This is the second in a series of four editorials by the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times. It was published yesterday.
Donald Trump did not invent the lie and is not even its master. Lies have oozed out of the White House for more than two centuries and out of politicians’ mouths — out of all people’s mouths — likely as long as there has been human speech.
But amid all those lies, told to ourselves and to one another in order to amass power, woo lovers, hurt enemies and shield ourselves against the often glaring discomfort of reality, humanity has always had an abiding respect for truth.
In the United States, born and periodically reborn out of the repeated recognition and rejection of the age-old lie that some people are meant to take dominion over others, truth is as vital a part of the civic, social and intellectual culture as justice and liberty. Our civilization is premised on the conviction that such a thing as truth exists, that it is knowable, that it is verifiable, that it exists independently of authority or popularity and that at some point — and preferably sooner rather than later — it will prevail.
Even American leaders who lie generally know the difference between their statements and the truth. Richard Nixon said “I am not a crook” but by that point must have seen that he was. Bill Clinton said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” but knew that he did.
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He targets the darkness, anger and insecurity that hide in each of us and harnesses them for his own purposes.
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The insult that Donald Trump brings to the equation is an apparent disregard for fact so profound as to suggest that he may not see much practical distinction between lies, if he believes they serve him, and the truth.
His approach succeeds because of his preternaturally deft grasp of his audience. Though he is neither terribly articulate nor a seasoned politician, he has a remarkable instinct for discerning which conspiracy theories in which quasi-news source, or which of his own inner musings, will turn into ratings gold. He targets the darkness, anger and insecurity that hide in each of us and harnesses them for his own purposes. If one of his lies doesn’t work — well, then he lies about that.
If we harbor latent racism or if we fear terror attacks by Muslim extremists, then he elevates a rumor into a public debate: Was Barack Obama born in Kenya, and is he therefore not really president?
An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama’s birth certificate is a fraud.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2012
Libya is being taken over by Islamic radicals—-with @BarackObama’s open support.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 31, 2011
If his own ego is threatened — if broadcast footage and photos show a smaller-sized crowd at his inauguration than he wanted — then he targets the news media, falsely charging outlets with disseminating “fake news” and insisting, against all evidence, that he has proved his case (“We caught them in a beauty,” he said).
If his attempt to limit the number of Muslim visitors to the U.S. degenerates into an absolute fiasco and a display of his administration’s incompetence, then he falsely asserts that terrorist attacks are underreported. (One case in point offered by the White House was the 2015 attack in San Bernardino, which in fact received intensive worldwide news coverage. The Los Angeles Times won a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the subject).
If he detects that his audience may be wearying of his act, or if he worries about a probe into Russian meddling into the election that put him in office, he tweets in the middle of the night the astonishingly absurd claim that President Obama tapped his phones. And when evidence fails to support him he dispatches his aides to explain that by “phone tapping” he obviously didn’t mean phone tapping. Instead of backing down when confronted with reality, he insists that his rebutted assertions will be vindicated as true at some point in the future.
Trump’s easy embrace of untruth can sometimes be entertaining, in the vein of a Moammar Kadafi speech to the United Nations or the self-serving blathering of a 6-year-old.
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He gives every indication that he is as much the gullible tool of liars as he is the liar in chief.
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But he is not merely amusing. He is dangerous. His choice of falsehoods and his method of spewing them — often in tweets, as if he spent his days and nights glued to his bedside radio and was periodically set off by some drivel uttered by a talk show host who repeated something he’d read on some fringe blog — are a clue to Trump’s thought processes and perhaps his lack of agency. He gives every indication that he is as much the gullible tool of liars as he is the liar in chief.
He has made himself the stooge, the mark, for every crazy blogger, political quack, racial theorist, foreign leader or nutcase peddling a story that he might repackage to his benefit as a tweet, an appointment, an executive order or a policy. He is a stranger to the concept of verification, the insistence on evidence and the standards of proof that apply in a courtroom or a medical lab — and that ought to prevail in the White House.
