Lies 1-3

Jan 9th, 2017 | By
Category: Notes and Comment Blog
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Greg Sargent at the Washington Post takes an in-depth look at Trump’s persistent lying. He cites the tweets in which Trump says he never mocked the reporter he did mock.

Here Trump is telling two lies about a third lie. A quick review: Trump’s mockery of a disabled reporter came after he claimed “thousands and thousands” of Muslims living in America celebrated 9/11. Kovaleski had written an article just after 9/11 that claimed law enforcement “detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks.” Under fire for his falsehood about celebratory Muslims, Trump cited that article to push back, even though an “alleged” “number” is hardly proof of “thousands.” In response to that, the reporter put out a statement saying he did not witness Trump’s version of events. But Trump cited that statement as proof that the reporter had dishonestly backtracked on a story that backed Trump’s position (a lie Trump repeated in Monday’s tweets). That’s how Trump’s mockery of the reporter arose: He waved his arms and mock-quoted the reporter saying “I don’t know what I said!” (See Glenn Kessler’s extensive anatomy of the full story.)

A “number of people”≠“thousands and thousands” of people. Not at all. A “number of people”≠a crowd or a mob or a mass of people. That’s not the right phrase to use when you mean to indicate a large though indeterminate number. It’s much closer to “several” then it is to “thousands and thousands.”

To recap: Lie No. 1 is that thousands of U.S.-based Muslims celebrated 9/11. Lie No. 2 is that the disabled reporter’s original story backed Trump and that the reporter backtracked on it. Lie No. 3 is that Trump didn’t mock that disabled reporter (in fact, he flapped his hands around frantically after saying, “you gotta see this guy!”).

The claim about celebrating Muslims was one of Trump’s biggest lies — one that was central to his key campaign narrative about the Muslim Enemy Within. And so, Streep wasn’t merely calling out Trump’s bullying and abusiveness. She was also calling out his uniquely uncontrollable lying, and the extent to which Trump will go to attack reporters in service of it.

That should be the lengths to which Trump will go. You can’t go to an extent the way you can go to lengths. It should be “the extent to which Trump will lie” or “the lengths to which Trump will go.” But the point is clear enough: Trump lies constantly and shamelessly, and he does it to damage and harm people he dislikes. He’s a very bad man.

It’s often argued that we should perhaps give less attention to Trump’s tweets. But Monday’s barrage gets at something important. Yes, all politicians lie. But with only days to go until Trump assumes vast power, Monday’s tweetstorm is a reminder that we may be witnessing something new and different in the nature and degree of the dishonesty at issue. Here again we’re seeing Trump’s willingness to keep piling the lies on top of one another long after the original foundational lies have been widely debunked, and to keep on attacking the press for not playing along with his version of reality, as if the very possibility of shared reality can be stamped out by Trumpian edict, or Trumpian Tweedict.

Seriously. As is no doubt obvious, I don’t at all buy the claim that we should pay less attention to Trump’s tweets; I think they’re a direct line to what a poisonous shit he is. Sure they could function as distractions but we can avoid that by avoiding it, and they are important in themselves. It’s important to know what malevolent, childish, ignorant, stupid thoughts he’s willing to put out there for all of us to see.

Some journalists are arguing that we need to take care in labeling Trump’s falsehoods as “lies,” because that imputes motive and intent. If some feel more comfortable labeling them “false,” that will probably suffice most of the time, with the crucial caveat that it must be done squarely and prominently. But the broader point here is that, in the debate over how to handle Trump’s profound and unprecedented dishonesty, let’s not underplay the possibility that the usual conventions of political journalism may prove woefully insufficient to conveying to readers and viewers what Trump is really up to here.

Yep.

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