In Ms. Haberman’s article, there is a constant discussion of ‘belief’, as in what the President ‘believes’, when he ‘believed’ it, and how his ‘beliefs’ have changed. But, to talk about our president in this manner is a form of nonsense.
It is not a matter of “Belief”.
To believe, one has to “accept that something is true”. But, this is not what occurrs with Trump.
He “believes” whatever it is in his interest to “believe” for exactly as long as it is useful to him. Then he no longer “believes” that, but something else, often in complete contradiction to his previous conviction. This is not “belief”. It is its opposite: self interested analytically cold deception; in short, lying.
If Lying is Believing, Trump’s your man. But where I grew up, it is lying, nothing more. No Belief is necessary for Trump. Belief runs on a higher moral plane than President Trump has yet attained.
23
The fact-free universe in which Trump and the Republicans dwell is deeply disquieting. But so is your characterization of facts as "seemingly agreed upon." Facts are facts, and the point of your analysis is weakened by suggesting that agreement is necessary for veracity.
5
From day one Trump has given the impression that what someone is actually saying is less important than his belief in the likeability of the person behind it. For this reason, what would seem to be factually correct information to a reasonable person often seems questionable to him. If a victim says this person assaulted me but the assaulter turns out to be his favorite judge then the facts underlying the information are not processed, or perhaps even processible, in his mind because the person here i.e. the judge cannot possibly be guilty. This, then, is the man who was elected to a post where he is charged with protecting the dignity and honor of the nation.
3
In Missoula, protesters placed the word "LIAR" on a hillside to be viewed from Air Force One as Trump flew in for another rally. That our president is a pathological liar is a sad fact cleverly proclaimed by Missoula. He brings shame to America and is a threat to our democracy.
24
Trump really appreciates strong denials. Maybe we shouldn't reprove him for that. Maybe what he says is revelatory, confessional. Trump appreciates others, who, as he, are strongly, perpetually and energetically in denial. Thanks for sharing Mr. President.
1
Haberman can't bring herself to just say, "He Lies." What Haberman and the NYT are doing isn't nuance, it is obfuscation.
19
Rob Stutzman, a Republican operative, says "it is a huge fundamental problem of how to govern when there are no facts.”
The problem is not that there are no facts. It is that there are alternative facts, the facts that Trump believes regardless of objective reality. They are facts that enable him to remain on good terms with the Saudi prince, with Putin, with whomever the rest of the world declares a menace.
Follow the money. How much of Trump's refusal to address the apparent political murder of Khashoggi is related to his PERSONAL business dealings in Saudi Arabia? This is the truly pertinent question.
10
Trump: The leader of the “Me before country” movement.
Being entitled to one’s own facts, despite them being patently false: A way of being otherwise known as DELUSIONAL.
25th Now!
7
In the days when I worked for a large company, I often heard managers or executives expound that "perception is reality." I would argue futilely that it is NOT, but of course, it was a convenient phrase for "we don't need facts, just believe what people think."
It is that way with Trump. I do believe he is a liar, but it goes beyond that. It is his perception that he is the greatest President ever, that he has the biggest crowds, the best deals, the biggest tax cut, the smartest, whatever. These perceptions are his reality, his truths, his facts.
Some herein argue that his bottom line drives all his moves, which has some truth as well, but moreover, I believe what REALLY drives him is his absolute NEED to be universally loved and thought of as simply the finest, most intelligent human to have ever strode upon this planet. All his "truths" and his "facts" keep him, in his own mind, in that light.
He is delusional and narcissistic at a deep level, and is a con man on the everyday level. He really is a threat to us all. If he ever decides someone has offended him enough (think of him getting the wrong answer to "mirror, mirror, on the wall...") he may very likely initiate a war to save face.
8
Why is the media constantly covering every work that drops out of Trump's bad mouth and giving him more publicity? Give other candidates a chance and cover others please. He says these outrageous things to get his face in the front page everyday. We should know that by now.
3
When all is said and done the fact of the matter is that enough citizens of the United States along with the congressional Republicans have excepted a lying, racist con man as their leader. A large number of Americans are willfully ignoring the abundance of factual information available to them, thus it is up to the majority to out vote them. But since almost 50% of Americans do not care enough about our democracy to vote, this has become a tall order!
5
Let's get right to it.
Trump is a low-life con-man.
Anyone who says (he Trump) is the type of guy who wants to "body slam" a journalist, only days after Mr. Khashoggi -- a journalist -- is brutally murdered, indicates all Americans should demand that Trump be immediately removed from the Oval Office, kicking and screaming.
Any man who courts the votes of white supremacists, needs to be immediately removed from the Oval Office, kicking and screaming.
For the sake of America, it can't happen soon enough.
We've had enough. More than enough -- more than enough !!
23
Trump's severe personality disorder makes him need to stay in his own fantasy world, in which he delusionally imagines he is brilliant, good, infallible, and widely admired. He battles daily against the feedback from the real world that he is disliked, incompetent, and ignorant. The core of narcissism is fear of not being good enough; his solution is create his own reality. I blame the people who protect and enable him for allowing him to continue harming the country. His faux presidency will not end well for him. He is a poster child for the 25th amendment if only the GOP cared about the country.
15
One who thinks they are entitled to their own facts are called pathological liars. However, Trump is more than that, he uses the media to spread his lies that are articulated as if he were training dogs. By using simple phases that excite them, like the wall (security), jobs (food), tax cuts (treats) he can excite an unruly pack of dogs into attach dogs that do his bidding. What we are witnessing is very scary cause he has yet to unleash this pack of killers on the public, but it's coming.
4
We used to have a president. We have not had a president since Obama left office.
8
upon reading this, I feel immense sadness -- about 2003-2004, when the actions of people who were creating their own "facts" brought about 300,000+ deaths in Iraq. Historical context please. Otherwise this piece is just an enabler/contributor to the cult of personality.
6
I hope Paul Ryan is happy. My regret is that we're paying for his retirement.
13
To me the sickest thing about the Trump presidency is that the Republican party supports him. How can a Republican look in a mirror ?
11
Unfortunately, Trump's wild and false claims are constantly supported by right wing media. Fox, Hannity, Limbaugh, Ingraham, etc. will not correct him on air, (that's a no no), but will instead tie themselves in knots trying to find verbal paths to support the ridiculous. Trump tunes in to hear plausible? spin-support for his mistruths and via that positive reward, is pushed to keep the same errant path.
The POTUS should not be getting support for his lies and misdirections from popular medis. Fact checking has to be extended to the media, with penalties for mistruths and lies being propagated.
2
This reporter needs a basic journalism school refresher. How can she possibly know what Trump believes? She can know what he says or what he writes, but now what he believes. You'd think the NYT could afford to hire journalists who know reporting basics.
5
This Hayden chap seems intelligent and experienced in government. Why not him for President in 2020?
I like Ike.
2
Trump believes in “innocent until proven guilty” unless you’re black or Hillary Clinton. Then you’re guilty even if you’re exonerated by DNA evidence or the FBI.
15
Actually, who knows? it might have been a 400 lb. guy sitting on his bed in Pennsylvania.
5
Off records:
Dear Ms Haberman: Too complicated. Much too complicated. Period.
The simple truth is: Mr. Trump always got away with lies and denial in US law system. Always. He had been untouchable.
"Big Harp George" has got it in principle.
Stupid me, thinking truth mattered
But in truth, it just distracts
Now I’m reaching my vast potential
On my alternative facts
(...)
Why’d I ever think the truth mattered
All it does is hold you back
Now I’m soaring high and free
on them alternative facts
(...)
Only fools think that truth matters
When in truth, it just distracts
You’ll never reach your vast potential
without alternative facts
http://www.bigharpgeorge.com/song-lyrics/2018/6/29/alternative-facts
(Unfortunateley the vid ID doesn´t get through.)
In Mr. Trumps songbook the song would read like this:
"In the age of nine
I learned by my Dad
the world is full of stupid guys
all believing in the facts
but as a real Trump I tell you
ye know this is just a hoax
Only fools think that truth matters
When in truth, it just distracts
You’ll never reach your vast potential
without alternative facts"
Big Harp George had got it first in the age of 60. But Mr. Trump had got it already in the age of 9 and got used to it.
BTW:
You might know Big Harp George personally.
In real life his name is Prof. George Bisharat, a former NYT/WSJ/ Haaretz author.
http://www.palestine-studies.org/institute/fellows/george-bisharat
1
Perhaps Trump has taken Emerson to heart: "Speak what you think today in words as hard as cannon balls and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today." That, at least, would account for these 180-degree shifts.
2
Why are you unable to use the words, "lie", "liar", "lies" and "lying". Perfectly respectable words, if blunt, that would have saved you so much time finding literary circumlocutions and euphemisms. You must get paid by the word is the only explanation with which I can come up.
11
The lack of critical thinking by those who hate Trump continues to amaze me. You don't make peace with friends, you make it with enemies. Trump knows these despots have big egos. So, he massages the egos. They become "great friends".
However, the larger question is, what is he giving them besides ego massage. The answer-- Absolutely Nothing!!!! They are giving us, they are beginning to not take advantage of the US. They are beginning to respect us. Will someone explain why that is bad.
8
@Ellen, please provide some concrete proof of your contention that, " They are giving us, they are beginning to not take advantage of the US. They are beginning to respect us," because I have seen absolutely no sign that this is true.
19
@Ellen
First person I have seen that has claimed a lack of critical thought on the Donald. Thats a novel tactic.
@Ellen - This kind of drivel is terrifying. What exactly have we gained from Trump's love affairs?
Trump is scorned and laughed at by the rest of the world and by extension so is the U.S. No one respects him.
1
I thought about a reason for the escalating migration of Central Americans to our nation. What is the attraction? Simply put; Trump has been telling the world how Great America is and that we are figuratively swimming in money. No wonder they are coming here!
Trump can't even reflect on the ramifications of his own actions. He is reflexive and impulsive, and just as he says, He's "Unpredictable".
Mr. Hayden analyzed him wonderfully. He lives in a moment of time devoid of prior or future history.
2
If there’s no truth, how do we discuss and make decisions that are rooted in fact?” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican operative based in California. “It’s been abandoned. And it’s something that the Republican base certainly isn’t going to revolt on him on. But it is a huge fundamental problem of how to govern when there are no facts.”
Trump's focus is not governing but campaigning. Hence, facts are irrelevant and lies or misrepresentations that
stir up his base are all that matter. The most serious and potentially longest lasting victim of his election and administration is recognition and respect for the truth.
1
"Mr. Trump has appeared to grow noticeably more comfortable in the role of president... and that comfort level has reinforced his confidence in his own instincts, including what he regards as facts." ----
The force that enables Trump to reside in his happy space stems from a GOP controlled Congress that does nothing to force Trump to comport himself in a Presidential manner.
Just like a toddler who is never told no. Happy as a clam until challenged, then the tantrums start.
1
"Mr. Trump often points to a key moment — his election in 2016, which defied the polls — as proof that agreed-upon data can be wrong."
The irony of this is that it too is completely wrong - and disappointingly parroted in this article. Trump's victory did not defy polls at all. His margin of "victory" (actually his margin of loss) in the popular vote was almost exactly what the polls predicted. Trump won by winning a few key battleground states by razor-thin margins - results far within the margin of error of the polling for those states.
The polls were essentially spot-on about the 2016 election. The errors came in people interpreting polls from weeks before the election as showing a blowout, before Comey's intervention.
4
The base of Donald Trump wants to overlook “all the other stuff” and support their candidate to cut their taxes, give them more money in their pockets. The problem with “all the other stuff” is that it is imploding on the democracy of this world and making it a very unsafe place, not only for journalists, but also for citizens who question the “morality” of their leaders of “civilized countries”. Donald Trump uproots the “code of morality” which a healthy democracy stands on. Twisting the facts to one’s advantage is really trying to undo the moral codes established centuries ago in society. These moral codes have been brutally tested over time even in wars. The problem facing the Trump supporters is how long they will overlook “all the other stuff” as being unrelated to their cause. Donald Trump only reveals to Americans when he “twists the truth” just how essential it is to “tell the truth”. In the end, I believe Americans as a whole will continue to seek the “truth” and filter out the “fake news” from President Trump and vote him out of the Presidency.
3
The GOP base has been indoctrinated for over four decades now, to believe views that are false but support the propaganda being fed them. They do this because the propaganda is in line with their own beliefs and animosity towards those of color or who think differently to them. When groups are diminished with the moniker of "the other" it is so easy to dismiss them as less than human. The viability of your democracy hangs in the balance, your last chance to salvage it is Nov. 6,2018. VOTE.
1
So inveterate liar, sociopath, or narcissist without compare. Hardly the 3 choices I'd prefer to explain his endless capacity to ignore the truth.
3
> Here we approaching a core issue for me... How do I change my beliefs (connect the same ‘facts’ creating a different picture)? Will scientific evidence be enough to change my view? Must I have approval from the Pope to be moved? Do I have to experience the new way of seeing PERSONALLY? How many times? Should critical thinking and cognitive errors be taught starting in fourth grade?
> And how can I change the beliefs of others without using propaganda and persuasive economics? Is this even a reasonable goal? If so, how can we talk about changing beliefs as a group or community? How can we move cognitively toward common beliefs? What should we do about those who absolutely refuse to be moved?
This is a form of radicalization. He is playing on a minority group, and they in turn are buying the goods.
Now, you tell those people that they are being radicalized and they will swear up and down that is not the case and will very likely say it doesn't happen to "people like us". It does, and it has.
Vote November 6th.
5
Most of our Presidents have acted this way - in fact most world leaders have acted this way.
1
@Maureen
Ah, .... no. They haven't
Some, a few, have acted this way, and they are the ones with whom you would not want to associate.
Unfortunatley for the USA, the one that seems most like The Don was a guy that led the Germans out of a bad ecomomy in the 1930's.
Read some of the speaches from back then.
Translated they sound just like something Trump would say at one of his meetings.
Its frightening how similar they sound.
Waking up and seeing the risk for what it is, followed by action to corect the prolem will fix this. Creating false equivalents won't.
4
A prime reason why Trump gets away with so many exaggerations, falsehoods and downright lies is that nobody - least of all the media - really presses him to cite what evidence he has for those assertions. He says demonstrably false things. Some of the press calls him out on this. But nobody insists - at the time - that he produce evidence. The recent "60 Minutes" interview with Lesley Stahl demonstrated that over and over again.
5
I think it’s all an act. He’s simply pushing the envelope as far as he can, and the more he has pushed it, the more he has seen how far it can go, egged on by his elite backers in congress and with deep pockets out of it. They’re probably egging him on to continue the buffoon show, and so far they’ve showed him that he may be above the law.
And his buffoonery seems to be at least partly his defense or excuse! So, his backers can say “oh, you know he tells it like it is!” “Oh, you know Trump!”
Behind the scenes he’s probably as scared as Hitler when he first started WW2, when he gave his army a secret order to retreat back to German if the French react. The German army wasn’t ready at the time, and the French has a much larger army and equipment, and Hitler didn’t have the political support. He got the Germans to buy into the war slowly after successes after they thought he knew what he was doing and they were really as invincible as he claimed they were.
As the allies ignored the monster, he got so big to where desperate steps were needed to stop him!!
And now he’s got the judges to likely help him get away with probably anything!
Whenever I see him talk, he seems astonishingly similar to those YouTube videos of Mussolini!!! Mussolini, too, put on an act, literally!
You are making this far more difficult than it really is. Trump is a common fraud. That's the simplest explanation and the correct one.
15
Terrifying: Fascism on the rise....
8
@Barbara Kerstetter
So much damage in so little time. Amazing.
5
Even more appalling than Trump's cavalier disregard for hard facts is the cheering on that his supporters give his free-of-fact slanders at his nefarious rallies. Trump never comes within a mile of any detailed factual claim that might serve as evidence for his sweeping evaluations, such as that Democrats are "mobs" that reject the rule of law or that Kavanaugh is a much-maligned, innocent male abused by a lying woman. These are not claims about facts; they are prescriptive, not descriptive, statements, not facts but (dis)values that depend upon evidence--upon facts. He indulges in insults and negative evaluations of persons without ever engaging in any supporting empirical information.
What does this behavior say about the crowds that cheer him on and chant "Lock her up!" at mention of Sen. Warren or other women?
It says, I think, that if they have not gone full-tilt for fascism, they are already hungry for it, for the great white *leader* who will continuously publicly beat up on a woman or a man perceived as weak (preferably of minority heritage) to satisfy their sadistic impulses. Rationality does not enter into it. They have just enough literacy skills and mental clarity to cast votes for whomever Trump is currently endorsing in his "rev up the base" appearances.
These are the people who worry me most because long after Trump leaves DC, his millions of lackeys will still be with us, just as indifferent to facts, reality, and truth as they are in his presence.
6
As Stephen Colbert artfully quipped while playing a neocon on his cable show:
"The truth is a liberal conspiracy."
5
When I was a contestant on "To Tell the Truth," my task was explained to me this way: Answer the question firmly, whether you know the answer or not. The panelist asking the question may not know the correct answer and, chances are, other panelists might not either. In short, it was how you answered the question — preferably "firmly" — not whether the answer was correct. I got three of the five votes, even though none of my half dozen answers was truthful. Fool most of the people most of the time.
2
Tp paraphrase a great journalism prof, if one person claims it's sunny out and the other claims it's pouring, you do not have an obligation to report both - you open the blasted window and see what is actually happening.
1
It's clear Trump is a moron, supported by like-minded people or by those so venal they use him as a battering ram to smash down the walls of law and order that have more or less protected honest citizens from con-men, thieves, looters and pirates since the founding of America.
Maybe the media could just stop repeating what he says, just ignore him until the day he is led away or leaves voluntarily. And turn off his twitter account!
In the meantime, vote straight Democrat!!
12
When was the last time Donald Trump told the truth about anything? It was during the campaign when he said, "This election is rigged!". But even then it was only by accident, and, as far as I know, he's never told the truth before or since.
Unfortunately for them, Donald Trump's dedication to his supporters is equal to his dedication to the truth. He has and will continue to sell them all down the river while he lines his and his rich friends pockets with their money.
Donald Trump is, by far, the biggest lying sewer rat this country has ever produced.
Government by illusion. Bought, paid for, and swallowed whole by the vast minority of voters.
Without a Democratic landslide in the midterms Trump and the GOP with turn this country into a autocratic dictatorship in sole service to the 1%. In fact, it may already be too late.
Watch for Trump to push for an end to presidential terms limits after the election, with Fox News selling it as being "What Democracy is All About!".
