Donald Trump And His Cult Of Liars

“There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual, he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1785

It’s no secret that former President Donald Trump is a habitual liar. His nonstop lies – about stolen elections, COVID-19, immigrants, and, most recently, the government’s response to hurricanes – have contributed to the enormous divisions in the country, incited violence, cost lives, and threatened our democracy.

As The Washington Post reported, Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims during his presidency.

But the lies didn’t stop the day he left office. Trump’s lies continue to spread like a virus, supported by lies and conspiracies from his allies in Congress and his cult of followers.

The late Senator Daniel Moynihan famously said: “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”

Facts be damned in the Trump universe.

Trump’s biggest lie, repeated ad nauseum, is that he won the 2020 presidential election and that it was stolen from him. Neither Trump nor anyone else has ever provided a scintilla of evidence to justify this lie.

Republican officeholders have fueled Trump’s Big Lie, either by actively spreading it or by failing to reject it.

And, it doesn’t stop there. Trump’s pathological lying has helped unleash a torrent of new lies and conspiracies from the Trump faithful.

Let’s start with Senator J.D. Vance.

The Vice President nominee’s claims that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating people’s pets – amplified by Trump – were based on no evidence, and, in fact, Springfield officials refuted it from the start. It is a vicious, racist lie that fanned the flames against legal immigrants in our country.

Vance’s response? He told CNN it was okay to “create stories.”

Then there is Elon Musk.

Musk has turned X, formerly Twitter, into a cesspool of lies and disinformation, spreading his own disinformation to more than 200 million online followers.

According to Mother Jones, Musk falsely posted on his X platform “that Democrats are flying ‘asylum seekers’ to swing states (this is not happening), fast-tracking them for citizenship (asylum seekers are not fast-tracked), and ensuring said noncitizens can vote (noncitizens cannot vote in federal or state elections).”

In the past week Musk warned that if Kamala Harris wins in November this will be the “last election,” and joked about why no one has tried to assassinate her.

This is complete and dangerous nonsense from the richest man in the world.

It’s hard to pick just one recent Trump lie to dissect. But his brazen, bald-faced lies about the efforts being made to address the recent hurricane disasters have fostered distrust and anger at the government that could do serious financial damage to people impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton and cost lives in future disasters.

For example, Trump falsely claimed that Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp had not been able to reach President Biden in the wake of Hurricane Helene. Kemp quickly challenged that statement, saying he had spoken with Biden the day before and was receiving the support the state needed.

Associated Press reported that, according to Trump and his cult, “the federal government is intentionally withholding aid to Republican disaster victims. [… and a] tale straight from science fiction asserts that Washington used weather control technology to steer Helene toward Republican voters in order to tilt the presidential election toward Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.”

Trump and his cult understand they can spread false and misleading information quickly, easily, and widely online and the truth may never catch up.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, Elon Musk, Fox News and Newsmax, Joe Rogan, to name just a few. It’s a long list of those spewing Trump’s lies and disinformation.

At the top of this food chain is Donald Trump. Trump’s relentless falsehoods have distorted reality, eroded the public trust, and emboldened others to follow suit, from his political allies to right-wing influencers and the media.

When truth is discarded and lies become commonplace, democracy itself is at risk. If we don’t confront this disinformation culture head on, the consequences will only grow, threatening the very fabric of our society.

Our country must find its way back to facts and truth.

____________