I often know right away a lie when I hear one, and I’m hearing lies more often.
They have become as woven into the fabric of 2024 Americana as the First and Second Amendments, although I doubt Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and the other framers of the republic envisioned a lie as worth their defense.
But defend the right to lie I must, because in this era of “fake news,” I am left with little choice. I bump into lies everywhere I turn. Some people have made an industry of telling boldface lies.
I know it’s hard for some who believe in Donald Trump to think, but he stands as the face of this culture of lying. Trump isn’t alone, of course; political figures and Internet scoundrels like Alex Jones have gotten rich on telling whoppers. They twist a truth until it breaks into pieces, making it impossible to cobble it into something useful.
Yet I won’t blame the practitioners of lying for this culture. I blame everyone else. For most of this millennium, we’ve allowed people, particularly elected officials, to turn lies into a high art form; we’ve chosen not to challenge the veracity of what they speak or write.
And we did chose. When Trump first ran for president, he paved his way to the White House with lies. He dazzled those who claimed America had abandoned them with his foolishness about making “America great again,” code words for letting the rich get richer and the poor fend for themselves.
Like all demigods, Trump spoke to the base elements in people, who thought help from the government was a condemnation of their self-sufficiency. They were lesser people if they wanted government to pay for healthcare. Few of them wanted government meddling in the education business, and they didn’t want government to lend a helping hand to people whose circumstances turned topsy-turvy.
Organizations that chart such stuff – and The Washington Post is one of those organizations – claim that Trump has repeated 150 lies at least three times. Since Trump took office, The Post has his total of lies at more than 6,000 and growing, and the president lies most often, the newspaper says, when he speaks in front of his faithful – those men and women who are fond of fast talk and big boasts.
I find their affinity for a lying politician disheartening. Many Trump supporters call themselves evangelicals, white folks who put God ahead of country. They know Trump isn’t a man who values religion, yet I don’t think that bothers his believers, who stand behind him for the long pull.
Inside his lies are things people hope – or pray – will make their lives better. For example, the jobs that illegal immigrants take are ones that should go to red-blooded Americans, though I won’t find many Americans lined up to scrub toilets in a Marriott or work the cabbage patches in California.
Nor will I find many Americans who see lawn work as a long-term occupation.
I dare not raise this with Trump followers. They’ve abandoned their appreciation of truth for promises about jobs in coalmines, a wall around Mexico, employment in auto factories, and white-collar jobs for those lacking an education.
They believe impossible dreams, and Trump and his lies keep those dreams fresh in some people’s heads.