6
A President who thinks he is entitled to his own facts should not be President. Trump, being a clever con-man uses the media to spread his words of wisdom, which are usually two versions of an issue, one for it and another against it. Then he waits for the reaction. His base hears what they want to hear and the resistance hears the opposite. The two sides fight and he sides with his base while the media says, we are reporting what we heard. Wake up people, we are being scammed daily. Trump is the 2018 version of 1984.
5
I guess it takes a criminal and a liar like Hayden to know a criminal and liar like Trump. Both are monsters.
Why go to Hayden, a man who lied to Congress repeatedly, the mastermind of an illegal system of warrant less surveillance, the champion of an illegal and inhumane rendition and torture program.
Can’t you find someone who is a moral actor to impugn Trump? Why go to Judas and ask him what he thinks of the devil? Of course he’s going to condemn the devil, even as the forty pieces of silver rattles in his pockets.
You should find better sources unless covering up for Hayden is your aim, in which case readers should wonder: how compromised is the New York Times?
1
The man apparently even believes the misrepresentations of himself, believing the TV persona created for him as a self made multi billionaire and TV star. Whereas the truth is he's an ex-game show host and self-admitted admitted sex predator who apparently inherited a significant portion of whatever unverified wealth he might actually have.
It is not that merely supports autocrats, he is one. Even many of his supporters would recognize him as "someone who insists on complete obedience from others; an imperious or domineering person", which after all is the second definition of autocrat. The president of the USA is demonstrably an autocrat.
4
I'm far less worried about a temporary "president" with obvious mental health issues than I am about the millions of American citizens who seem not only willing but determined to follow him all the way to the moral and ethical bottom. It's now clear that there is NOTHING Donald Trump can say or do that will cause his followers to come to their senses.
16
@ChristopherM
Amen. His reality-challenged followers will continue to be a problem long after he is gone.
2
Pinocchio living in Pleasure Island
2
We have an insane, power hungry, ego driven man for president. We do nothing. Are we waiting for a nuclear holocaust? Lock this man up before he reaches a total mental break down and destroys us and this planet.
4
He spent his whole life being a liar, a crook, a cheat, a scammer and he was richly rewarded for it. Why would he change now?
Seeing him in an orange suit would help the rest of us but would not faze him. The underlying liar would never believe it.
10
The Donald's greatest gift is his ability to shovel manure faster than anyone else. And the GOP and his supporters eat it up.
5
No one would ever have believed the United States could have ended up with a President such as this. I just finished the wonderful book, Dead Wake, about the sinking of the Lusitania. To read the words of officials, the President, and others at that time against Trump's is depressing. He is the dumbest in a century of dumbing down.
9
Sorry but I disagree. Americans are no better and in many ways far worse than citizens of other countries because of the indoctrination that we are soooooooo special. Nope. It wasn't a question of if a Trump could come to power here but when it was going to happen.
2
One day we are going to hear news of what Trump's beloved state leaders really thought of him & I just hope that he's sitting down.
4
The president is marketing himself by promoting faith over opinion. Faith and opinion are the same thing but faith holds higher status because it impacts behavior. Trump's followers are not opinion-developers who use critical thinking to weigh choices. They are faith-based who believe that faith, not facts, have more power over behavior than opinions based on facts do. It's a fact that Trump is really smart at getting people to have faith in him and he doesn't care about marketing to the rest of us. Facts, according to Trump's economy, is what you have faith in. Facts, among the rest of us are what we seek when we have doubts.
6
"Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime: the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity." Robert A. Heinlein
Sadly this may apply to an entire country....starting at the top.
5
"A President Who Believes He Is Entitled to His Own Facts"
Why the extraneous strain to avoid calling it what it is - A President Who Lies!
6
A big problem is that the press misses two sorts of truths that Trump tells, call them internal truths and limited space truths.
The first showed itself most clearly on the 60 minute TV interview the other night. Time after time Trump talked about Trump's feelings or ideas, and the interviewer missed this and acted as though he were talking about the real world.
If Trump were to say, for instance "I think that two and two make five, and this means that eight is really ten," that would be true -- and we would go away shaking our heads that he had lied. But if he does think that, then the first part is true, and the second part is certainly a reasonable deduction.
The second kind of Trump-truth made its appearance early, in his announcment address to his audience of paid actors at the bottom of that escalator. "They're sending rapists... and some of them are good people, I presume."
This has been adduced time and again as "He called Mexicans rapists," and he clearly didn't. He called some illegal immigrants rapists -- which is undoubtedly true.
There's nothing subtle here. This is nyah-nyah argumentation of the grade-school type.
Our problem is that our press is not being discriminating enough. It took the press generations to get around to calling a lie a lie. Now they've got to get it straight that some non-truths are not lies. They are precisely framed Trump-truths.
2
@David Lloyd-Jones
I find your logic more jumbled than Trump's. And your attack on the press aligns with Trump's thinking, which is to say that it bears little to no resemblance to reality. The truth is Trump did call Mexicans rapist, though he admitted that some Mexicans were not racist, and further claimed that he could not receive an impartial verdict from a Mexican-American judge simply due to the judge's heritage.
I realize that marijuana has been just legalized in Canada, and I'm hoping your thoughts are not unduly influenced.
2
Trump's entitlement program. The very rich do not have to remember names, or pay attention to facts. This 200+ day golfer in the past 650 days in office gets up at 11, after watching and watching TV. He is lazy, and has been given everything, 200k/yr at age 3, declared bankruptcy to avoid paying people he sealed a bargain with, bankrupted casinos, where they hand you money, grabbed p, fornicates out of wedlock, betrays friends and all business partners, attacks the press, takes BRIBES, .. LOCK HIM UP!
6
What then do we know for sure?
1. Trump is a profligate liar, and he loves and supports lies told by an assortment of murderous rulers. If as Christianity teaches there is a Lord of Lies, Trump is that Lord's priest, and all the so-called Evangelicals who support these lies have chosen This Master and rejected Christ's offer of salvation.
2. For Trump, lying is very very profitable. Hr lies to people who love to be lied to.
5
So....this is the way he is. We know that without a doubt now. My question is: how can he find any rational people to work for him? As they go along to get along with the 'alternative facts' president, what happens to them inside themselves? How do they live with themselves? To have someone just lie and lie and....lie like that? Day in, day out 24/7. What do they think they are doing there? Are they in it just for the power? What do they think they are teaching their children or grandchildren? What do they think about what is happening to our country because it is now a 'fact-free zone'? How do they think they will continue with their lives once this madman is gone and they are looking for new positions? Who will take them seriously?
He is who he is and it was a ghastly mistake to elect him. But all these 'good' people who used to believe in facts.....why are they serving him? Because it is him they are serving, not our country. I hope they know that much at least. And how very sad to serve a known liar who loves dictators and turns away from our allies.
6
@Sophia
They aren't serving him they are serving the Republican party who is willing to put up with and go along with anything and anyone to stay in power. After this nightmare is over, they will all go get jobs at Fox News as Hope Hicks has done. Which is fitting as Fox started the constant drum beat of alternative facts 20 years ago to brainwash the gullible.
1
Trump is like that story of the young Korean couple who were up to their eyeballs in some video game about family life and who were letting their own infant become so malnourished that they were arrested.
Trump offers nostalgic pap, self-adulation in spite of being a bonafide draft-dodger, a completely fabricated story of his business acumen, he "falls in love" with a guy who has concentration camps in his own country and he dithers when the country responsible for 9-11 butchers a journalist who was a resident of the US.
He is about as empty a suit as you can get morally but the Tee-Vee preachers cant get enough of his lies.
And his rally folks want to be entertained to death. He gets them chanting to get rid of their own healthcare, their children's futures, their own integrity and then gives himself a whopping tax cut.
ALL of that is different than the responsible of American citizens to govern themselves. There will always be con men and always be people who love to be lied to.
7
I question why the editors allow this article. Any regular reader of the Times knows all of this and knows it well. This seems like filler. There is so much more to cover, such as what is going on at the federal agencies and in the states. If anything, this belongs on the opinion page, but it has been said many times there, as well.
3
The point of the article is that Trump is the equivalent of gangrene and/or the Black Plague. He threatens the planet and civilization.
3
What's missing from this article is the FACT that the traits Trump displays are in the DSM 5 as clear signs of a personality disorder.
3
TAKE NOTE: This is the main reason the Soviet Union collapsed, because there were no facts upon which to make decisions.
Despite the chorus since the end of the Reagan years that he caused the Soviet state to fall, the over riding problem in communist Russia and its captured states was the fact that the nation itself was based on lies. Everything was lies. How much wheat was harvested. How much food was available for the public. How much of Soviet industry was operating successfully. Lies. Lies. Lies.
With lies all around, it is impossible to make good decisions. Truth can hurt (it hurts Trump every day) but ultimately it serves the purpose of allowing decisions, and then changes, to be made. The Soviet agricultural ministry said everything was wonderful up until the final day, just as the spokesman for Iraq insisted there were no American troops in Iraq in 2003 as tanks rumbled down the street and Saddam's statue toppled.
The liar becomes married to his lies and can't see, and certainly not accept, truth. A liar starts out lying for fun, for convenience, to escape penalties but in the end he gets captured by lies.
Trump doesn't know what facts are. He has been over-promoting, over-selling his real estate and a thousand other shaky schemes for so long he has left planet earth. The interview last weekend with CBS gave indications that he, Trump, made up the idea of "rogue killers" being responsible for the apparent murder of the Saudi journalist. Amazing.
81
@Doug Terry And the Republican Congressional Caucus is going along with it, and worse, approving it.
@Doug Terry:
Lies are marketed and perpetuated by institutions, their bureaucracies in particular. In turn, this is why an independent press and an independent [federal] judiciary are so vital, politically: in order to uphold and promote accountability via the rule of law.
That said, 'politics is war by other means'. Trump prefers that laws and policies be structured according to protecting and promoting his vested interests, and the members of the GOP in Congress are hoping the American voting public does too.
We'll find out in a 18+ days which version of reality wins.
Perhaps some consideration should be given to passing legislation that provides some number of years (to be determined) of severance pay to politicians who are not re-elected on account of a primary election loss. It might be a way to give politicians the backbone to oppose their party line. They might even possibly find themselves able to register objection to an unfit president of their own party.
3
@smartypants
A taxpayer-funded paycheck is never going to be as lucrative as the money a politician can get from selling out the democratic process (and becoming a lobbyist afterwards).
2
The people who enable trump are sad cases indeed...Since when does the US not believe in science, or facts or the truth? Since Fox Noise, hate talk Am radio, Breitbart, etc. all the "alternative facts universe" people, are not making our country stronger or leaders in the world but just the opposite. Russia and Putin are pleased as their 20 year plus campaigns of disinformation and propaganda to undermine and sow discord in western democracies has really taken ahold under trump. Voting is about all you can do when you have a third of the country that believes nothing and knows nothing. Thus trump.
4
@Rick - Can anyone remember hearing the term "fake news" used in the US before Donald Trump became "president"?
We all remember learning the term "Lügenpresse" from our history classes.
2
How can it be that that personality description is ok from the guy who delivers my heating oil or the guy who makes sandwiches at the deli but my president! We are clearly on very shaky ground .
3
The deplorable zombies have been collected and organized.
4
Shocking! Trump has a problem with truth and facts? 538 approval rating is 42.5%, 4% higher than a year ago. The NYT can publish an article every day about the absurdity of this man and he will still has core support from a sizable plurality of Americans. Any reasonable American does not want this man to be president anymore, but no one is changing their minds with articles like this since the NYT and all their liberal friends don't tell the "truth" anyway. I'm getting more disgusted with the country everyday that passes.
6
Trump's bull in a china shop approach to leadership will leave a permanent gouge in American thought. He has justified generations of people too lazy, unskilled, or frustrated with logic and reasoning who have retreated to"common sense" as a suitable substitute. To anyone still attached to critical thinking, Trump it's ultimate proof that "common sense"is nonsense.
7
True common sense is not common enough.
Shouldn't the title of this article be: A President Who Believes He Is Entitled to His Own Lies.
When is the press going to figure out that the first step is to never put Trump and the word "fact" in the same sentence.
6
Trump doesn't accept facts because he is too ignorant to understand facts. He is a very good snake oil salesman and that is all he ever was. He sticks to his save spaces where he can preach his particularly nasty brand of racism and misogyny to his followers, facts will never factor into hate and division. He applauds violence and dictators and implores his base to do the same. Ignorant to the core.
8
@Bluejil - I hope that at some point the press will write about Donald Trump's profound ignorance. I've never seen a 70+-year-old man so ignorant on so vast an array of subjects. It's almost as if his father paid a different boy to attend all of Donald's classes.
3
And this Toad has nuclear weapon control and is the head of the military?! Brr.
5
How many fingers am I holding up Winston? (O'Brien holds four, Winston say four.) And if the party says there are five, not four, then how many are there?
3
You missed the point. Trump is a psychopath who makes up any story that suits his immediate want/need because he does not care in the least about anyone but him. He is utterly self-referential, and in that bubble he just creates his own convenient facts and calls them real. It requires an extraordinary lack of empathy and contempt for the rest of us, but that's who he is. Pure opportunism and grifting. And he isn't going to change. His followers are his unwitting victims, roadkill in his assault on reality,
10
Trump has never been held to account, not by his father, his siblings or the popular press. I blame the bankers that funded his crazy spending on casinos. He is a lousy businessman, and the bankers had a chance to make sure the paid for his excesses, but they decided he was more valuable as an "icon." Otherwise, Trump would be under a bridge, begging for quarters in a coffee cup.
5
Read the recent article in NYT regarding Fred Trump's finances and tax schemes to pass on his wealth. Banks did not finance or bail out Trump, Daddy did.
The real question is who has been bailing him out since Fred Trump's money is gone?
1
He's a compulsive LIAR. That's all he does; he can't do anything but lie about everything. It's not alternative facts or anything else. He's a LIAR.
12
Hence why he emulates Putin and Kim.
3
I've really got to stop reading my newspaper with breakfast. Please can we just let him have his jock-style pep rallies without any press coverage at all? I'm so so sick of him---sick of his voice, sick of his Mussolini chin, his jackboot strutting preening public persona, sick of his cotton candy "hair," sick of his hubris, sick of his fawning sycophants, sick of all those stupid groupies with their stupid signs, sick of the groveling spineless worms wriggling thru the GOP (not that there was ever much to admire there). Please, I need a break. Can we have a day without a trump?
34
Maggy, Instead of taking the time to inform us of these obvious facts and traits, please continue to use the facts to show the utter incompetence of this traitorous president and his cabinet domestically and abroad. His base needs to be shown on a daily basis how he is betraying them too, merely for his own financial gain!!!! Keep up the rest of the good work on the FACTS!
6
@I finally get it - I don't believe his supporters will EVER see this.
1
Maggie’s getting a lot of mileage out of this and God bless her but this is no longer news. It’s olds. Perhaps the Times could publish a running fact check on the front page.
5
@Douglas Lowenthal
How is this "old news"? Our country blunders from one deranged policy to another seemingly daily based on Trump's "alternative facts" universe.
It's an ongoing issue - not history that can be conveniently ignored (yet).
6
It may be old news that he lies and does not believe facts, but we cannot let ourselves become complacent in regard to this.
He makes policy decisions based on his beliefs of things that are not true. This affects all of us in this country, as well as the rest of the world.
Continue to hammer on the truth and our need to keep it front and center, even if he does not.
1
@Douglas Lowenthal
I disagree. I say, "enough is enough"!
-----------------------------------------------
We, the American people, have been waiting for almost two years for Trump to get honest, and we are still waiting.
Perhaps the Democrats could use: "enough is enough"
as a slogan in this mid-term House election, and beyond.
If "enough is enough" then Trump might be forced out,
very soon, before the 2020 election... I hope so...
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Maggie, you are weaken the nation with this headline.
There is no such thing as "his own facts". Facts do not belong to individuals, they exist on their own. What you report on should be called falsehoods. They should be called falsehoods each and every time they are used.
Objective journalism are becoming scarce commodities, and you should be standing up for reality. Resist being groomed by this administration.
2
Having Trump as president is like having to sit next to your uninformed, bigoted, and unscientific grandpa at Thanksgiving...he just keeps giving you an earful and you wish you could tell him to bone up on a subject, any subject, so you could have some normal conversation but he never relents and actually believes the stuff he says.
Whoever the anonymous op ed writer was who claims they are protecting the nation behind the scenes is, we better hope they don’t miss any key opportunities to steer the ship of state before we run into a huge iceberg spawned of Trump’s ignorance of the facts.
4
Trump lies because reality is too terrifying for him to face.
He's a 72-year-old man, nearing the end of his life. He is married to a woman half his age, who clearly married him for money and security. He props up his fading masculinity by having affairs with porn stars.
He is grossly overweight, does not exercise, and eats like a teenager. He is a heart attack or a stroke just waiting to happen. He's going bald, but won't own up to it. He can't even tie his tie properly.
He does not have any friends, and his children are not especially close to him. They have spent their entire lives in his orbit, so there's probably more than a little resentment there.
He has never done an honest day's work in his life. He grew up surrounded by wealth that most of us can only dream of. His father was ruthless and overbearing right up to his death.
His businesses have a long history of fraud and non-payment of sub-contractors. He ran several casinos into the ground. His claims of being a sharp businessman are a public relations illusion created by a ghost-written "biography" and a truly terrible TV game show.
He stumbled into the Presidency simply due to the insidious power of television. And two years in, it's pretty clear that he has NO (bleeping) idea what the hell he's doing. He can't even speak the English language coherently.
Lies are all he has.
Dear God, I am SO TIRED of this man. Just impeach him already, and let's get on with governing this country properly.
23
Between now and the election I encourage you to talk about
impeachment. I also encourage you to really promote Sen. E. Warren, Bernie and Ocasio and talk fervently about abortions, raising taxes
and how "unfair" life is and how awful guns are, particularly the ones that look"militaristic" but, in reality, have less chutzpah than Granddad's deer
rifle. push that agenda.
1
You really have to look at that projected "Kentucky Welcomes" image to know how deeply you have fallen. The body language and physical impression says it all: (would be could be) fascist.
2
Trump's ability to tweet has allowed him to pursue his fascist agenda since facts are irrelevant and he can push hot button emotional issues. Hispanic rapists and dark skinned criminals are running rampant attacking wives of rich old white men and taking the jobs of white men. The old playbook of demagogues divide and conquer find enemies of the people like the press who might expose the truth the real enemy of Trump. Trump envies the world's dictators as they can imprison ,maim and kill journalists and dissidents as they see fit . Trump wants to be a hybrid of Kim and Putin his heroes ,longing to be worshiped and feared. His father told him he was a king and now he believes it , the most powerful man in the world and his drunk with this concept. I;m president and your not said like a toddler King Joffrey of Game of Thrones. .
