Raw Dishonesty

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman wrote an excellent column in The New York Times on Friday with the title "Goodbye Spin, Hello Raw Dishonesty" (link here).

After acknowledging that almost all politicians gild the lily to a certain degree and some outright lie on occasion, Krugman details how we've arrived at a totally new depth of dishonesty.

"The pervasiveness of lies reflects the character of the man at the top: No president, or for that matter major U.S. political figure of any kind, has ever lied as freely and frequently as Donald Trump," Krugman writes. "Trump is simply on a different plane from anything we’ve seen before."

The writer then goes on to detail some examples of recent shameless lies that Trump has uttered and repeated and underscored several times. And Krugman is certainly not alone when it comes to documenting Trump's long history of lying. Virtually every highly respected fact-checking outlet has rated Trump as the worst liar in American politics since such data was compiled.

Krugman's piece is ultimately very dark and pessimistic. He notes how Republicans in Congress will likely continue to ignore Trump's vomitorium of deceit as long as he signs their draconian legislation as President.

Yet there are still people who believe Trump does not lie and that we should believe everything he says. Included in this group are people who believe, somehow, that the President will be pro-LGBT, even though nearly everything he has done in the campaign and since in office disproves that claim.

The sooner people wake up to the fact that Trump lies incessantly and is simply using them as dupes, the sooner we will be to seeing his power as President diminish.

Until then, however, we're in a surreal reality where up is down and people insist the emperor has nice new clothes.