If during the last couple of months one of your friends or associates at work made three or four statement about very important situations and you later you found those statements to be big whopping lies, would you continue to trust that person? What would you think if that person, when confronted, doubled down on those statements despite the fact that it should be apparent even to him that there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary? What if in one case he made a statement so outrageous that it begged credulity, but when challenged, he refused to provide any proof of his assertion. Instead, he tells you to check with a noted authority that can dig out the truth. However, when you ask that authority, that person confirms that it was all a lie. Then when you confront the liar, instead of coming clean, he instead resorts to telling that the problem is that you misinterpreted what he originally said.
I think it would be a fair assumption that you would never trust that person again. However, as you probably guessed, we are not actually talking about one of your friends or associates at work. We are talking about the President of the United States and the people he has lied to are your fellow citizens and people around the world. The lying by this administration has been pervasive. A recent Huffington Post article (XXX) listed 100 lies told by Trump and his aides during their first month in the White House. (The First 100 Lies: The Trump Team’s Flurry Of Falsehoods.) I’ll bet you can remember the some of whoppers – the size of his inauguration crowd, wide spread voter fraud, ‘none of my campaign staff communicated with Russians”, and most recently, the “Obama tapped my phone lines” tweets.
The situation is totally unprecedented; never in our history has a President had such adverse relationship with the truth. Yes, all politicians lie occasionally, and some of our Presidents have told some whoppers, Nixon being a recent example. With his back against the wall, Richard Nixon was caught red handed covering up the Water Gate burglary; it cost him the Presidency. But prior to that, Nixon didn’t have a reputation for daily telling lies that can easily be debunked.
What does it mean when nothing the President of the United States says can be trusted? Is the breach between the President and his intelligence services as a result of his lies so wide that our spies don’t feel comfortable informing him about very sensitive situations? What happens when it becomes necessary for Trump to inform the American people that the US must take military action based on information discovered by those same intelligence services? After he has lied to and publicly degraded the leaders of our closest allies, will they believe Trump when he confides in them about matters of major international importance? The bottom line: Can our country be still trusted to keep our word as long as Donald Trump occupies the White House?
An equally important question is how long can this continue? As I write this Donald Trump has been in office less than two months. There has been far more drama in that short period of time than during the entire eight years that Barack Obama was President. How long can Trumpsplainers like Sean Spicer, Kellyanne Conway, VP Pence and others continue to spin like mad dervishes before they burn out completely. They must be wake up every morning dreading to learn what Trump has tweeted in the middle of the night because they know that they are going to have turn themselves inside out trying to explain his careless words.
In addition, there is absolutely no indication that the situation will improve. Many believed that the responsibilities of the most important office in the world would eventually provide a sobering affect on Trump and he would grow into the job. Those same people are now having to admit that they were wrong. If Trump managed to seriously damage his credibility in two months, imagine what he will be able to accomplish in two years. Eventually the American people will become so over saturated with Trump fantasies that they will either no longer be interested in what he has to say or they will simply consider it bullshit even before it comes out of his mouth. One can hope that even his most devoted followers will come to understand that they are being continually conned.
I have to admit that I have enjoyed watching this serial liar take out enough rope to hang himself multiple times. Watching a fumbling narcissist destroy himself has its upsides. Then I remember the damage that this man is capable of inflicting to the country that I love over the next four years and any joy I am experiencing turns to dread.
Cajun 3/17/2017