4
@REBCO - Fear is the engine that drives Donald Trump's appeal. We all know that fear triggers deep emotional responses that crowd out rationality. Trump followers believe he alone can keep them safe and he alone can take away all their problems.
1
Some people are just liars.
Liars who are born rich never have to face the consequences of their lies.
Trump is an example of that.
As CEO of a corporation he has absolute power.
The Congress thru its impeachment power must tell Trump that in a democracy he does not have absolute power.
3
If I had a relative who behaved like Trump, I would first do my best to get him help, and if that didn’t work, steer clear of him at family functions, and if that didn’t work, i’d cut him out of my life completely.
I would do the same if it was a coworker or boss. I think it’s safe to say that over your lifetime (if you’re over 50) you’ve had to deal with “functional crazies,” and sometimes you have no choice but to simply walk away to keep your own sanity. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will.
But how do we keep our sanity when the president is a functional crazy? Will it take some kind of catastrophe to spur Congress into action? Heaven help us all if that’s what we have in store.
16
I agree with most commenters about Trump, the problem is we are preaching to the choir. We need to make these comments where they can be seen by the Trump lovers.
8
@Mgaudet They still wouldn't believe it, they have drunk the Kool-Aid and nothing, not even 45 should he ever come clean on his daily lies confessed and agreed to science etc. It's a losing battle. Sisyphus comes to mind.
4
Someone quoted in the article says "“Whatever it takes to get what you want or to get to where you want, no matter what you have to justify or what you have to ignore, is O.K.”
That is brutal pragmatism, an unpleasant but valid instrument in politics. What Trump does is say that black is white, and show coal as if it were snow. Con tricks are not the same as pragmatism.
3
It'd be one thing if this man was your elderly, irascible, grandpa who frequently veered off into delusions, wild tales, false memories and sometimes scared the children. You suspect that he's stolen things from you and his
neighbors, and might have killed the cat.
Depending on the severity of such behavior he might be tolerated by loving family or placed under the supervision of medical professionals or some combination of both. But when harmless idiosyncrasies elevate to lawbreaking, or endangering others, indulgence is not an option.
What you don't do is put him in charge of the lives and well being of 325 million people. You don't give him the keys to the treasury, the gavel of justice or command of the armed forces.
We now have such a person with the title of Commander in Chief. His behavior is beyond tolerable. He's dangerous and putting our families, children, democracy, way of life - the entire planet at grave risk.
11/6/18 - Vote. Indulgence is no longer an option.
15
I have run out of words to describe the travesty that now occupies the White House. Everyone needs to vote so that the healing of our country can begin. Here's hoping our allies will welcome us back into the fold.
9
@BillyBobPedophile "Trust me I am voting - straight Republican" When you have the word "pedophile" in your user name, why does this not come as a surprise? When the day comes that you or a family member needs affordable health care, but can't get it, or when your parents (or you) discover that they can't survive on their declining Social Security and Medicare programs, because you thought that making the ultrarich even richer was the right thing to do back in the good old days of 2018, maybe then you'll start to get it. But by then it will be far too late.
I utterly despair. There is no longer even a modicum of solace in a NYT comment.
Vote US citizens, please vote. I cannot believe that a majority of you willingly accept this tyrant and all he stands for.
Living outside the US, my own ability to effect protest is limited, but after a visit to Washington last week, I vowed that it would be my last, until a regime change. Small, but personally significant. Writing to my US friends and colleagues to explain why I am declining invitations is painful.
While in DC I did my best to direct thoughts to the presidents often circulating helicopter. I guess I lacked sufficient energy, or perhaps focus. I'm going to work on it.
7
@Eddie Excavata - Take heart. Trump supporters are not a majority and never have been. In fact, fewer than 4 in 10 Americans support Donald Trump. If we get out and vote, we win. If we stay home, we lose. Trump supporters are going to vote in large numbers. We better take this threat seriously.
2
It is meaningless as to whether or not the President* deceives himself. When he demands that others participate in his deception the matter represents a very decided threat. Consensus reality - what a concept.
4
The key to Trump? His personal bottom line. If he is favoring someone or something, simply ask how does it profit him. Is he against someone or something, simply ask how does it damage him. It is always and only about his bottom line.
5
Trump's parallel Universe existence has been adequately diagnosed years back. The course of action should be to isolate him from real authority over powerful forces for everyone's sake. I still can't believe the NYPD granted Trump a carry permit.
The only "Fake News" in the Press is the accurate repetitions of exactly what Trump says. Trump IS the "Fake News".
6
I would love to hear what Putin, Jong-un, Salman, and others say about Trump behind his back. I'm almost certain they laugh at how infantile Trump's thinking process is. And Trump is so oblivious to the fact, that while he validates them in front of the world, they mock him behind his back. Yet, I'm sure Trump believes that they respect him and his authority. The U.S. is laughing stock as long as Trump is President.
7
When you believe what you want you can appear remarkably consistent, which to many people is an admirable trait in a politician. You can jump off a ten story building and for nine stories credibly maintain that you can fly. That sounds extreme, except it is exactly what is happening with climate change.
8
One could certainly convince me that almost all politicians these days, and perhaps any day, think they are entitled to their "own facts"? You could NOT, however, convince me using former CIA Director Michael Hayden as your source. The man is a fraud and a dangerous one at that.
1
@jonst
More dangerous than the fact that a man who can't acknowledge reality controls our nuclear weapons?
1
The reality is that Donald Trump and his cult members think elections, public policy and government should all be Worldwide Wrestling Federation (WWF) matches, replete with one side smashing the other over the head with a chair while talking trash.
Roads, infrastructure, healthcare, science, the environment, reproductive freedom, income inequality, fair taxation, education, facts, free and fair elections do not enter their wrestling radar.
This will not end well for America or the world.
November 6 2018
D for reality; R for the WWF.
24
We constantly dance around words like incurious, self dealing, shades of truth, when in fact there's one word the explains Trump, he's stupid. He got a pass in college because his father bought him a degree. Most of his fortune was gathered thru his fathers largess and outright fraud. He's a failed businessman many times over with multiple bankruptcies.
To get elected President, you don't have to be very smart. To be President, you should be really smart. Trump just isn't. It took several months for anyone to call Trump an outright liar. How much more before we use "stupid" as a general description. Lets just stop listening to this guy!
7
It is more than facts, with Trump and his Trumpsters.
Trump believes that the "boss is always right."
==================================
He suggests that "crime pays, dishonesty pays, threats pay".
Trump-mania generates dominant daily media hype...
So, far, it does seem to be working for President Trump.
His "climate of fear" seems to be spreading at home and abroad.
But, with the mid-term House election looking good for Democrats, there may be a "reversal of fortune" for Trump.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
3
@Harry Pearle
Yes well remember how Hillary was going to win the Presidency? Remember how all the polls showed her to be the clear winner? Remember?
2
Facts? Those aren't facts coming out of Trump's mouth. Why is the New York Times still giving Trump any quarter? They are lies and they need to be called out not softened for those on the extreme right who want our government to fail. They are a dangerous minority that's why our FBI has been tasked to dog their every step. If you don't like my assuresion then you must have loved Timothy McVeigh and David Koresh. I had hoped the New York Times would have learned their lesson after the run up to the 2016 election when this paper gave Trump no less than four front page stories a day and did not bother to call out the lies in full. This time the lies are covering up the murder of a US resident by the same people who played a central role in the 9/11 terror attacks that ignited endless years a war. They murdered a reporter and Trump is back to attacking the media which has made it look and sound like he wants his loyal haters to feel free to attack the fourth estate without fear. Your newpaper's soft touch has got to stop. Trump is a threat to our safety and our democracy. Most of ultra-right-extremists are very dangerous. Trump and his White House klan are no exception.
NOTE TO EDITOR: Please call out Trump and his iies without a filter or drop that throughline that states you are the newspaper of record. Please . . .
9
NYT:
It is time for a series on how Joseph McCarthy was finally stopped from his mountain of lies in the 50s. Trump's mentor and lawyer Roy Cohn was McCarthy's lawyer so Trump has come full-circle as many people do in their lives. He is back with The Big Lie.
Senator Margaret Chase Smith stepped up to confront- anyone else like that out there today?
We need someone to show up in the Senate.
15
@Kay Johnson Not Jeff Flake or Susan Collins.
3
@Kay Johnson - If it's a woman, the gloves will come off. We think we've seen the length and breadth of trumps cynicism, misogyny, etc. But a woman bringing him down would be the ultimate.
4
@Kay Johnson
We could be and probably will be waiting a long time for that to ever happen. I won't hold my breath. There is no one who is willing to put the public before their ego and wealth. Not a one.
2
Also, the President of the United States is a liar.
15
It would seem like telling the truth is fundamental to human life. What would it be like if there was less than 50% chance of anyone telling the truth?
Yet anti-intellectualism derived from self reliance is fundamental to American society. Trump represents defiance against any truth that interferes with him doing what he wants and that defiance, whether it represents truth or not, is worshiped by at least 35% of American voters. Mitch McConnell lies through his teeth, but his goals appear to dovetail with those of the 35% so they just plain don't care.
Lies become incredibly important, however, if they are told by adversary -- particularly if the "lies" are actually the truth and inconveniently interfere with ones agenda.
That 35% will continue to not care right up until local hospitals disappear because of the loss of Medicaid, medical insurance offers nothing and becomes unaffordable, there are no new **well paying** jobs, and income related to the tax reduction continues not to put anything in their pockets.
This history of this despicable state is summarized in a Pulitzer Prize winning book from 1964 (!) by Richard Hofstadter.
9
Trump is a dissolute know-nothing with the most powerful job in the world. Facts and reality will catch up with Trump. You cannot deny the rhinoceros in the room when it has in fact shown up.
He is courting disaster, either economically or in foreign affairs. Things will blow up, and his followers will wonder "What happened?" Enablers like Mitch McConnell and Mike Pompeo will go down in the history books in infamy.
Trump's leadership style is in insane; his policies are not ground in fact or empirical data, and his karma is very bad. The tragedy is that he will bring all of us down.
12
By now, Trump's invective is practically oh ho-hum until he tries to excuse the Saudis for the heinous crime a group of them just participated in, torturing and killing and probably dismembering the journalist Mr. Khashoggi. To add to that, he tells his base last night how great he thinks the Republican congressman is who body-slammed a journalist and broke his glasses (and those sterling citizens, guffawed along with the President). I hope his days are numbered.
15
“He quoted a former speechwriter for Mr. Bush, Michael Gerson, about Mr. Trump: ‘He lives in the eternal now — no history, no consequences.’”
… no vision, no curiosity, no forethought, no leadership, no humility, no inspiration. Sounds about right, Mr. Gerson.
Says the Trump: “’I don’t like that. We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh, and he was innocent all the way as far as I’m concerned.’” Not a trial; a job interview of the highest caliber. Man, for a putative management and business leader (only the best people) you are rather clueless about actual management including human resources. You should have seen that one coming a mile away. Instead, you dissemble.
“Scientists who have documented the man-made impact on climate change ‘have a very big political agenda,’ Mr. Trump said, offering no evidence." Indeed they have an agenda, though I am not so sure it is political. It could just be an agenda of preserving some semblance of suitable conditions for life on earth.
7
Living in denial of verifiable facts is delusional, irrational, and superstitious.
We are in deep trouble as a country.
The world looks to us for leadership and guidance. VOTE. Take nothing for granted.
9
in other words, he is a now nothing blowhard. it is so easy to be smug and smart when any proof that you are mistaken can be ignored. Add that to a man without empathy (unless he is looking at a person), and you have a recipe for disaster.
6
I am rendered almost, but not quite, speechless by Republican operative Rob Stutzman's plaintive lament about how to govern when there are no facts. His political party is now wholly owned by a man who shows us every day exactly how it is possible to get everything that party wants- tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy, a Supreme Court stuffed with manifestly unqualified appointees, benefit cuts for the disadvantaged, and so much more- by ignoring facts. Stutzman has no complaint. That ship left harbor without him, and the horse he rode in on, in the last election.
11
trump should not be president. He does not believe in the U.S. He believes in his sycophants. trump is the poorest excuse for a leader that we could come up with. He lost the election and the will of the people is being ignored.
He is an embarrassment and I believe his lack of belief in the First Amendment is astounding.
The republicans in Congress are spineless, soulless, and heartless. They should have stopped trump at every turn and help keep America’s respect. Instead they aided and abetted the empty shell in the White House.
Vote Blue to get the leadership we deserve.
12
Michael V. Hayden, a former C.I.A. director who served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama obviously still believes that we were attacked on the 9/11 by the Taliban and the Afghan people so the invasion of Afghanistan was the best response to the deadly threat coming from the extraterritorial terrorist organization named Al Qaeda that was founded on the Saudi-created fundamentalist Wahhabi ideology, and had leadership, membership, patrons, financing and perpetrators of Saudi origins.
Even the fatwa authorizing the terrorist attacks against the unarmed civilians was issued by the Saudi-based cleric.
No wonder that the longest war in the American history and a couple trillion dollars wasted on fighting a miniscule ragtag group that on the eve of the 9/11 attacks had only few thousand members failed to eradicate the terrorism in the Middle East or prevent creation, growth, and spread of the ISIS.
This is a classic case of a pot accusing a kettle of ignoring the facts!
1
Dictators find facts to be so limiting.
6
Trump energizes people through fear, anger and righteous retrubition, facts undermine his connection to his audience. They love him because - he doesn’t rely on facts, neither do they.
For rational people, scientist and journalists this may seem blaintly stupid. For Trump it’s genius. He honestly loves them and they know it. Would you rather be enlightened, or be loved?
3
The question in politics what generates more "advantages" (not urgency) "realism or moralism?" has no simple answer; but clearly, neither "interests" nor "values" can guide a foreign policy alone. But the US politics should never turn facts and opportunism out of opportunism.
Trump clearly cannot make this a 'win` anymore, nor can he cope with this challenge due to his limited abilities.
The risks he represents outweights our abilities to resolve this challenge peacefully. All the options we actually had have dissolved already in front of him; the key question left is what will cost (in all aspects) the US more: taking down a regime in Iran or the one in KSA. We are confronted with a new US "Nazion" and a "President" which has never shown any type of responsibility on his actions. But this time, the stakes at risk are way above what Trump can handle - morally and legally!
1
I got into the second paragraph before my stomach started turning. I had to stop. Sorry.
11
The most curious thing is that his followers have no hesitation accepting his lies and if he stopped telling the lies they might not even bother to show up. They seem to demand the lies and it doesn't matter much what the lie is about. But it does seems to matter that the lie is blatant. No accidental inaccuracy, no small shading of the truth will suffice. It is the lie and without the lie they would quickly abandon him.
Secondary to the lie are gratuitous insults and boasts but these can be seen as a subset of the lie.
The lie has been a staple of Republican party politics for decades so Donald had no real choice as to where to plant himself.
2
The scary part is I have a few acquaintances who watch Fox and are the same way.
5
Was it yesterday or the day before that he told the world that he has "an instinct for science"?
There's no need to work hard to learn math, physics, chemistry and biology when all you need is instinct. Think of all the trouble Galileo, Newton and Einstein could have saved themselves if only they had had access to Trump's instinct.
7
Yes, Donald Trump believes he is entitled to his own "facts." And he has many followers who believe it is the New Yorker and the NY Times that manufacture their own "facts."
Which side is right? Perhaps it seems obvious to many NY Times readers that the NY Times has it right. That the NY Times has journalists who are committed to determining the truth.
But in fact a complex interaction is going on. People want to agree with their in-group, and this applies to liberals as well as the followers of Trump.
Many of the beliefs of NY Times readers might be just plain wrong. How would they know if the debate is censored and certain questions are regarded as bigoted or racist?
When questions are not allowed, when the motives of people who have questions themselves are assumed to involve racism or sexism, the process of determining what is true is compromised.
We are far more certain of the size of the black hole in the Milky Way galaxy than of the impact of illegal immigration on the shortage of health care in the US. The reason is that the second question CANNOT BE DISCUSSED. It is censored just as surely as debate was quashed when people might have asked during the wars of religion whether burning people at the stake for choosing the wrong version of Christianity was consistent with the Sermon and the Mount.
People seem incapable of seeing the prejudices that they themselves hold. How is it that we free ourselves of our own misconceptions?
The answer is not obvious.
2
All the signs of extreme insecurity. We all know people like this - cannot accept any kind of correction or constructive criticism and constantly insist they are right...somehow, someway...no matter what anyone else says. Obviously (at least to normal people) this is not a person we want as President.
3
The danger in this tactic is that overtime we become exhausted by the search for truth. How does this trajectory end if Trump's followers believe all he says is fact; it feels hopeless.
3
Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
9
Some readers seems to have difficulty with understanding what a fact is- and how a fact, in fact, becomes a fact So a review is in order. A fact is a verifiable truth, a reality. For instance, the mass of our planet exerts a gravitational pull, which is absent in space. An opinion is not a fact, nor is an interpretation of events, nor is something that is not real. So our problem is not that our president creates his own nonreality based melodrama, but that many citizens have difficulty with critical thinking.
2
Donald Trump was elected, not voted, into office in the sense that the one person/one vote principle upon which America was founded is distorted by a contrived electoral college system which, amplified by biased gerrymandering, can disallow the expressed desire of a majority of voters.
More importantly, this factual distortion arguably is the most consequential outcome of a long series of factual fabrications and misrepresentations by both parties, though in recent years principally by Republicans in their singular embrace of the far-right to advance the most conservative elements of their agenda.
Noteworthy examples abound, of which Mitch McConnell perhaps is the most egregious offender. While Trump's ability to comprehend anything is questionable, McConnell's is not; McConnell is far more calculating and deliberate than Trump.
While the behavior of some Democrats and their left-wing supporters in recent weeks has been abominable, it pales on the scale of that of most Republicans and their right-wing supporters in recent years. As with fact distorting, the choice facing voters in 2018 and 2020 is not ideal, but the results of a Republican-dominated Congress and Presidency have made clear our only option for rescuing our democracy from an impending autocracy. Our only choice is to return to Democratic dominance with the caveat of replacing the cycle of partisan retribution with one of accommodation, moderation, and compromise. Obama tried that and Republicans thwarted it.
2
"A President Who Believes He Is Entitled to His Own Facts."
This heading says more than the article. That is, it speaks to a greater truth. Trump and his white base believe they are entitled to this particular prerogative, namely, the right to both say whatever they want to, whether or not it is true, and to compel the rest of us to silently abide by their statements.
4
The real danger of a President who lies compulsively and refuses to acknowledge true facts is that without a congress or courts that hue to the truth and fight back against lies and and confabulation, our nation will slip into the empires of evil and our citizens will suffer the consequences. to say nothing of the rest of the peoples of the world who once looked the U.S.A. for truth and justice.
