were acceptable actions for Presidents, the bar was lowered so serial liars like Trump or Hillary Clinton were qualified to run.
Events echo across decades, and we are still dealing with the fallout of the Clinton impeachment. Who knows what the long term effects of Trump will be.
I see, you don't care that the president of the United States is historically incapable of telling the truth.
Not news, no?
I see you only care about lying when it suits your partisan purposes.
Not news, no?
You set the standard, don't get upset when Trump lives down to it.
You must be joking. You're blaming Bill Clinton wanting to keep his sex life private for Donald Trump lying in nearly every statement he makes.
Perjury is perjury. People under oath don't get to decide what things they get to lie about.
Amusingly, he also signed a law making sexual history a relevant topic for depositions. He couldn't even live up to the standards he wanted to impose, by law, on others.
Foolishness. Donald Trump would lie about what language he is speaking in. He's unfit for office on a million different levels.
The right's only play these days is to try and set up false equivalencies between Trump and the rest of the world.
Talking about false equivalancies, , Trump hasn't perjured himself in office yet.
if he does, I can't wait to see you two claim perjury isn't relevant.
Lol - even you are discussing Trump and perjury this far into his pathetic presidency*.
He might well perjure himself and, if he does, I'd support his impeachment and removal.
What's laughable is the "outrage" from those whose stance on presidential lying depends entirely on whether there is an "r" or a "d" next to the liar's name.
What's laughable is the "outrage" from those who stance on presidential lying depends entirely on whether there is an "r" or a "d" next to the liar's name.
Dishonest right wing media talking points.
Trump is a pathological liar who lies in public multiple times every day.
There is no comparison between him and any other president or any other national politician. ever.
I used to "credit" Trump with a diabolically clever plan to degrade normal standards. But I've read enough about his life and career before birtherism to have come to a different conclusion: he doesn't know truth from falsehood, and doesn't care.
And never has.
trump will say and do whatever he needs to to get what he wants. pretty simple.