A WALKING CONTRADICTION, PARTLY TRUTH AND PARTLY FICTION
“Nothing in the headlines these days is more important than this,” writes Newsweek’s Kurt Eichenwald, who proceeds to argue that Donald Trump isn’t lying when he regularly spouts obvious, demonstrable falsehoods. Instead, Eichenwald says, “The President of the United States is divorced from reality, unable to tell the difference between the truth and what he wants to be true.”
I’m willing to entertain that hypothesis about Trump himself. His narcissism may well have developed into full blown delusion. But Trump’s puppet masters and enablers are lying, plain and simple. Steve Bannon and his circle lie strategically, to sow confusion and blur the difference between truth and fiction. Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway just babble incoherently, counting on the press to act like every day is Groundhog Day, letting them start over with a clean slate every day, and never figuring out they’re being conned.
Paul Ryan and the rest of the Congressional Republicans lie because they’re cowards, caught in their own web of deceit. They spent eight years attacking President Obama and claiming that they had better solutions. After the election, they had the chance to produce those solutions and implement them. Guess what? They were bluffing. They’ve got nothing. They’re lying liars.
As Frederick Douglass said after the Bowling Green Massacre, believe half of what you see and none of what you hear from any Republican. They’re all crazy, dishonest, or both.
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-difference-truth-lies-552292
Another great analysis of the Trump presidency by Fintan O’Toole in The Irish Times: Donald Trump “is not engaged in rational politics. He is a character in a story of his own invention. And the only rules he understands are the rules of the narrative.”