4
I often wish there was a way to ask people who only watch Fox News: Don't you think this country do better? Is this really what we want America to stand for? Does this government make you proud? Do you want your children to live in an America like this?
Trump and the GOP just don't seem to care how far down they drag our nation. I just hope we can turn it around and repair the damage.
2
You say that "for Mr. Trump, personal relationships are more important than institutional ones."
I can't fathom having a personal relationship with someone like Donald Trump. Trust is a component of every relationship I've ever known, and Trump is entirely untrustworthy. Surely anyone who must deal with him knows that he can never be trusted.
7
Trump is in denial about a lot of things so he probably doesn't realize that Putin, Kim Jong-un, and the royal Salman family are laughing at him.
15
Truth can be defined in a classical sense. We have it when we subjectively see what is objectively there. If we did not have the ability to do this we would not be able to survive on this planet. However, as we all know it is difficult at times as humans living in space and time with all our limitations to arrive at the truth of things. Thus, just because we do not understand the full truth of things in many complex situations does not mean it is not there. We are all obligated as human beings to continue to uncover the truth as best we can for the sake of us all. This means living with the fact that at times we can be mistaken on our journey to uncover the truth. This is what adults do. Trump has no interest in this pursuit or the journey to the truth. He is a propagandist who creates a false reality for himself and then projects this out to the rest of us when he claims that truthful realities are fake news. Unfortunately, it is the FACT that Trump is president. Though it cannot yet be proven it may be true that he is a dupe for Putin. We have to follow the facts.
4
"And it’s something that the Republican base certainly isn’t going to revolt on him on."
Facts? They don't need no stinking facts.
(With apologies to director John Huston)
14
This man is an elected representative of the people of this country. He CANNOT base his decisions solely on his own untutored and bigoted impulses in utter disregard of facts. Whether he admits to them or no, there ARE facts, and they must be considered. It is his job, and his responsibility, to examine the facts and act responsibly and diplomatically according to the best interests of the country he represents. I don’t think he’s up to it. He also holds a critical responsibility as a world leader, which he has already abandoned utterly, to uphold some semblance of moral authority on the world stage. So it is a vain and distracting side trip to wonder at his “style” as a “leader” in disregarding and reinventing the given evidence in order to pursue his own interests and protect his cronies. Stock prices and conservative agendas notwithstanding, there is nothing whatsoever credible or ethical about his approach. Flat out, and everyone knows it — this is an issue of gross incompetence and unsuitability for the role of president of the United States. My god, what are you teaching this next generation of children by giving it any credence or consideration? Where is an educator to begin with this? This is not a free-for-all for punditry, but a national crisis which we must have the courage to face full-on. Deeply concerning are the number of elected representatives who are willing to let it ride in order to achieve their own narrow-minded agendas and protect their own privilege.
17
I didn’t vote for him, and I can’t stand him as a person, but all politicians twist facts and sometimes flat out lie. Trump simply makes it a daily occurrence.
1
@Paul turner: Correction, hourly occurrence.
3
it is not that he just lies it that he doesnt take the time to get the correct facts to make intelligent decisions.
look at how he told the world that he believes putin- a kgb operative who was trained to lie and manipulate the truth - over US intelligence.
3
@Paul turner There is simply no comparison bet
ween him and normal fibbers. Except for maybe Ted Cruz.
4
If Donald Trump manages to persuade millions of his followers that concern for objective truth is a mark of allegiance to a hostile political tribe, this may well be the worst damage he inflicts on American democracy.
15
We can only hope that within the civilian and military chain of command there are safeguards for a president whose grasp of the facts is unreasonable and unsound.
How do you handle, “You’re all wrong, I know better than you guys—we’re going to attack! Let’s go!”
I’m not saying process, I’m saying an intervention in the form of an immediate relief of duty.
5
And after almost two years in office, 40 percent of Americans still think he is their man. America’s ignorance is Donald Trump’s strength.
19
The real problem with Trump is he has no moral center to guide his decisions. All he cares about is himself, money, adulation and power. He has no empathy or feeling of shame, and he will do anything to obtain his personal objectives. He is a perfect example of, character matters when electing a president. Unfortunately for 50 million Americans, character did not matter and we are stuck with this nightmare.
10
It's time for our leading political thinkers and analysts to stop repeating the obvious and give us some useful tools to deal with the reality we're in. It's like saying over and over, "It's raining" but failing to advise us to carry an umbrella. Put on your thinking caps, Ms. Haberman and colleagues. We're getting drenched out here.
11
Why is anyone shocked or dismayed by this behavior? When someone has been laboring-evidently for most if not all of his adult life-under the psycho-pathology that he is the center of creation with the situational ethics and the controlling greediness that such a worldview engenders, it's only natural that Trump would flatly reject anything from anyone that doesn't "feed the need"? That includes people, ideas, rules, facts, and laws. Trump and all of this was open and obvious from the minute he descended like an avatar to announce his candidacy in Trump Tower, that "truth" or "facts" had no currency to Trump unless he could co-opt them, manipulate them and use them for his own selfish purposes. Enough people were willing to embrace or, at least, ignore this form of "leadership" to cast the votes necessary to elect to the highest office in the land. Now, like it or not, his "reality" is our reality. This is how propaganda thrives like mold in a leaky attic, and the entire historical narrative of our country is rewritten to fit the ones in power.
5
This is the most dangerous leader in our history. Our Founders anticipated this by including checks and balances and a process for impeachment. Things keep getting worse with Trump. He's not going to magically start accepting facts or respecting democratic institutions.
17
@Patricia the founders were gentlemen of honour who envisioned that future presidents would be like themselves. Trump is the worst case scenario which they tried to prevent from happening. Sorry gents, it did.
5
What kept me awake the other night was watching the first two of a three-part BBC documentary on the Assad dynasty of Syria. The personality cult that literally allows dictators like Bashar and his father Hafez before him to get away with murder has endless visual parallels with the way Trump's 'base' idolises him -- NO MATTER WHAT. The rallies, the posters, the insults, the demagoguery, the media threats -- yes, fascism could happen in the States too.
11
In other words, Trump is nuts.
7
A President who is getting things done
1
@NYC Dweller
Hey there New Yorker, you bet he is, devaluing your vote, shifting more of your tax dollar to red states, court stacking, mocking, threatening, science denying and my personal favorite: a fine example of the very worst a person can be--our children are watching this guy.
How can be okay with anyone?
"Getting things done" Hey pal, give us our daily break.
2
Obama...
1
@NYC Dweller - Well yes if you call destroying our environment, alienating our allies and depriving many of us of our civil rights getting things done.
3
Please, oh please, NYTimes, quit using words like falsehoods, inaccurate claims, misleading and other euphemisms for lying. He's not stretching the truth, he's an outright bald faced liar. He lies like breathing. He lies about everything, big and small. Start calling them lies when they are clearly lies. Liars don't deserve any benefit of doubt.
15
Donald Trump is a scourge upon the country of the United States and the world.
For a man whose chief claim to fame is based on cheating, lies, and name calling, I can't wait for the IRS to get this guy on tax evasion. As a wanna be Mussolini, he is a downright cheat and con artist.
The sad fact is that the Republican Party supports him. I encourage all eligible citizens to vote in 2018 and 2020 and eliminate him and his kind from office.
8
No one is entitled to their own facts not even the person pretending to be our current President. I was born while FDR was President, so I can't claim to remember him except for what I learned in history. From Truman on, I do remember. Not one of them was as corrupt, as incompetent, as ignorant, as amoral as the current one. This country can not afford to have someone as our Commander-in-Chief who is what I have described. He has no understanding of our Constitution - at some point didn't even know how many amendments there were, and yet he swore to up hold that document in its entirety on 1/20/17. He was lying even then. It is impossible to uphold a document, the contents of which you know nothing about. No one in this country can benefit from his presidency. Even the one per cent will eventually suffer if this country becomes a fascist dictatorship. If you think I'm exaggerating, study the history of how Hitler came to power, Study the histories of the foreign leaders #45 cozies up to - Putin, Kim Jung Un, Duterte, and see if you would enjoy life in any of their countries. And if that is what you want, you don't belong here!
7
Other things that could be done every time Trump lies:
• Call out those that perpetrate his lies. Again use the word “lie” and not “falsehood,” or “without evidence,” or “contrary to known facts,” etc.
Example:
Sarah Huckabee Sanders/Kelly Ann Conway/Sean Hannity lied in behalf of the president when asked about the death of the journalist.
• Challenge Trump’s verbal clutches, these seemingly innocent words that may only seem as his default throwaway line that reflects his very limited mental capacity but are actually calibrated offensives against truth and accountability.
Example:
—a lot of people are saying
—who knows
—we’ll see
—in a period of time
—nobody knew that
—it may, it may not
—I don’t know, you tell me
—my people are looking into this
—I believe him
11
@Opinioned!: It is clear that he is incapable of decision making that requires critical thinking ... beyond big mac or bucket o' chicken.
Trump has never lived a real life. Or a factual one. His reality show existence is all he knows. His version is yesterday's fears require today's lies to protect tomorrow, FOR ME FIRST.
7
The commander in chief of the United States is not someone that can be allowed to live in his own dreamland and pick and choose information to suit his whims. It is a recipe for disaster which we are seeing on a daily basis. I read an article today where Vladimir Putin says he is seeing the ending of American domination and influence in the world. This from the person in Finland who President Trump naively and dangerously submitted to earlier this year. There are many powerful elected, as well as appointed, officials in our country aligned with President Trump that are selling America down the river and do not care about the consequences. Think about this the next time an election comes up and how the former KGB agent in Moscow, as just one of many foreign leaders, is gleefully leading the new world order.
3
The unfortunate side effect of the lies and mis-steps is, at least to one demographic, a rebranding of America. Now like Trump steaks and Trump golf clubs the entire country is slowly being branded in the Trump name. When will the name of, say a mountain top or water fall (Trump Falls, anyone?) start glorifying this President? It’s all beyond belief.
2
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
If lies were horses, Trump would win the Kentucky Derby.
3
Fellow Americans, we have a Russian agent in the Oval Office.
VOTE ACCORDINGLY !
November 6, 2018 is the most important election in our Nation’s history.
9
@Blank: Thank you. Note in the article the following, "Mr. Trump often points to a key moment — his election in 2016, which defied the polls — as proof that agreed-upon data can be wrong."
Except when influenced by Russian/Saudi/Republican voter suppression manipulation. Secretary Clinton still won by 3MM popular votes.
I honestly am afraid of ignoring facts. That can get you killed.
3
Trump most assuredly is entitled to his own facts, by virtue of being Republican, granted by Republican voters. Inquire of any Republican if American POWs are losers, if Trump knows more than US generals, and if voter fraud is not rampant, committed exclusively by voters who vote wrong... as was discovered, simultaneously, by Republican legislators of long tenure, of long, reliably Republican-dominated state legislatures, despite the infinite absence of any method to have done so.
I have $1000 for each person who can merely imagine 1 shred of plausible evidence "Hillary abandoned Americans under fire."
Inquire of any Republican if the failure of Republicans to uncover that which literally defies imagination is due to the Benghazi investigation being a witch hunt, congressional Republicans the investigatory equivalent of the Keystone Kops, or if the person they elevated to the position of the most investigated person in history is not in fact and obviously the greatest criminal mastermind in history.
1
"Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield." - George Orwell, IN FRONT OF YOUR NOSE (1945).
9
Dear Americans, I will be honest with you. Your country seems more and more like a crazy house. I used to follow your news. Then it got tiring. So I started to read only the headlines and the first chapters. Then only the headlines. And now I can't even do that anymore. I sincerely hope you will be able to sort this out in some way. Love and a sigh from Europe.
7
@Robin: Thank you, Robin. I, for one, am truly sorry.
2
Ms. Habberman's piece is the most concise summary of Trump's relationship with truth and that relationship's impact on his regard for governing that I have read. Should be read by every American.
5
@John Dax: We've seen Trump before, John. Ask the NYS Dept. of State, for example.
Dogma from the White House:
Do not confuse me with facts, I already made up my mind.
6
I highly recommend "Behold, America", a new book by Sarah Churchill that succinctly describes the American "mindset" a century ago, from the early 1900s up through the late 1930s. The parallels to today's cultural and political climate are fascinating and oh so similar. The Reed-Johnson Immigration Act of 1924 greatly curtailed immigration while the rise of the Ku Klux Klan (of which Fred Drumpf was apparently a member) echoed "Make America Great Again." And of course, there was the mention of "fake news" back then and reams and reams of documentation to the effect that the truth was something to be stretched at all times. The effects of cultural and ethnic change enraged the Klan and other white supremacists, and the effects of extreme economic disparity eventually culminated in...well, the Great Depression. Unfortunately change doesn't come about until there is a great conflagration or disruption. We're not there yet....but it is getting closer as lies upon lies emit from this awful administration.
4
I know we are encouraged to live for the moments, but thisis ridiculous.
“It’s something else — it’s feeling, emotion, preference, loyalty, convenience of the moment,” Mr. Hayden said. He quoted a former speechwriter for Mr. Bush, Michael Gerson, about Mr. Trump: “He lives in the eternal now — no history, no consequences.”
3
"his own facts" are lies. call things what they are.
6
Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
8
Mr. Trump should be brought to the court of law and be criminally charged for promoting violence at the highest possible level of our government.
5
@Maita Moto: It's helpful at this point to recall the Constitution and dictionary's definitions of treason.
See Section 3 in Article III at:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii
and,
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/treason
1
Not too many years ago, some Republican operatives talked approvingly about their approach to governing, saying their opponents (the Democrats) were stuck in a "fact-based reality," while they were not. And somehow their untethered approach was preferable. Now with Trump we can see how detrimental a non fact-based reality is.
The question is: Is Trump and are Trump supporters ignorant (just do not have the proper information but could be educated about the facts), are misinformed (get bad information from unreliable sources), or willfully choose to ignore the facts and the truth? If we can't agree on the facts and the truth because the sources of the facts and truth have been undermined, then we are lost.
5
Trump is incapable of using “data” (a less prejudicial term than “facts”) analytically to make judgements. He’s also a pathological liar and a narcissist. This is dreadful.
On the other hand, we have had perfectly sane and intelligent leaders lie to us and make terrible judgements in spite of facts they were aware of, e.g., missile gap, Vietnam, WMD.
1
We've all come across people like Trump in our lives; people who just seem removed from the reality that the majority of us accept. It's easy to just shrug most of these people off and say 'they just don't get it' or 'they're crazy, how do they not see the world as it plainly is and facts as they plainly are?'.
But now we have a person like that who became the president, and his very existence in that role gives legitimacy to fact-doubting. That's terrifying. Trump could've remained just another out-spoken guy who pushes conspiracy theories, and we'd all have a good laugh and say 'he's just being crazy'. Instead, we've propped him up on the world stage representing us, with him saying the media is the enemy, that climate change is debatable, and there are of course people out there who will believe whatever he says. The rest of us have to keep fighting back against this madness. What do we have left if we don't agree on reality?
5
The same Michael Hayden who lied to Congress during his 2007 testimony about the CIA's 'enhanced interrogation program.
Why isn't he under arrest for lying to Congress and for crimes against humanity?
2
Maybe Kavanaugh’s “what goes around comes around” will apply to Donald Trump. It’s no excuse but Donald was probably traumatized as a child while never being held accountable for anything. What kid wants to wear a suit when they are 10 years old?
The GOP led Congress along with Trump’s cabinet seem willing to let the US go down the drain rather than confront Trump. Trump seems to live in an alternate reality that somehow many people accept. The madness that is consuming the US needs to be stopped.
2
Trump appeals to the masses that don't read and don't believe scientists, facts, or anything that disagrees with their concept of reality. He charms them, tells them he will "MAGA" and they believe him. They don't bother to investigate - here is their savior right in front of them, promising to make their lives better. They don't realize that what Trump is really doing is enriching himself at their expense. They fail to see what Trump has done to all of us, making us fight against each other while he lines his pockets. It is truly horrendous. The only thing we can do is to continue to shine a light of truth on his lies, and get to the polls to vote him & his enablers out.
3
I thought a FREE PRESS was, or is, supposed to stop fascism in its tracks. When guys like Hayden and now, possibly, Mattis, get sidelined, then we can see that the tyrant is seeking the lesser qualified, the more compliant, etc, etc. The exact opposite of what he said he'd do. Now I'm beginning to wonder how much truth or fact the Times has had to conceal lately, forget going back years, but let's not go there. But back to the FREE PRESS thing. It looks like it's up to you in this mess. I think so far, the press and most tv is doing a good job holding the lines. It seems obvious to me the trumpies don't really know what's at stake here.
1
Isn't it disgusting that the party that claimed to be America's "moral majority" takes its marching orders from the most immoral and amoral president anyone alive has ever seen?
9
Alternative Headline:
A Lying President of the United States and his Fake Facts.
When will American voters demand consequences?
5
@Kay Johnson
When will American voters demand consequences?
In the voting booth on November 6, 2018 is a good starting point.
3
The fact that Trump refuses to believe in anything factual, anything evidence-based is appallingly beyond belief for an American president. It goes without saying that Trump provides all of us a daily opportunity to see, to understand, to fully comprehend what intellectual slothfulness resembles in human form. Don't be surprised when Mr. Mueller's report(s) finally see the light of day to hear Trump say "I didn't know what I was doing. Is that (name your crime) really against the law?"
Stupidity, thy name is Donald J. Trump.
1
There is no such thing as "your own facts", alternative truth, etc. Totally intellectually dishonest. He does not read anything. Fox is his only source of info. They manipulate him and steer him to what they want. This is a very restrictive source of info. Having such limited perspective does not help in any way in his job. He cannot just do whatever he likes. He is supposed to work on behalf of all Americans, whether they voted for him or not. He is a loose cannon who is not fit to be president.
4
The American public's flight from reality began with the rejection of the conservative pragmatism of Carter in favor of Reagan, who offered the fantasy that the United States is exempt from restrictions which apply to ordinary countries, that we can have pie in the sky and bills will never come due; that not only are we entitled to this beneficence because we are better people, but that other nations recognize that as well.
But the engine driving the crazy train is climate change denial, which legitimizesthe notion that scientists collude on this abstruse corollary of the laws of physics as the best means of perpetuating their great wealth and power; that fossil fuel companies are beleaguered victims of this slander, powerless to combat this enormously powerful lobby; and that non-scientists who expressed a belief in this danger were in fact motivated by the desire to tear down the US, since they are naturally evil and hate the greatness of the American people.
Aside from this twisted reasoning, the denialist movement habituated people to the concept that 10 minutes of reading a biased website is the equivalent of a lifetime of hard research and struggling to evaluate competing hypotheses; that the argument that there is really no warning and the various arguments all ascribing the warming to different causes are all in fundamental agreement; that there is no actual warming and that nobody is saying it's not warming; and similar violations of logic.