There have always been those who accept the intellectually bankrupt notion that people are entitled to invent their own facts — consider the “9/11 was an inside job” trope — but Trump’s ascent marks the first time that the culture of alternative reality has made its home at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
If Americans are unsure which Trump they have — the Machiavellian negotiator who lies to manipulate simpler minds, or one of those simpler minds himself — does it really matter? In either case he puts the nation in danger by undermining the role of truth in public discourse and policymaking, as well as the notion of truth being verifiable and mutually intelligible.
In the months ahead, Trump will bring his embrace of alternative facts on the nation’s behalf into talks with China, North Korea or any number of powers with interests counter to ours and that constitute an existential threat. At home, Trump now becomes the embodiment of the populist notion (with roots planted at least as deeply in the Left as the Right) that verifiable truth is merely a concept invented by fusty intellectuals, and that popular leaders can provide some equally valid substitute. We’ve seen people like that before, and we have a name for them: demagogues.
Our civilization is defined in part by the disciplines — science, law, journalism — that have developed systematic methods to arrive at the truth. Citizenship brings with it the obligation to engage in a similar process. Good citizens test assumptions, question leaders, argue details, research claims.
Investigate. Read. Write. Listen. Speak. Think. Be wary of those who disparage the investigators, the readers, the writers, the listeners, the speakers and the thinkers. Be suspicious of those who confuse reality with reality TV, and those who repeat falsehoods while insisting, against all evidence, that they are true. To defend freedom, demand fact.
This is the second in a series.
He just makes up vile stuff. SAD.
“Our civilization is defined in part by the disciplines — science, law, journalism”
I wonder who ended up with the broken arm writing that piece of self-congratulatory drivel.
How wonderful that the Orange Buffoon says that people who work hard and play by the rules now have a voice. I’d like to know when that will happen because he also says billionaires have better genes and his actions prove that they are the only ones who matter. tRump’s talk is very cheap. Does he know the difference between lies and truths?
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The White House info@mail.whitehouse.gov
10:09 AM
The White House
WHITE HOUSE MEMO
As President Donald J. Trump traveled the nation, he heard the pleas of the forgotten men and women of the country – the people who work hard, and play by the rules, but who don’t have a voice. Today, he will deliver remarks to North America’s Building Trades Unions. These men and women are the backbone of America. They will play a key role in the rebuilding of our nation – and they will never be forgotten again.
On that note, he refused to commit in that meeting , to saving the prevailing wage laws which ensure that Federal dollars will not be use to undercut local wages. A law that initially had some racial overtones to its passage 1n 1931, but no longer does. A law that has put a floor under the wages of these workers, union and non union for over 8 decades.
Oops, the Forgotten Man: forgotten again by the billionaire prez and cronies
Reblogged this on BLOGGYWOCKY.
The Scary Power of Nepotism in Trump’s White House
…Trump’s favorite child, Ivanka, is now the special advisor to the president. Her husband was welcomed into this charmed circle, as senior advisor to the president, perhaps in part because of his proven history of family loyalty. Kushner visited his father Charlie Kushner every week when he was in jail for tax fraud. In October, when asked whether he would support Trump or Hillary Clinton, he replied, “Family first.” That might work as an ethos for a private company like the Trump Organization, but no American family is large or qualified enough to effectively run the federal government. Trumpism, despite the best efforts of senior advisers Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, is proving not to be a coherent ideology but a personality cult—just like the namesake family business on which the Trump White House is modeled.
https://newrepublic.com/article/141835/scary-power-nepotism-trumps-white-house
Gosh, who knew the latimes had this , it’s a really good editorial and makes you think. After all the bitterness between latines and me regarding lausd and public education in Los Angeles, I really like this series and if a character like Trump makes an organization like the la times remember it’s mission in society, its true good things can come from bad.
The appointments have been met with trepidation from advocates who are anxious about the future of the Office for Civil Rights…
Advocates say that while her [Jackson] track record shows a commitment to standing up for victims, those victims did not include those who accused Mr. Trump of sexual misconduct.
Trump’s Office of Civil Rights? Why it will just like what we’ve seen for years in so-called education reform: the blond leading the blond.