The Art of the Lie

On CNN, the other day, one of the hosts suggested that a good sequel for President Donald Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal, should be entitled, The Art of the Lie.

Trump’s lies have been so frequent that the US media have actually been counting and factchecking them.

One scorecard compiled by PolitiFact placed Trump’s “true” statements at only 5%, with 27% rated “mostly true” and “halftrue” and 68% rated as “mostly false,” “false,” and “pants on fire” (echoing the kiddie taunt, “Liar, liar, pants on fire!).

The Washington Post once ran the headline, “In 466 days, President Trump has made 3,001 false or misleading claims.” That count was made one year and three months into his presidency. Trump has since been in office nearly a year and a half and his lies keep piling up.

Of course, we may have resigned ourselves to the harsh fact that all politicians lie — thus, not surprisingly, Trump lies, too.

Trump’s lies have become more serious in terms of their consequences as president of the most powerful and, conceivably, the most influential country in the world.

Imagine global leaders dealing with a habitual liar on economic, military and sociopolitical issues. How can they tell which statements Trump makes are true, which are exaggerations (or truthful hyperboles) and which are outright lies?

To be safe, they could regard Trump like the boy who cried wolf and disbelieve anything he says. But what happens if there really is a wolf at bay?

Whether we like it or not, the world has to live with the reality of a Trump presidency, along with the lies that he has tainted it with. The question is: how does one deal with a person like him?

I think one should first try to fathom the motivations behind Trump’s statements. Simply attributing Trump’s frequent distortion of the truth to “an ingrained habit” — something that he habitually or even subconsciously does — would be to grossly underestimate him.

Would we regard Adolf Hitler or his propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels, or Vladimir Lenin in the same way? That, too, would be to grossly underestimate their evil intent.

The axiom, “A lie repeated often enough is taken for the truth,” has been variously attributed to Hitler, Goebbels and Lenin — but I think it can be aptly attributed to Trump.

As recent events have shown, when Trump decides to lie, he does so with remarkable singlemindedness and consistency. And