And so here we are .
2
This is what happens when you're a perfectionist but you aren't perfect. You can't make things better and you won't change your expectations to accept it, so the only way to be at any kind of peace with yourself and the world is to proclaim reality other than what it is.
Yes, we all know that he sees everything as a zero-sum interaction where he must win. No limits stand in his way—facts, morality, laws and institutions are all obstacles to winning.
The horrific fact is that 40 percent of Americans agree with him.
5
Maggie, of all we know about this president, of all his misogamy, of all his narcissism, of all his misguided policies, of all this man stands for (or not) the abandonment of truth and facts as guide to policy and leadership will be the longest lasting social issue that will take a generation for America to recover from.
Our young children at the age of 8 to 16 grow up and do come of age knowing that government is untruthful and is to be mistrusted. This damage will last a life time.
The cynical me tends to think that is why the Republican leadership supports Trump. If the lasting outcome is that government should not be trusted then they can claim: "Mission Accomplished".
3
It's not what happened that matters, it's the telling of it.
None of us directly experience what we read, see or hear in the media, except for very local news, like what happened at our neighbor's house or on the floor above in the office building. Even then we're often told what happened. Our direct experience is limited to what our 5 senses can record, and that is measured in yards.
So, yeah, what happened is nearly irrelevant compared to what is said happened. Again, Trump is merely boorish and ghastly at what has historically been a refined and nuanced activity managing the world of the citizenry.
2
Trump is too emotional to be president. He bases every decision on his feelings in the moment. He is guided by his feelings and emotions. Why is this a problem? Because reality is more than emotions and feelings.
If you feel like you can climb Mt. Everest, that is a good starting place. Accomplishing it requires a disciplined, long term commitment to acquiring the skills and capabilities of high altitude mountaineering. Otherwise, the mountain wins.
This is the danger of the Trump presidency. Trump appears on tv wearing his high altitude gear. He talks about how easy mountaineering is. None of this changes the mountain.
What is the mountain in this metaphor? The conditions that support the U.S. economy: global alliances, trade, consumer confidence, the rule of law, a level playing field, health, safety and security.
Faking it only gets you so far up the mountain. This is my greatest fear: that Trump and his enablers are undermining the economy on so many levels an avalanche will become inevitable.
6
And the people who support Trump are also disinterested in facts and live in an alternate universe. Good for them. This is still a free country, but that doesn't mean they are or will ever be a friend of mine or anyone I have respect for.
2
Trump is not unique in his simplistic, self absorbed, and skewed reality. In fact, he is emblematic of his class, the one that thinks itself of the ruling kind. We commoners are obliged to withstand its venality, confronted everyday by the abstract truth its elite members perpetuate. The CEO of my employer recently called upon his 16,000 workforce, whom he refers to as his “family” to tighten their belts, expect less, and to increase productivity while he pockets $20,000,000 p.a. plus stock options. The shareholders love his reality where the truth is that our “parent” is rolling in cash, led by incompetent misanthropes who rely on the competence of subordinates to attract this level of obscene profitability.
In some ways, Trump offers a nostalgic aspect to his politics: he takes a man at his word. Unfortunately, he’s taking the words of the wrong men. He lives in terror of being outplayed by them on the world scene, so to assume their honesty is far less challenging to his confidence than having to outthink them. Putin et al, therefore are engaging in a battle of wits with an unarmed adversary, and they progress their own agendas unfettered by an American chastening. This is what happens when a great democracy elects a buffoon into office.
Noam Chomsky referred to Walter Lippman’s theory of the manufacturing of consent. What we see today is an application, possibly an evolution of the same. We might call it manufactured truth.
3
If Trump's faithful held him accountable for his insistence on the veracity of demonstrably false statements, then he would quickly no longer do it. But because they give him a free ride--every time--he's in a no-lose position a believes he can proceed with impunity.
2
I'm still waiting for this very smart man who knows everything, everything, to do something that might actually help the country.
3
One of the most glaring signs of how the GOP has changed (at least in my lifetime) is in its apparent willingness to follow Trump's ample, but demonstrably ignorant, "gut" instincts. In "Atlas Shrugged," Rand (hero to Ryan-conservatives and libertarians) wrote of human instincts: "An instinct of self-preservation is precisely what man does not possess. An 'instinct' is an unerring and automatic form of knowledge. A desire is not an instinct. A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living. And even man's desire to live is not automatic: your secret evil today is that that is the desire you do not hold. Your fear of death is not a love of life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it. Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer--and that is the way he has acted through most of history.”
Think or perish. I disagree with Rand's moral philosophies in too many ways to list, but she was absolutely right about that. Trump exercises supreme executive power (including the rhetorical power of his office) without thought, which is inherently dangerous. Our nation giving him that power in the first place was akin to signing up for at least 4 years of Russian roulette. Every time he uses such power is another spin of the carousel and pull of the trigger with the barrel against OUR (not Trump's) heads.
1
It's clear that in our post-Christian era, most people hate explanations that involve the spiritual. And yet in this case, there is no alternative. Facts are physical things that involve our senses, tangible and provable. And so when facts are disregarded, nay denied, not only by the man elected to lead us but by his unwavering followers, the explanation for this behavior must be outside the physical. And that is the meaning of "spiritual".
America has become a ball of raw ganglia -- blind emotion -- raw hatred.
There's no sense in "going low" as Eric Holder would have us do. It'll momentarily feel good while the monster of hatred feasts. Or we may argue endlessly about what got us here -- a recession for which no white-collar person did time, a black President, jobs going overseas... but we're way beyond the place where any of those things matter. The only solution is for people who still possess a conscience to do their civic duty and vote because this is a country headed for a cliff.
1
This pious talk of "facts" seems to come from a pre-postmodern era when it was possible to talk about such things with a straight face. Everyone now agrees with Nietzsche whether they admit it to themselves or not that there are no facts only interpretations of facts. In that context, emotion trumps reason as the only standard for what is true. People believed Ford for purely emotive reasons - the evidence, what little there was of it, didn't support her, and Kavanaugh responded emotively because he knows how to play the postmodern game. Trump is just a symptom of this disease but we think he's crazy for doing what we all do, what our culture all be requires us to do, because we're uncomfortable with what we've become. I wouldn't mind a renaissance of truth, facts and reason, but I'm afraid that ship has sailed and is unlikely to return [except in a deracinated form in which "facts" are asserted for purely rhetorical reasons - not because anyone really believes there are such things].
1
The big consequence is continuing to damage trust. Trust, the general acceptance that someone will do what they say, is still what makes our society different. Without trust, we head towards the social situations in many South American countries where it becomes nearly impossible for the general good to improve.
1
OK. So this is the New Political Reality. It's like the reality workers have to live in. That is, the skills and resume you built from age 18 to age 40 will be irrelevant when some new technology comes on line or your corporate heads decide to close your headquarters or factory and move it across the country or abroad. What do you do? Take to the streets and protest, get drunk, uproot your family and move, go back to school and start at the bottom in a new career? Patriotic, decent Americans who see what DJT and Republicans are doing to facts and decency and old rules of governance can't keep pointing it out and protesting it. We have to learn to function in the New Political Reality. If they are winning by emotional appeals that highlight one narrow set of "facts" and ignore all other facts to the contrary, we can do that too. It's a "fact" that "the rich get richer" while the middle-class goes deeper in debt to keep what it has. It's a "fact" that "old, rich white men" and spoiled, entitled prep school boys run our government and economy. It's a "fact" (nobody can prove otherwise) that storms and droughts and wildfires prove that our children and grandchildren will live in a world of chaos, dislocation, mass immigration from poor countries that is already starting, continuous wars over oil, food shortages and high unemployment. In other words, we too can use "facts" to create resentment and fear. Whatever it takes to win.
1
Once again, as I read the comments there's not one from Trumpistas, not one defending their leader. At least, they know that there's nothing redeeming about Donald, nothing to defend! The man is a louse, a misogynist, chronic liar, bully and racist! This IS who Donald is. The Republicans still support him, 85% of registered Republicans!
Thankfully, Independents, Moderate Republicans, and Democrats far our number the Trumpistas! VOTE OUT as many Republicans as we can!
3
As scary as Trump is, the scarier thing is that his followers don't seem to care how much of a liar he is. In fact, they seem to revel in it.
I don't want to dismiss them by saying all of these people are stupid. Certainly that's true for some, as there are always going to be people who just aren't too bright. But the fact that the bright ones, those whom one presumes are capable of critical thinking, don't demand a higher standard from a president only suggests to me that their bank accounts are growing, and that is really, really all they ultimately care about, whatever they may say.
2
Trump’s lying and denying incontrovertible truths will destroy our nation. If you think otherwise, you will suffocate. Your head will be buried in a barrage of lies emanating from Trump’s foul mouth.
3
"Michael V. Hayden, a former C.I.A. director who served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said that Mr. Trump could be coaxed into believing objective reality."
Right, from the guy who was a member of the Bush-Cheney fake news, lies, false facts Iraq's WMDs production team that cost the nation trillions and thousands of innocent lives on both sides. And let's not forget all the fake facts driving Obama's Rice-trips to FISA to spy on US citizens at will.
More fraud and hypocrisy from the deep-swamp--and our Sovietized press, e.g., NYT. This piece--QED.
1
@Alice's Restaurant Are you saying that Hayden is wrong, Trumpster?
@Douglas Lowenthal
No. I'm saying Hayden belongs in Leavenworth.
"Over the course of 21 months, President Trump has loudly and repeatedly refused to accept a number of seemingly agreed-upon facts"
LOL! Allinsky type group think and manipulation defined right there.
seemingly agreed upon facts????
GOOD GRIEF!
Sad that any regular type citizen blindly follows every word of these propagandists - "as if" they were their own thoughts...
1
Correct title:
A Party(GOP) & his president, who believes that they're entitled to their own facts.
1
A wise man once explained to me that some people just don’t understand what facts are...
You can’t fool physics. Eventually the O-Ring cracks.
2
And that was a horrific day when the facts exploded on live TV. Living under Trump is like waiting for the Space Shuttle to blow up.
Trump is the most predictable President in history. He has a bottomless need for validation. ANYONE who gives him validation immediately becomes a friend and ally. ANYONE who denies him that becomes a foe. Without exception. The quality of the person interacting with him or the quality of their ideas is completely irrelevant to him. If they praise him and support him, he will do the same. If the criticise him, he will try to destroy them.
Unfortunately for ALL of us, radical right wing operators and despotic foreign leaders figured this out very early in the Trump Presidency and have been playing Trump's psychopathology like a cheap fiddle. He is surrounded by third rate radical ideologues who heap praise on him and who, in return, have been given complete control of the Trump agenda. Trump is, in a very real sense, the ultimate "useful idiot". Mitch McConnell knows this. The Federalist Society knows this. Putin knows this. "Rocket Man" knows this. The list goes on.
Trump is a danger to our country. He is a danger to the World. He must go. PLEASE, vote next month. Give control of Congress to Democrats so they can serve as a check on this incompetent, malignant, ignorant man and on the people who are manipulating him for their own selfish ends. Our country is in your hands.
9
Deep seated mental illness:
The Emperor's clothes.
3
Well, here in the Real America, all this "fact" stuff is real easy to figure out. My and my family and all our other cousins we is all FULL DUNK Primitive Baptis and we support our President who was Chose By God 10000%. We has been FULL DUNKED and NOT SPRANKLED and we is MAGA!!
So when Our Preecher talks, we believe it.
When Mr Trump talks, we believe it.
Fox Says It.
Trump Repeats It.
We Believe It.
That Settles It.
Amen.
We need simple color coding for tracking "lies" of the President. Red thru green with red being constantly lying. List it along with terror threat on DHS website. A lying President is definitely a security risk in my mind.
None of this lying, truthful hyperbole, alternate sets of facts can work unless there is an audience foolish enough and gullible enough to believe it, or at least accept it whether they believe it or not.
Unfortunately this country has a large number of such people. Trump is a master at playing them for the suckers they are, and even when they know they're being played they seem content with it.
Russia also recognizes the weakmindedness of many of us. They wouldn't bother putting out all the false information if they thought it wouldn't work, they're doing it because they know it does work.
Troubling, that our President and Russia have so much in common, and that what they most have in common is the ability to effectively lie to us.
1
Trump is just gaslighting the whole world. Whether he believes the lies that come out of his mouth or in his tweets or not, he spews demonstrably false statements all the time - and some people believe him. It’s very difficult to create good public policy with someone who insists that the sky is green and further insists that if you don’t agree with him then you are the crazy one.
3
This article could be summarized thusly: “Trump is a con man and compulsive liar.”
9
This is one of the most disturbing articles I have read in NYT in recent memory
6
President Trump's response to the Khashoggi disappearance has not been mischaracterized; it has been reported. Hence, it is "fake news." Fake or not, the news is disgusting and dispiriting, and it is just one piece of a very large pattern.
2
@John LeBaron - they are starting a whisper campaign against Koshggi......that he is somehow connected to terrorist groups.....attempting to give cover to the Saudi's for his murder.....and thus for trump for supporting them.......just when you that his psychophants cannot go any lower ..they prove me wrong..!!
1
Nothing Trump says should be news: He is a chronic and compulsive liar. The media's addiction to his always-ridiculous bloviations undermines democracy by diluting needed information with his verbal diarrhea -- not to mention it got him elected and might again.
At most, there should be a column buried deep inside entitled "Trump's Blather of the Day."
It is time to figure out what changes to democracies are needed to prevent future Trumps, Berlusconis, and Hitlers -- persons seriously unqualified to govern. "It can't happen here" is no longer the answer.
Maybe only generals, long-term senators and Nobel-prize winners -- or persons similarly accomplished -- should be allowed to run.
2
I agree, politicians should have at least a masters degree in political science, law, history, economics, or other rigorous fields of study. Being a politician needs to become a profession with rigorous ethical and moral standards (in a secular way). Ethics should be a part of everyone’s education from Kindergarten through masters programs.
Celebrities, and millionaires do not belong in politics. The very wealthy should not be allowed to run, they have have all the power and advantage they need.
1
It's one thing to be entitled to his own facts, but Trump just outright lies and makes stuff up out of thin air.
I've never ever seen any serious politician that just plainly lies in such a blatant way without any shame, and is absolved by his own party and his voters.
Donald Trump is a disgraceful bigot and liar, and I hope sooner or later people will rise up and say NO MORE!
3
A Google search on "Trump Claims Without Evidence" returns 361 million hits. "Dems behind migrant caravan", "Google rigged against him", "Kavanaugh protesters paid", "NBC 'fudged' Trump interview", and on and on. Going all the way back to his "birther" stance in 2011 or earlier, he greatly prefers "alternate facts" that serve his ego. Add all these lies (the proper word) to his many personality disorders (narcissism, misogyny, god complex, etc.), and he truly is a "sad, embarrassing wreck of a man". (George Will)
2
Will someone please ask Jared, Ivanka, Melania or any other member of the Trump cabal if they believe climate change is a hoax? I would like to see them squirm to give an answer.
3
In other words, as Charles Pierce has so accurately written, President Trump is Grandpa Fox News.
If Trump spoke French, I bet he'd echo King Louis the XIV: "l'etat, c'est moi." He sure as shooting acts like it.
2
Another truthful and scary expose of the man in the WH. His destruction of truth and objectivity must be rejected. He's a cancer on humanity. Let's act like white cells.
We should shift the focus of our anger and disgust to the useless representatives in Congress. These people have ceased to care about the good of the country.
Unfortunately, the responsibility of governing the country falls on these power-hungry, vapid, nudge-nudge, wink-wink sycophants that only care about keeping and extending their own power and wealth.
The mid-terms are a chance to voice your disgust. Everyone who rejects this insanity must vote! America cannot be traded for the veil of lies and deception the GOP has endorsed. The world needs our participation and leadership. Trump's america first means america only. That isn't possible. We are a part of the global community, and we must accept our responsibility and act as a beacon of light we have always aspired to be. Reject the GOP. Reject Trump.
3
Power entitled to their own facts?-Nothing new. My first awareness was An American President Assassinated- with Power producing a huge document in essence made of their own facts. So Yeah-telling us to believe in Santa Clause nothing new. What is new is how these assassinations used to be covered up. Now in the light of day, they don't even bother. Progress of 55 years...........
Kennedy conspiracy theories are something I indulged in in college. We hadn't seen a lot of lone male shooters yet. Lee Harvey Oswald had to be a dupe, we thought. Individuals do not act like that.
But they do. Some men like to stand somewhere high and shoot people. That one did it to a President. That's just about as simple as it was.
My President do or die. Can I have a third choice?
"Trump repeatedly painted climate science as a matter of political opinion."
But Mother Nature doesn't do politics, and she always gets her way in the long run.
5
Do any of you remember when John Kerry's run for president was derailed because he was a "flip-flopper"? Meaning, he changed his mind on an issue. Kerry was analytical and thoughtful. He, like most of us, believed that we need to change our minds when we are factually wrong.
But Trump, as always, is the biggest and best at what he does. He is the champion flip-flopper of all time. He speaks on both sides of every issue whenever the political winds shift and make it more convenient to say A rather than B.
3
I'm afraid something will happen and because of Trump it will be catastrophic. Maybe our allis will desert us or there just won't be a leader to take charge since the U.S. is no longer a player. The Republicans keep letting him getaway with whatever he does. What happened to the 25th Amendment? Something is coming and the consequences will be worse than anyone can imagine. And it will be Trump's fault as well as the Republicans.
3
Reality is harsh on those who reject it in favor of their imaginations, which is what Trump is doing. We must never forget that we perceive things according to what our brains allow us, not what objective reality is informing us. If our brains expect to perceive anything, it will have trouble accepting anything different. We have to learn when to be skeptical about what we think that we know when things seem not to be as we expected. Otherwise, we find that we are suffering outcomes for which we are not prepared and do not want. Trump seems not to do that.
For Trump it seems that anything he does which seems to result in what he wants serves him fine. As the owner of a family business with plenty of people to deal with all the details of reality, it works okay, at least the poor consequences are limited. But as President, it’s very dangerous.
The President is given much discretion so the disorder and lack of reasonable decision making is undoing the ability of the institutions of government to function well in their intended purposes. Trump’s loose relationship with reality is destructive to our society as long as he remains in office.
1
Please allow me to enlighten you on this mentality.
I do house calls for my line of work. I see one of my clients twice a week, the business type who is ALWAYS on their phone. This has been going for about four years.
A few times a year, I show up at our usual time, and knock on the front door (no doorbell). No one answers. I send a text....nothing. I chill for a few minutes and scroll through the NYT on my phone. Knock again, nothing. Repeat, repeat. Call him, no answer, skip to voicemail.
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, the door swings open and the first words from his lips,
"Did you knock?"
Separate realities. I rest my case.
1
The man is categorically unfit to lead anything beyond a roadside lemonade stand, and even then I wouldn’t buy what he’s selling.
4
Nice commentary. Our country is being led by a mental patient. I only wish they would have stabilized his medication before discharge. However, as it’s well know that this type of patient is non-compliant with medication regime after discharge, it’s likely he’s off meds AGAIN.
3
It's the power of conviction. Trump is most believable when he says things that he does believe at least a little bit. To him, if it's plausible, it must be right. He is the master of sowing doubt.
Reagan had that same ability: to be sincere in his belief even though it was wrong in some way.
2
Needy people like our misogynist Apprentice President who talks and spells like a third grader - with my apologies most third graders - don't accept science nor truth.
He not only seems to suffer from mommy issues, but also from projection defense mechanism.
2
Tribalism gives Trump cover for his exceptional ability to lie and have many voters believe his lies. Whenever someone makes a statement like, "All of the other rotten Republicans are just as bad as Trump" this legitimizes Trump by putting him into a bucket with others that includes some honorable politicians who are decent human beings.
1
@Illinois Moderate I know of one honorable republican and she is a state legislator in Vermont...I know of no others.
So, help me understand this. We have a person in the WH who has clear Autocratic and Fascist tendencies and the Republican Congress is okay with that? Trump, regales himself and his base with "untruths" okay...lies about what reality is, he lambasts the media as fake news (except for Fox which really IS Fake news), and calls the Democrats angry mobs (because they don't agree with him) and he sets himself up as the only one who can deliver his base from all the terrible evils that the Left is perpetrating against them. So, what does the Republican Congress think is going to happen to our country? Are they supportive of trading in our Democracy for an Autocracy or perhaps a dictatorship? Or do they all have money in foreign bank accounts and plan to move to another country once their terms are up? I just don't get it.
2
Although Trump represents the nadir of mendacity to date, the Republicans in the modern civil rights era, i.e., the last 60 years, must deceive to succeed in the electoral process.
Republicans have no interest in representing the majority of Americans. Indeed, all their policy actions appear to exhibit an unrepentant, unflinching servitude to the wealthiest 1% and their associated trusts and corporations.
2
It's equally important to call out the right wing media that amplifies and conspires with Trump to distort reality. Much of Trump's narrative comes from folks at various Fox programs. Hannity may as well be a paid senior advisor. Bill Shine used to run Fox along with Roger Ailes, and both had more in common with political hacks than journalists.
Trump's lies run all up and down his agenda. The lies are not simple mistakes or misunderstandings. They're calculated to rile up a very gullible base and justify his regressive, racist, and self serving policies. Virtually nothing he says about trade, immigration, crime, race, treaties, allies, and historical enemies is true or discussed in proper context.
When called out, Trump will cite anonymous sources or bogus media stories or Russian propaganda or strongly biased sources. Or he'll simply say nobody knows or he just knows best.
This would all be fine if he was a harmless, somewhat demented relative. But he's the president of the United States. His misstatements undergird policies that threaten the lives and livelihoods of countless millions. And, though far from the first, he also poisons our political process. Bipartisanship is essentially dead. And denying global warming may literally ruin the planet for most species including humans.
Trump won't change and he won't leave voluntarily. The first step in recovery from Trump derangement syndrome is to vote accordingly on November 6th.
1
Maggie, I'm really sorry but even though this is a thoughtful essay, tell us NYT readers something that we don't know.
2
C'mon! Trump is a lost cause.
Yes report his outrageous lies and bizarre statements to document his increasing disconnect with reality, but COMPLAINTS and intense pressure should be targeted on the ONLY two people who can actually DO something about psychopath Trump... Ryan and McConnell.
Why do we let these two deadbeats off scott-free to sit by idly and just count their PAC money.
The press needs to place constant and intense pressure on these two leaders of Congress who allow an increasing corrupt president defy the emoluments clause, ignore the rule of law, make up lies and maintain a cesspool of corruption within his administration.
McConnell and Ryan have completely failed the American people. It is their CONSTITUTIONAL duty to exercise CHECKS on this out of control president's abuse of power.
Instead, McConnell and Ryan are Co-Conspirators in Trump's obstruction of justice and efforts to create chaos to undermine the United States rule of law.
3
The point of view of this piece is a rather sympathetic explanation for absolute willful twisting and manipulation of the truth.
That is what DT does. He panders to the “base” and has made a partner of Fox TV which amplifies his statements with no questioning and in fact by adding far right tidbits.
This is deliberate. It is not ignorance. It is not an egotistical point of view. It is a strategy. And the craven Republican Party allows him to get away with.
It is “The Ministry of Truth”. (Read 1984- or reread it).
After everything is said and done, you cannot get away from the simple fact that the man is a mental case.
4
He only believes in what his spacious “gut” tells him, what he thinks makes him look like a “winner”, what lies can be told to a horde of maniac supporters to get a shot to his ego. The reality is that fot Donald Trump there IS NO SUCH A THiNG AS TRUTH.
Truth simply doesn’t exist for him.
1
In real life, I have encountered people who saw the same facts that I saw but denied their reality or drew the opposite conclusions from what a reasonable person might draw. Fortunately, these people had no authority and their worldview was inconsequential or at the most had a limited effect.
I have also come across the statement in psychology literature that reality is largely subjective. To put it concretely, what is yellow for me may be orange for you. The difference in this example is small. But what if green for me is red for you, or vice versa? This is the problem we have with Mr. Trump. His perception of reality can be so erroneous that it could have disastrous consequences for the nation or even the whole world.
What do we do to prevent this disaster from happening? The Congress is not responding to this possibility, nor are the courts. The Constitution has no power of its own. It derives its power from those who must uphold it. If it is not upheld, it becomes a useless document.
Is the Constitution a useless document for Mr. Trump?
168
@ALM The issue is "seemingly agreed upon facts". As a reader of the NYT,WSJ,Commentary, the hill and National Review, I find the NYT consistently mixing up commentary/editorial opinion and facts. I find your bias as pro-Democrat and anti-Republican/Trump.
Your editorial board has a asian member who "hates old white men". Another board member told Hilary Clinton to please dissapear- it's "going to hurt us".
You have gambled with your credibility and only the liberal left acknowledges your credibility. The WSJ has been fair and down the middle. THEY HAVE CREDIBILITY. YOU ARE THE MOUTHPIECE FOR LIBERAL/LEFT DEMOCRATS.
SAD
No, the Constitution is not useless for Trump—it's irrelevant—just an old document to ignore as he creates his own reality.
1
@ALM
Since Daddy Trump brought his son his college education, I seriously doubt that Trump knows anything and not even his beloved real estate.
Trump knows what he is doing and since he knows he cant go down in history as a brilliant president he would rather go down in blazing glory as a stooge for all the dictators in the world. We are all going to vote in a couple of weeks and all of these old tired simple minded fools are going to be voted out. Tax cuts for the rich while the rest of us starve, that is a fact and it is always going to be a fact.
Then we will go after these conservative judges, the American people who believe in democracy are fighting back with everything we have.
He and little Jared will just keep on lying till they are out of office. Fact, their is no peace plan for the Middle East.
Fact, Jared is corrupt and everything he does is smoking mirrors.
Fact, Trump knew before the Washington Post writer was murdered that the gentleman was walking to his death.
Fact, Trump doesn't care about America at all, it is about him and his selfish family.
my facts like most Americans are based on evidence not fanciful thoughts.
So if GOP loses the House in the midterms, will he accept that as “fact”?
2
@EW
He’s already inoculated the audience against this interpretation by telling that if they lose it’s not his fault. Plus, by constantly thumping on voter fraud, any outcome that doesn’t go his way is fraud.
Please, please everyone just stop trying to normalize Donald Trump. He is not normal. He clearly has serious, serious issues with orientation to time, place and manner. He will not come around. He's a pampered Richie Rich. No one has ever said "no" to him, he has never really "lost" a legal claim to the extent it caused him real pain or forced him to change his thinking, he has never been indicted despite all his shady tax and business dealings, he vanquished 16 other Republicans using grammar school name-calling, and then he accidently became president because of the quirks of the Electoral College. You think YOU'RE going to change him now? What a joke and a waste of good ink trying to do and re-do these semi-psychological analyses.
11
As Steve Schmidt said yesterday on Deadline WhiteHouse....
"Democracy is built on truths and facts. Without truth, you would not be able to have accountability which is the checks and balances needed in our Democratic institutions."
Trump has an agenda to undermine truths, our institutions of separate branches and independent law enforcement. Fabricated lies have no place in our governing of the US. Trump is a public servant but thinks he is a king.
4
Trump has personal financial interests in having good relations with Saudis and Saudi Arabia (real estate +). The US has legitimate national interest in having good relations with Saudi Arabia (oil supply, arms sales, action against Iran). The US also has a strong national interest in preventing and causing consequences for barbaric acts like the torture and murder of Koshoggi. The available public information supports a strong inference that the Saudi government and MBS in particular are responsible for Kashoggi's torture and murder. No doubt the CIA has an even clearer understanding. All of this should be the stuff of a vigorous public debate and debate within government. Trump's gaslighting is reprehensible. It undermines US interests and the legitimate debate that should occur.
2
All it would take is for Fox News to start calling Trump out on his lies and "mistruths" and the game would change. But we don't expect that anytime soon. Anytime ever. They are complicit. A grave injustice to the American people.
4
I am just afraid that 50 years from now, there will be a book called "The Fall of the Greatest Nation".
1
To make up your own reality and believe in it despite contrary evidence is delusional and can also be considered psychotic. It is typical of severe mental illness. Mass belief in delusions is found when people join cults. This is also seen in dictatorships where the authoritarian leader creates a personality cult to dominate a country, no matter what the consequences. At a national level, there is a fire in our house.
6
@Knowledge Is Power Further thoughts on my own comment: Take this a step further with someone who learns to tell others what they want to hear and does it so well from childhood that they aren't afraid of consequences or project the blame out to those who seek to correct them. Sensing what others want to hear is the talent of politicians and con artists. If there is no moral consideration the use of this ability is psychopathic. 45 is like other authoritarians who read their audience. He is not Hitler, but in Mein Kampf Hitler wrote about taking the measure of his audience when speaking, and he would purposely whip up their emotions. Emotions are contagious and are field-like, so someone with that talent can feel them as well as read them in others' facial expressions. The Republican leadership is supporting this misuse of power. I hope this conveys the full depth of our troubles.
How, exactly, do his adoring crowds at his rallies think he is helping them? How can they accept such an immoral “president “ who would endorse a candidate who body slammed a reporter when the most horrific thing happened to the Saudi journalist? Yet there they were behind him laughing at his despicable antics. They wouldn’t even accept such behavior in their own children!
8
The difference between a strong man and mean man is MATURITY and INTELLECT. This man is mean.
8
malignant narcissism. A generic term for a finding in a person with a psychopathic personality disorder, which is characterised by marked narcissism and antisocial behaviour. Such “inhumanity and propensity toward evil” may be extreme and is common in serial killers and dictators.
1
Since Trump reads nothing, listens to no one, has a very limited education, and gets his facts from Fox & Friends, it is hardly surprising that he makes up stuff and has no interest in actual facts.
But Trump is symptomatic of vast swaths of Americans who have abandoned all pretense of critical thinking or intellectual curiosity. "As seen on TV" is the intellectual standard of the day., or in more modern terms "As seen on the Internet."
The scandal is that we have a President who is no better able to discern fact from fiction than a drunk barfly screaming at the Television. Trump doesn't drink, but his sensibilities are the same. He reacts viscerally to everything he sees or hears without any governance on his mouth or thumbs. This is not the stuff of which presidents should be made.
Trump is completely unfit for his office, and the dummies who support him because he thinks like they do are complicit. Worse are the smart people who know Trump is a disaster but support him because they can use him for their own selfish purposes--either partisan Republicans, or oligarchs who don't care who is in office as long as the government abets them in working the system exploitatively to enrich themselves.
15
@William O. Beeman
Yes. He’s really no more qualified to be president than that garrulous old guy sitting at the end of the bar.
1
Say a false or misleading statement enough times and you can change conventional wisdom. It is an old ploy and Trump the Chump has mastered it. Unfortunately, America is not better off because of him or the GOP.
We live in a time of moral relativism. This situation currently represents that worse example of moral relativism. My father was fond of arguing how the 60s and 70s were a horrible period for this, I am glad he and my mother did not live to experience the 21st century's version.
1
He really doesn't believe in anything, except his own "superiority".
6
As I said in an earlier comment,
Here is the problem, ladies and gentlemen:
“If there’s no truth, how do we discuss and make decisions that are rooted in fact?” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican operative based in California. “It’s been abandoned. And it’s something that the Republican base certainly isn’t going to revolt on him on. But it is a huge fundamental problem of how to govern when there are no facts.”
The republican base is not going to abandon The Con Don over something as boring as facts. They live in an alternate world where the only heroes are the ones who can do the most destruction - in human lives, resources and finance - to benefit themselves only.
It's called the mafia and any lawmaker of any party who buys into it is guilty of treason against democratic governance in OUR United States of America.
16
People can pretend but it’s not reality, it’s shared imaginations.
The loyal 35% that comprise the Trump Base May be fooled but this man’s fact twisting, his lying, his ignorance of how governing works. They love their bull-in-a-china-shop president. But a child can disrupt and destroy. That’s easy. Being the leader of the free world is a bit more difficult.
Trump is fooling no one, no one that is who believes facts outplay myth, that science trumps wishful thinking.
He may wallow in his scripted political rallies and feed off of his fans’ adulation. But you can’t win elections with 35% of the electorate. He is losing the moderates and the independents. He is losing the women vote.
November 6th will the the day the Republican Party gets its political head handed to them.
6
When less than 60% of the electorate votes, 35% is a decisive majority.
1
Donald Trump is accomplished and masterful at precisely two things: 1) Dominating people through emotional and physical abuse 2) Obtaining attention. He uses these two skill sets to sell his brand, con money from suppliers, investors, customers and lenders and to maintain a one-sided advantage in personal relationships. We're as a country experiencing what his family, his employees, his customers, investors, lenders, his business associates and anyone who got his attention (or he perceived as taking attention away from himself) have always experienced from him. Trump desires to continue relationships (or perceives that he has them) even with people he has burned, fired, sued, divorced, or otherwise ruined. For most people, that would exceed the parameters of a relationship and there would be no expectation of calling them up and chatting- but for Trump, it is simply an extension of the original relationship, but with easier scorekeeping (all of his relationships have scores). Most of us are in that part of a Trump relationship. We're standing there just like the PM of Montenegro getting shoved.There is only one way to rebuild a country based on observable truths- and that's to get rid of Donald Trump. And there are only two ways to do that: 1) vote Democrat on Nov 6 so the House and Senate can take the action that is needed to stabilize the Republic 2) vote him out in 2020 if he manages to survive until then. In other words, stop taking Donald Trump's calls.
8
If a president of the United States has made a priority, rather has made his ONLY priority, some kind of alternative reality that seems to comport with his personal needs, then, to point out the obvious, he is actively neglecting the actual reality in which everyone else in the country - and the world for that mattter - live and work and raise their families. Given that he serves at their pleasure, is this not a clear dereliction of duty? And, given that it is, surely there are other elected officials who live within the reality abandoned by Trump who have a duty to the interests of that more common reality and who, therefore, have a responsibilty to remove Trump from his position of power.
I mean, isn’t all of this OBVIOUS??
As a non-American citizen of this world, I am imploring reality-dwelling Americans of voting age to, next month, begin the process of evicting Trump by voting for representitives who still occupy the reality common to all of us but Trump. If you fail in this mission, your country will be further along the road to ruin and will be dragging the rest of the world in its wake. Please know that we don’t want to make that journey.
Please, please, awaken to the existential dangers that this man represents. The nausea and exhaustion suffered by the rest of the world are simply too high a price to pay in our effort to accommodate him and his self-serving “truths.” He is but one man and, given his outlandish conduct, he may be something less than that.
8
@Charles Sager, if only you could somehow broadcast this message to the American electorate, perhaps you could convince someone who is on the fence, that the time is now.
How do citizens, who would not accept lying from their business partners, employees, friends, etc., accept it from a President?
Working in private equity, I'm beginning to see investors second-guess rabid Trump supporters since investing depends on shared facts and integrity.
7
Well, the most we will have to tolerate this anomaly is eight years. Hopefully, we will survive the era of denial and degradation.
@Truthiness 8 years.....but I, for one, don't want to live in this "era of denial and degradation" for another second.
@Truthiness The Germans were led down the garden path and the damage was far more devastating than putting up with Trump for 8 years.
@Truthiness - I don't know about others but I for one greatly fear that we cannot SURVIVE as a country for 8 years of trump.....I am afraid....
Creating an alternative universe of facts is common on the part of many world leaders right now. Blind belief in world leadership supports their moves on the chessboard of world affairs. However, the belief that God will take care of climate change issues is a religiously driven ideology that should not be in the White House. Trump has appeased to many organizations, institutions, investors and world leaders with his rhetoric aimed at capitalism while world markets diminish because we rely on algorithmic banking and old economic models to continue to drive our economic policy. While capitalism never promised more than opportunity and certainly does not support equality, democracy is the tool by which we an achieve equity. The "dance of the dollars" between nations for too many purposes is duly noted by the world's leading economists and it is time for us create socially responsible capitalist models for the future.
Thank you very much for reporting on this. As a scientist, Trump's obvious disdain for objective evidence has been particularly troubling to me. My sincere hope is that once Trump is gone, we can return to a world where facts matter again in decision making and public discourse, but I fear that Trumps's behavior is merely a symptom of broader trends in our internet-based society; people can conveniently pick and choose the "facts" that comport to their ideology or preconceived notions. If we truly are in a post truth world, then we are in deep trouble indeed.
3
"He accepts less-than-credible denials from autocratic heads of state about nefarious acts. He disputes the existence of man-made climate change and insists that photographic evidence of the crowd at his inauguration is fake..."
He is: The Most Interesting Demagogue in The World!
"I don't always adhere to reality. But when I do, I prefer my own."
Stay thirsty, my friends. VOTE!
21
A curious quote of perfect hypocrisy from Michael Hayden who lives safely in his bunker with the 2001 crew in their eternal now--no history, no consequences. Only the profits of deception. As for the current President giving the "benefit of the doubt" to foreign rulers, that is somewhat inaccurate: he seeks to cultivate some basis for regular, direct communication over terms in business and policy which is a far more enlightened instinct than any his immediate predecessor displayed. That comes from confidence and experience which are two qualities in scarcity among the Washington intellectual class (and former presidents whose only experience was in a classroom). Trump may very well be among the most poorly understood presidents in recent history, at least among his detractors. That is not an endorsement per se, only a moderated consideration.
@Matt Andersson Thanks Kellyanne. It’s clear a lot of people don’t understand Trump. I’m not one of them.
1
The next time we have an opportunity to choose a president it would behoove us to vote for one that has a soul, releases their tax returns, can provide proof that they passed sixth grade civics, believes in science, and that they are not deeply mentally impaired. Even some Republicans can pass that test. Not many, but some.
9
I wonder if the following would help make the point to Mr. Trump that his choice to speak falsely has consequences. The next time our national television networks cover a long-format Trump speech, it should be aired with a tape delay of a couple minutes so it can have an immediate fact-checking split screen next to the speech. Leave the small stuff alone, but point out what is clearly not true as it is being said. Yes, this would be an extraordinary thing to do to a president, but so is lying so brazenly to the public. This print story is the print medium's way of dealing with Trump's continuing falsehoods. Television needs to develop its own method for dealing with untruths that otherwise are broadcast unchallenged.
27
@TH - The so called mainstream media has been so maligned by trump and his minions that even fact checked statements are considered to be false. trump has managed to brainwash a segment of our population that will believe anything he says. Fact checking will do nothing. Fox News proves this every single day!
This is the social world of inherited wealth. In that world, the rich man is alway right. He is surrounded by sycophants who tell him how smart he is. The Republican party has evolved into an entity that serves the interests of these people at the expense of everyone else. Massive tax cuts for the wealthy in an era of economic growth are deemed the actual cause of that growth. Environmental protections are eradicated because they constrain the elite from using our water and air to their own ends. Policies that aid the poor and the sick are abolished because the rich man will never need them. We are not inching toward tyranny, we are crawling back toward aristocracy.
5
Trump is supported by the lowest elements of our country, and unfortunately, that includes Republican members of Congress. The disappointment I feel cannot be overstated: Trump is only one person, and the Rs could have reined him in. But their desire to hold on to their jobs and perks have taken precedence over everything else. Our only hope is for enough voters to come out and take over the House in 18 more days.
6
We're in an age where we're not to discriminate against other people's views, which means lies, truths, facts and fiction are all part of our shared reality and must be respected.
Postmodernism said we all have our own truth, and that has morphed into acceptance of alternative facts, fiction, dramatic misrepresentations of reality, and the use of faith as a secular act that something can be true, is true despite any evidence to the contrary. Today, truth is in the eye of the beholder.
But this has been going on for a long time, where the owners and managers of the political economy have made up laws, rules, regulations, case law, they have manipulated markets of all kinds, made up foreign policy and elected to go to war as they please, they set monetary policy and base or debase currency and interest rates as fiat fiction, and then they tell us the people all about it in the media they own and control as a story.
People may bristle at Trump's brazen lies and throw rotten tomatoes at his gross misrepresentations of reality he directs but there is a much more pervasive and pernicious form of fiction that's been going on throughout the ages, and if Trump breaks that toy by his boorishness, then we are all made better in the long run: sometimes it has to get worse before it gets better.
3
Let's look at our relationship with facts. We buy facts at face value, without exercising any form of evaluation of its quality or without looking at other facts, that may contradict the first one. First example: let's read the market reports that were written pre-2008 financial market crisis. They all reported that the markets were absolutely fine, perfect. All the reports were based in facts and yet, in September we watched the world markets and pension funds melt in one morning. No one saw it coming and the few that did, were called crazy. The reports were most probably biased and the facts presented to us were false. This last phrase is a FACT and we are still ignoring it. Another example, any citizen can obtain its birth certificate in a matter of days, online. Still, it took former President Obama, THREE full years to produce his. This is a FACT, it is strange and it gives room for doubts and speculation and yet, everyone ignored, except a few "crazy" people. So, my opinion is that everyone has its own personal agenda, either ideological or mundane, and this agenda filters down, in higher or lower degree, in his opinions. No one is 100% unbiased. President Trump's opinions are infected by his beliefs in the highest possible level, but at least he is fully transparent. We all know that we are hearing his opinions. His evaluation of the facts. The rest of us try to look nice and truthful, but deep inside, we know that we are always trying to push our agendas. Are we not?
3
@John This is terrible logic. Bad prediction, especially where the stock market is concerned, is likely due to bad prediction skills than to bad data. Trump lied about Obama’s birth based on zero evidence in the face of actual facts released by the state of Hawaii and ultimately by Obama himself. That Trump is transparently deluded is no comfort at all to the country and world which depend on his judgement.
3
So he is truly honest about all that he thinks?
@John Trump is not transparent, if the New York Times weren't there to reveal his intentions and lies we wouldn't know that he is encouraging people to commit violence against journalists; blow up the deficit and then use Medicare and SS to pay for it; undermine truth in our courts; turn women into the next underclass to control; prop up dictators, and destroy our environment.
3
McConnell has already clearly signaled what will happen if Republicans retain the House: he will fight for cutbacks in "entitlements" with the same ferocity that got Kavanaugh rammed through.
He has been delegated to take on this mission to save the hide of the Leader, who as a candidate swore up and down not to touch Social Security or Medicare.
Listen carefully, young voters.
You may think this only affects retirees, but it is YOUR benefits they'll be going after! Reductions in COLAs, then elimination of COLAs altogether. Incremental cuts in the monthly Social Security benefits you are now earning and which you will depend on for your food and shelter. Slow starvation of the Medicare you are now earning and which you will rely on for your health care.
For you own sake, you MUST vote straight Democratic on November 6.
Persuade everyone you know to do likewise. They can return to texting and video gaming afterward.
VOTE November 6 as if your lives depend on it, because they do.
5
two observations .
1) If any other person was the current POTUS and was coming out with even 1/10th of this Trump spouted drivel ,you could bet the family home on Trump roaring and shouting about all the wilful lies that were coming from POTUS ....
2) Trump's assertions are either wilful lies or personal delusions ..but they have no bearing on actual reality ..
either way ..he is not fit to serve as POTUS . #
1
Outright lies, including claiming to adopt democratic policies on health care and Social Security. Totally untrustworthy and a blot on the presidency. The rest of the time he bullies and name calls.
1
It is quite well documented in scientific literature that narcissistic sociopaths do not see the world like most healthy people. We have a very sick man in the White House, and 40% of American voters think this is just fine. There will always be sick and deranged people, but the fact that so many Americans feel a truly disturbed and sick man is the best possible person to lead our nation is truly and utterly disturbing. The fact that the leaders of our Senate and House are docile enablers of such a sick man is equally disturbing. Vote like our future depends upon it. It does.
7
Trump clearly believes that truth is whatever those in power can convince citizens to believe. If adopting a deliberate policy of repeatedly lying to the American people is not an impeachable offense, I don't know what is.
4
Won’t the boy who called wolf be surprised when the wolf finally shows up. So far, Trump’s strategy of lies has only been tested against the imaginary threats he created to appeal to his cult’s voracious appetite for fear and hate. What is really scary is that in the face of a real threat, when the truth really matters, there will be none to be had.
3
All this should instantly disqualify this individual from any responsible public position. What we are faced with is a party that has gotten behind this unfit man and have adopted his lying, distortive fact nature. Previously reliable public servants have ,in some way, become unreliable puppets for this buffoon of a president.
I've heard Trump supporters defend his lies, saying "all politicians do it." To them, his thousands of lies are no worse than another politician's one lie. But is a drop of arsenic as poisonous as a cup? No. Trump is poisoning our ideals with his willful and prodigious lying. There's a reason why it's "Truth, Justice and the American Way." Without truth, the whole thing falls apart.
2
Put another way, the simple undeniable fact is that Donald Trump is a blatant liar, and he's never been held to account.
Time for that to change.
Vote.
1
Thank you for your scalding White House Memo, Maggie Haberman, "A President Who Believes He Is Entitled to His Own Facts." We are living in the cancerous time of social media "alternative facts" -- the new American normal is reality TV and Twittering, Donald Trump's training ground for his shocking presidency. The history of mankind and thought has no meaning for Donald Trump. Only the present moment during his unending pre-2020 Presidential Rallies from coast to coast, stirs our president. The American body is riddled with the cancer of a president whose personal lawyer insists that "Truth isn't Truth!". How can Americans, so tragically divided today, rid ourselves of a leader who is a dictator in training at reality TV's Trump University?
>
The Press will not accept the fact that DJT is just the effect, the cause resides in deploradom.
The American people, at least a significant portions of them, are the problem.
Why does DJT tell bald-face lie after lie?
Well why do these deplorables believe those lies?
At the end of the day, I blame the people of this country.
You see here is the problem in a nutshell. You have been propagandized all your life into believing that Americans are a special people, a nice people, a people blessed by God.....Well this is factually wrong, and DJT makes any proof unnecessary.
4
Rational people make the mistake of thinking Trump is a rational man who just lies a lot. He's not. If his actions to-date have not yet convinced you that he is a full-blown sociopath, nothing will. This is what we are dealing with.
10
Trump likes to believe in an alternate reality because it suits him and his transactional mentality.
However, his version of the universe is continuously validated by insidious news organizations like Fox, Breitbart and conservative radio talk shows which have been engaging in this kind of dangerous banter for a period of time well predating Trump's ascendant idiocy.
There is a saying in the manufacturing industry : You are only as strong as the weakest link in your supply chain. We can adapt that to well observe "We are only as strong as the weakest link in our institutions".
Trump is a symptom of the weakness, he is not a root cause.
I think this item deserves some editing. The headline currently reads:
"A President Who Believes He Is Entitled to His Own Facts" but should just be: ""A President Who Believes He Is Entitled"
And at the end, the quote that reads: “in that it belies how little he fundamentally understands the institutions of American democracy.”
Could just as easily be reduced to “in that it belies how little he fundamentally understands"
If I didn't know who was being described in this explicit narrative, I would think this person is probably delusional.
Because I do know....I am sure.
3
I don't even think he feels entitled to his own facts, as the headline states. That would suggest he actually believes in what he's spouting. I think it's more that he KNOWS he's lying and he KNOWS what the truth is, but is lying to benefit himself. At this point, we can't believe any syllable coming out of his mouth. Everyday it's like having to listen to a used care dealer sell his pitch to us.
3
How serious should one take Mr. Hayden's moral judgement ?
He is man who believes that Russian interference of US election is , quote , "Honorable statecraft"
"“I have to admit my definition of what the Russians did [in hacking the Democratic National Committee] is, unfortunately, honorable state espionage,"
"A foreign intelligence service getting the internal emails of a major political party in a major foreign adversary? Game on. That’s what we do. By the way, I would not want to be in an American court of law and be forced to deny that I never did anything like that as director of the NSA,”
Michael Hayden 10/18/16
1
Mouthpiece Giuliani said it all: To Trump, "TRUTH ISN'T TRUTH."
6
There’s a word for someone whose reality exists within his mind, who denies and is disconnected from external facts. The word is "psychotic." We need to use it.
6
Born a child of wealth, unrestrained as an adolescent, protected from reality as a young man, indulging in any pleasure at middle age, unrepentant in his excesses as an old man, the warped reality of a Child President.
3
The President can't handle the truth!
3
>>“If there’s no truth, how do we discuss and make decisions that are rooted in fact?” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican operative based in California. “It’s been abandoned. And it’s something that the Republican base certainly isn’t going to revolt on him on.<<
What does that tell you about "the Republican base"?
Nothing good, that's for sure. And note that it is a Republican operative who is being quoted here.
1
I'll leave it to a great writer to describe Mr. Trump.....“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. ”
― George Orwell
3
Everyone criticizes Trump yet he keeps on winning, and fulfilling his promises to make America great once again, and who can find fault with that? Ms. Haberman's credibility is in question since she appears so often on the left leaning CNN cable news station, and is there not a conflict of interest there, as there is for all print journalists who seek the almighty buck by vying for regular spots on t.v.?Recall Buck Henry's wise words that if you're not on t.v., you don't exist, and Haberman, Peters,Burns, Charles Blow inter alios have really taken that advice to heart. Recall that Gen. Hayden was strictly a desk man throughout his military career, never was in combat. At least John Brennan is an Arabist, speaks the idiom of Mohammed well, served in the Mamlaka and merits my respect.Have no respect for Trump family since they have so little regard for God's helpless creatures--witness his sons' canned hunting trips in east Africa, disgraceful--but must admit that opposition is so disorganized, so far to the left and who wants to adopt its agenda of a sanctuary city America: certainly not your average, God fearing , hard working American. Liked Haberman's writing when she was with the NY Post, but less so now. Remember Mailer's "avertissement" that every time a journo appears on t.v., quality of his writing deteriorates!
@Alexander Harrison
Here's one falsehood of your comment-"yet he keeps on winning." Trump isn't winning he hasn't done anything to grow support. You assume he is winning because he continues to supports issues that dominate your worldview.
Your position isn't winning; it's causing a deterioration in our Country and giving our enemies aboard freedom to threaten and abuse their citizens.
Those of us that don't align with the right-wing's uses of a twisted biblical interpretation of a white male to gain support for suppressing minorities and women will expose the darkness before it destroys our Country's ability to lead the World.
1
Trump is giving the right wing politicos all the policies and practices that they have been demanding since the gilded age. There is absolutely no proof of what it all will produce. The current economy is an economy that took all the time since Fall 2008 to recover because people who had the cash refused to invest it into any endeavors which might have accelerated the recovery because it was too risky for them. Meanwhile the Republicans refused using old tried and true ways of generating greater growth like rebuilding infrastructure because a Democrat was President.
1
@Alexander Harrison
Your premise is wrong:
"Winning" by lying to the American people is not winning. People used to know this stuff. A con is a con is a con.
Trump's tax cut for himself added over a trillion to the deficit. Own it.
"God fearing" and those enabling liars are two different roads. Read that Bible for the fine print.
1
The NYTimes has to stop writing news stories about Trump. Everything this man does is lie and make up stories.
He doesn't deserve to be talked about on a daily basis. We are so tired of him and the rest of the GOP.
1
I think the major problem in all this is the reportage that Trump actually believes any of the claims he makes. He's not that stupid. He's a professional con man who preys upon those dim enough to believe his poppycock. Those of us who are New Yorkers have watched him doing it his entire life. Trump knew his blather about Obama being born in Kenya was a lie, just as he knew that his claim he made his fortune on "a small loan from my father" was baloney. His great talent is for figuring out what the knuckle-draggers will swallow and then giving it to them. Trump is a malicious, self-aggrandizing liar who cares nothing for the American people or for the country he leads. If the national news media had done their jobs, we would never have been put in this horrifying situation.
7
Much of the responsibility for Trump's rise and popularity lies with the corporate media.
Fox news gets blame, but CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC are all complicit.
These corporate news divisions are hungry for ratings and revenue. The days of news being a loss leader and public service are long gone.
Things have turned so far that the public now accepts watered down questioning, such as that by Lesley Stahl, as a serious effort to report on Trump. He gets away with what he wants because people watch it and corporate news operations make money on it.
This is the underlying story of Donald Trump. A useful idiot for the media.
1
Trump continues to get away with his nastiness and lies because people are not BOLD enough to speak out. I can think of two quick examples, but there are a thousand. He berates a reporter and she stands there? She could have said a million things to shame him publicly and have it captured on video. He made the most cringe-worthy statements to an auditorium of Boy Scouts, and no one refuted it on the stage after he spoke? Trump deserves no respect. He needs to be shamed publicly again and again, until he begins to fear speaking in public.
3
Nothing new here. The man is categorically unfit to be president. Beyond sheer ignorance, he is a confirmed sociopath who may well be mentally ill. Think of it as a 10-year-old at the wheel of the family car. It's an adventure that's unlikely to end well. With the shameful connivance of an ethically bankrupt Republican Party, a tremendous amount of damage is being done to both the country and its closest allies.
2
This President really has to control places where he holds events, given his rather low popularity rating. Trips to places like West Virginia, Wyoming, North Dakota and Mississippi seem to make up most of his travel itinerary. For those of us who find him abhorrent, there clearly are pockets of enthusiasm for this guy. It's basically the Archie and Edith Bunker vote, along with the zillionaires to whom he gave a nice tax break. Whether he made any of them "great again" is another question.
152
@richardb62
Edith would never vote for him.
@richardb62
I'd like to think that Edith would have voted for Hillary.
@richardb62 You deceive yourself. Trump is still highly popular with a near majority of Americans.
Here is the problem, ladies and gentlemen:
“If there’s no truth, how do we discuss and make decisions that are rooted in fact?” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican operative based in California. “It’s been abandoned. And it’s something that the Republican base certainly isn’t going to revolt on him on. But it is a huge fundamental problem of how to govern when there are no facts.”
The republican base is not going to abandon The Con Don over something as boring as facts. They live in an alternate world where the only heroes are the ones who can do the most destruction - in human lives, resources and finance - to benefit themselves only.
It's called the mafia and any lawmaker of any party who buys into it is guilty of treason against democratic governance in OUR United States of America.
2
The problem is that millions of people don’t see being “rooted in facts” as a supreme value. They might see it as a nice thing to have, but less important than other things, like “winning”. How do we get people to see the folly of that? Do they know that their medicines wouldn’t work if scientists treated facts like Trump does?
5
Trump has no intention of governing. His objective is to rule.
47
To be the ruler and to be obeyed, obviously, but to be in charge, to actually rule a county, to actual do the work required? No.
The truly incomprehensible part is that this penchant of Trump's to create his own reality and act from that has always been there and didn't interfere in his progress to the Presidency. In other words, enough people voted for him to get him appointed by the Electoral College.
Of course, working from personal vibes and an internalized sense of insight, even if this is diametrically opposed by 'objective facts', will eventually lead you into trouble. If an adversary understands how Donald the Magnificent's mind works, it shouldn't be a problem to feed him successive bits of information and have him form a vision of 'reality' that would then guide his words and actions and suborn him into doing what the adversary wants.
If this weren't the President of the United States we were talking about, leader of the only country that actually used nuclear weapons for real, it would be fascinating. As it is, it is terrifying.
1
It’s almost as though a hostile foreign power has installed a deliberately destructive chaos-mongering man-child as our head of state.
23
I remember saying to my lawyer friend "facts are no longer relevant". When dt was elected. She didn't believe me and neither did I. Time has definitely born this one truth out.
She works for the EPA and is in a VERY demoralized. I worry about her sometimes. This is much worse than previous administrations.
The refusal to accept facts is the sign of a very closed mind. At age 71, it is highly unlikely that Trump will open his mind and begin accepting facts.
Trump is problematic, but what is truly frightening is that he has millions of supporters who do not want to believe facts as well. This ignorance (for that is what it is) will cause long term damage to the United States because when you look at Trump's crowds there are a lot of young people in them.
2
Things have gotten so bad that Haberman needs to quote Michael Hayden, the man who lied to Congress, under oath, about torture, and warrantless wiretapping of US citizens.
Are we supposed to forget that Hayden thought himself above the law, and gave his agency their own facts to do as they please?
It’s a sign of the distorted times we inhabit that a disgraced intelligence officer is now put forth as a paragon of virtue amd truth.
Despite his frightenly large number of military patches, Hayden was a promoter of lying and secrecy, and is no truth teller. Some of us have not forgotten.
1
25th amendment. Doesn't it have a purpose? Shouldn't it be seriously considered, or debated? After all which is more obtuse, it, or this dangerously surreal presidency?
1
"His willingness to repeat claims like the notion that Mr. Khashoggi was the victim of “rogue killers” is a function of that, Mr. Stutzman said."
Yesterday, New York Times reporters were repeating claims that Mr. Khashoggi was the victim of rogue killers. They reported this as a matter of public relations, speculating on the plausibility of the cover story, rather that clearly stating that it was an obvious lie. Who holds them accountable?
2
@Robert F Perhaps you can cherry pick the Times' reporting to conclude that the utterly silly "rogue killers" story has substance but looking at more of the coverage would soon show how wrong that is.
I have a feeling that any "severe punishment" of Saudi Arabia will be limited to pulling Secretary Mnuchin out of the "Vision" conference. Maybe Trump will have the U.S. freeze a few assets or revoke a few visas, but that will be that. Trump and Kushner both have vested, personal interests in keeping Saudi Arabia not just as an ally, but as a HAPPY ally. And they both want Mohammed bin Salman to be in charge.
Kushner - the grandson of Holocaust survivors - claims that MSB will "survive this" crisis and it will all be pretty much swept under the rug - like all things Putin.
Welcome to amoral America, where the only "value" is money.
3
Trump obviously believes that the truth is whatever the people in power say it is. If adopting a deliberate policy of lying to the American people and foreign leaders is not an impeachable offense then I don’t know what is.
2
Trump is culpable of intentional harm to individuals and to groups by his extreme and divisive rhetoric.
Trump celebrates a politician body slamming a reporter. He encourages his supporters to turn on the free press and any person or group he decides to attack . He admires dictators and has said he'd like to behave as they do. He's expressed extreme annoyance at a reporter's disappearance and, likely, brutal death being any concern to the world and to U.S. because it may interfere with his "deals" with the Saudis.
Trump likes to behave as he wants, come what mayhem. "Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution"? What's that?
Trump's word's and actions tells us that he did not believe the oath he took to "solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."
2
It isn't that there is "no truth". There is truth and then there are lies.
3
I'm still in shock that there are people are there that will trust anything the guy in the White House says or does, despite documented proof that he's incapable of being honest and decent.
The voters in this country need to make informed decisions in November on where the United States will be in the near and far future.
2
In Myers-Briggs terms, the man is an off-the-charts ENFP -- extraverted intuitive feeler-perceiver. He has zero core self-knowledge, zero regard for facts, zero reasoning capacity, and zero executive function. All these traits are maintained in the service of his malignant narcissism.
We all know this. We've known it for years. The question is, what can we do about it, when one of our two political parties has cynically decided to use him for its own plutocratic purposes, so that each of them -- the president and the party -- feeds off the malignancy of the other?
The reasons Trump's lies work is because people expect their leaders to lie about important stuff -- like WMDs in Iraq, keeping your doctor under Obamacare, etc. What Trump understands is that since no one believes anyone, it makes sense to tell people what they want to hear.
1
@caplane So you've got one lie that Obama told. I have no idea how many of Trump's lies I could cite but it would clearly keep me busy pretty much all day if I wanted to waste a day.
People defended Nixon like that: all politicians are corrupt they cried. There is probably something to that but they failed to notice that politicians differ in how corrupt they are and so gave aid and comfort to the most corrupt.
Some foolish people may insist that corrupt is corrupt with no degrees of corruption. They should study a little history. Could anyone reasonably claim that say, FDR, was as corrupt as Trump? Or Eisenhower or Teddy R or Lincoln. I'm deliberately picking ones who are not contemporary so we can have some perspective on them.
BTW, Lincoln told at least one large lie.
At some point-- long since reached--the President's warped version of reality should have come up against the courts.
No one is supposed to get a special pass on the truth.
If you lie--demonstrably and repeatedly--to the American people you should be removed from office. End of story...
Only, it isn't the end of the story for Trump. And every day he lives in a special protected bubble where facts and consequences don't matter, the hole in our democracy gets larger.
3
“He lives in the eternal now — no history, no consequences.”
That alone is so obvious it should have lost him the election. This is what children do. They have some agency and are learning their minds can do wonderful things while they have not yet learned to think of consequences.
Other than our immediate problems, is anyone working on how we are going to re-educate millions of people back from the confused intellectual processes they are now using due to republican use of propaganda for the last 50 years?
Otherwise El Trumpo can be explained by the facts layed out in the times article about how his family avoided taxes. He has been a criminal all of his life. Having grown up in a criminal family who regards self dealing is their right. He has no respect for the law and the traditions of our nation because he has got what he has by rejecting them and all they stand for. Roy Cohn's counsel was just more proof that this was right as far as El Trumpo is concerned.
When he lies then denies it he is dissociating. He is dissociating whenever anything that would make normal people embarrassed with realization they have been caught doing something wrong. That is how El Trumpo maintains his equanimity when busted and that fake calm is why his supporter's believe him.
The assertion that the Central Park 5 confessed is a racist thing meant to justify harsh tactics that get false confessions buy passively asserting all confessions are real.
4
@magicisnotreal
"... is anyone working on how we are going to re-educate millions of people back from the confused intellectual processes they are now using due to republican use of propaganda for the last 50 years?"
That's a fool's errand; too much indoctrination for far too long. Trump himself is a greater illustration of the absurdities of Republican Party politics and propaganda than any "re-education" program could ever produce. They have all the information they need to see who and what Trump is and, privately, I suspect it is only pride that makes them turn a blind eye to his obvious lies. The only saving grace is that:
1. despite their power, Republicans are a minority party; and
2. even as a minority party, the GOP base gets smaller and older every cycle (requiring ever more extreme measures to hold their disproportionate control of government).
This means the first priority should be on ensuring maximum voter participation. The GOP cannot win without suppressing democratic and independent voting. In close second, we must guard against Trump's absurd lies being presented as fact to incoming generations. It is good that every word out of his mouth is preserved and impossible for him to destroy "1984" style. There is a reason Trump loves an "uneducated" electorate and neo-cons are often at odds with scientists and colleges. Destroying DeVos's agenda is a greater threat to Republican power than impeaching Trump in the long-term.
Watched Julian Treasures TED Talk on "How to speak so that people will want to listen." He has 7 Deadly Sins of habits to move away from. 30 million views.
Gossip
Judging
Negativity
Complaining
Excuses
Exaggeration
Dogmatism
People may not listen, but you can get elected president?
1
A mid-term "shellacking" is long overdue.
3
We all are familiar with a bloviating know-it-all at the local bar, at the Thanksgiving dinner table, or at the office water cooler. Archie Bunker was the caricature. Most often, we politely ignore them, and they live without otherwise interfering with their neighbor. People loved Archie, but certainly not for his intellect and moral center.
Give a trust-fund baby a media platform, and we have Trump. And about a third of America enjoys the circus, and like-wise lives in a fact-free zone. It's incredibly fun, until it's not.
Straight D in November!!
4
You cant have "alternative facts" without helpers.
Trump's 200K as a 3 year old from the trust Fred Trump had for his kids from real estate earnings has been replaced with his lie about borrowing a small amount from dad and building an empire.
Trump tried to get his own dad's will changed to give him access to cash and he was removed as executor. The dad who gave him millions.
The press is needed to debunk EVERY single lie. He is still lying about Dr. Ford and uses his lie to reinvent the Kavanaugh hearing.
Saudi Arabia's Prince threw the journalist Khashoggi out of the country for dissing Trump- 2 years ago. Now Trump is having trouble believing that they had him murdered. Trump insults and endangers our press at bizarre rallies for himself.
What is it going to take??
20
@Kay Johnson - Scary, isn't it? I'm 64 years old. I have talked to many young people about my disbelief at where our country is headed. And yes, I keep asking what it's going to take. His comments about women, minorities, foreigners...the list goes on, have been twisted to sound brilliant and oh so American to his trusted followers. They love their leader...sounds like a third world country. In actuality we have lowered the bar on what will be considered acceptable to any society. I fear for our country everyday. I have absolutely never seen this kind of depravity anywhere and we have not yet scraped the bottom in the white house! I sincerely hope voting in November turns this around, but even that basic democratic tenet has been tainted!
The problem is not that the president believes he is entitled to his own facts. The real problem is an electorate that enjoys this madness enough to keep it running this long, and possibly even past the midterms.
22
@Themis
Exactly. If tomorrow Donald Trump had a fatal allergic reaction to his tanning spray all those people who voted for him and who continue to enable him will still be around and just as determined to cause as much destructive havoc as possible. Trump is a symptom. The American people are the problem. When historians looks back on this time their scorn will be for the populace that allowed Trump to happen.
@Themis
Short & sweet and right on. Unfortunately.
This excellent piece about President Trump by Maggie Haberman quotes repeatedly the views of former C.I.A. Director, Michael V. Hayden. The patriotism, skill, integrity and bravery of Mr. Hayden are beyond question.
Everything Mr. Hayden says is true, except for his basic premise.
Michael V. Hayden consistently speaks of the aberrant and demonstrably false “convictions” of Donald Trump, as though Trump believes the false and bizarre things he says.
Private citizen Donald Trump did not believe the strange things he said. Candidate Donald Trump did not believe what he said. President Donald Trump does not believe any of the false, outrageous things he has said.
The nation is under the sway of a dangerous, serial liar who has no convictions.
Except, of course, the unshakable beliefs that he is entitled to preside without being questioned, deserving of personal loyalty from everyone around him, permitted to enrich himself and his family without limit and completely unanswerable to the law.
6
@sdw
I think Trump has difficulty distinguishing between truth and falsehood. His worldview basically exists to prop up his base instincts and sense of entitlement. Some facts are fine but falsehoods are equally convenient. There are numerous reports that Trump can't help lying if he's forced to testify under oath. If he knew the difference, he could testify truthfully or take the 5th.
Bob Woodward's book details Trump's former lawyer going to Mueller and explaining Trump can't help but lie. Rudy transmogrified this into the risk of a perjury trap. But it's a trap of Trump's own making. He's a fundamentally defective human being.
Please. All this talk about his beliefs. He has no beliefs. He has talking points.
4
Although Trump has made an art out of using "alternative facts," this is not his invention. Fox, Drudge, Hannity, et al, spent the last 20 years creating lies and then backing them up in a confederacy of deceit.
Fabrication du jours go out to the right-wing public, whose prejudices and limited worldview are supported by the lies. Things like the rumor about Muslims celebrating on a rooftop in NJ on 9/11 support their bias and so they use it as a weapon in debates.
We recall from history that some warriors, such as the Gauls, marched naked into battle. Same for Trumpian conservatives except that, like the proverbial emperor, they are not aware they are nude. They think they are wearing the armor of facts and truth. This is what shuts down dialogue with today's conservatives. Social media and political discussions become a morass of prejudicial lies and events so made up that you can't even find them on Google. Or, if you do, the only information is the same exact article reprinted across right wing websites.
How can you have a dialogue with people about Trump's follies when they come back at you with a statement like "Look at all the people Hillary had killed!" These debates require going back to assess the statement, finding its source and discrediting it, which prompts them to discredit of all media.
This is the Trumpian knot liberals have to solve, and we can't as long as those tying the knots lack the humility and capability to even know they are tying them.
In this, the post-modern world, Mr. Trump is the perfect President. Because all truth is relative truth, "often calling into question various assumptions of Enlightenment reality" (Wikipedia), this man can see and say things anyway he wants, which is what he does all day long. It's true if one thinks or says it's true; everyone is entitled to and has their own version of "truth". He is the President that fully embodies and manifests this post-modern ideal. No wonder he gets away with it with such impunity and reckless abandon.
1
@Kate It's not a post-modern world. The world is indeed based on facts. Just ask the physicists. Some highly confused people think otherwise. They have lost their way and are seducing others to leave the real world behind.
I knew there’s be somebody who blamed all this on lefty philosophy they’d never read. It’s nonsense, of course, but any alibi in a tempest, I guess.
1
Conservatives who accept this erosion of norms and facts as the price of enacting a conservative agenda, lose all right to call themselves principled conservatives. No principle is higher than adherence to indisputable shared truth. If conservative "principles" allow that to be sacrificed, these are not principles worthy of respect.
34
This man is not normal. How can you take on the awesome responsibility of being President of the United States and not understand facts, data, expertise, and norms that are employed to make life better or at least safer for its citizens. The office is not a personal one. Living only in the now is what addicts struggle with, only Trump does not struggle in any personal way. He is a deeply flawed, frightened and frightening man. When will this all be over? VOTE VOTE VOTE
18
Right. Iirc, the term “fake news” was originally used to describe lies made by extreme conservative propaganda, and trumps outrageous campaign comments. He then, naturally, given his predilection for projection, co opted the term to label all contrarian facts as fake, while he continues to lie and create his own version of alternate reality. And then, per his playbook, repeats it over and over again, cos as some awful historic figures preached, eventually enough of the people will believe it.
4
The Times usefully quotes Michael Hayden in pointing Trump's strong personal relationship with three despots who have murdered their own citizens within the borders of a foreign country--in the last year. This is an astonishing and shocking fact.
It is therefore strange that the Times doesn't point out that Trump's repudiation of fact-based rule is shared by each one of those despots. And, in fact, by pretty much all despots and tyrants everywhere, always. It's how tyrants operate.
It is about as obvious as it is that the climate is changing due to the burning of fossil fuels that Trump is an emerging tyrant. There can be little doubt that the will employ the usual tools of the tyrant he admires so much, including torture, lawless imprisonment, and murder. He repeatedly praises tyrants who employ these tools.
None of this is complicated. The Times's reluctance to report on these obvious trends is strange and dispiriting.
18
Foreign leaders all know how to lie credibly when in private with Trump when they're up against someone they know they cannot trust.
1
"in that it belies that little he fundamentally understands the institutions of American democracy.” or cares about the same institutions.
1
Trump lived in a gold plated penthouse in Manhattan for decades before becoming president and commuted downstairs a couple of floors to his office, where his employees said yes to anything he said. The man has never had a foothold in reality! Why would we expect him to get one now?
This is obvious to all. The crucial question is this: why will congress permit a man who is not in touch with reality (and doesn’t care to be) lead our nation? He is unfit to lead. Is this news?? CONGRESS: DEAL WITH IT!!!!!
10
I wish Congress would deal with it, but the Republicans control Congress and haven't done a thing. Must vote as many Republicans out as possible!
1
There is sufficient evidence to support Trump's psychopathy. His true psychopathic greatness is the ability to re-arrange reality so others will buy. He wholesales snake-oil and the entire cabal of Republicans retail it - and the angry, hateful, weak, fearful "rubes" buy it - by the ton.
It isn't (only) Trump. His quislings have much to answer for.
34
Given the lies he and his family (daughter, sons and son in law) told to sell or finance properties, it's not hard to see that he believes the truth is something to be manipulated to one's advantage. He's done it all his life and sees absolutely no reason to change now. All we can do it continue to call out the lies as they come out. He will never stop. This is how he "does business".
14
Psychologists and psychiatrists would probably argue that Trump is psychotic, out of touch with reality.
19
Donald Trump is a man devoid of honesty & integrity, accountability, empathy, trustworthiness, long term thinking & vision, character, ethics, morality, intellectual curiosity, principles, compassion & empathy. In other words, he lacks all of the traits required for great leadership yet he is thrust into the highest position in our land. Its as if a privileged and pampered adolescent was suddenly appointed to be President & decides to "wing it" by badmouthing, bullying, lying, dumbing down his language, surrounds himself with sycophantic "yes-men", cares more about money than higher ethics, believes he's great while being below average at best, compulsively distorts events to fit his own narrative, changes his position often including within the same week, day, hour & or minute creating a lack of trust, "name calls", is superficial basing his opinion of people on their external "looks" rather than their merit, uses & manipulates people for his own enrichment & advancement, aggressively threatens others or bribes to get people to do what he wants them to do, takes credit for everything that goes well & blames constantly for negative events, refuses to accept responsibility, embraces tyrants, fascists, psychopaths & dictators while mocking ethical allies and openly displays sexual avarice, lust & indecent behavior including fondling his own daughter on the world's stage while she laughs. In short, this man should not be the leader of a two bit mafia organization. Shameful!!!
19
A charlatan who believes he is entitled to lie
Fixed the headline.
WashPo fact checkers pout him passing the 5,000 lies since taking office more than a month ago. He is now averaging about 16 major lies per day, if you do not count his hate rallies, in which he generally surpasses 30 lies in a little more than an hour of his incoherent prattle
While it would be difficult to get an exact number for all prior administrations, it is fair to say that in 21 months our Russian asset has lied more times than all 43 of the men who held the office before him during their terms combined.
7
Trump invents his own fact as well as laws and how they apply to him. Beyond being a pathological liar the man lacks a moral compass. What is more disgusting is the Republican congress so obsessed with power that they have allowed the country to be ungovernable. Now that they got their big tax cut for the rich and stacked the Supreme Court with conservatives they should remove trump ASAP.
7
If there is one reason to impeach this man now is the fact that he is a PATHOLOGICAL liar. This is considered a mental illness. He cannot tell the truth. This is so amazing and something every American should be screaming about every day. Just imagine it, a president whose every word is untrue or in service to untruth. I think we should have allowed him three of these lies and after that he should have been out. He insults every American's intelligence day after day. This comes down to being a story about a thief and his accomplices, almost forty percent of the people. They should all be ashamed for the lesson they are teaching their children: to lie is good. Any parent who supports this filthy man should be deeply ashamed.
13
" ... Republican base certainly isn’t going to revolt on him on."
Umm ... well, Trump's Republican base certainly is revolting.
20
This is not a new Republican phenomenon: Climate change denial, praying on fears to prop up thin and ultimately fictitious grounds for invading Iraq, proven lack of efficacy of abstinence-only birth control, voter ID laws to “solve” voter fraud problems that don’t exist, feigned moral outrage and concern about fiscal responsibility only when its politically convenient. The list goes on.
Donald Trump is not some aberration operating outside the values of the Republican ethos. He is its decades-long logical conclusion.
41
For humanity's safety, he really needs to be evaluated.
Lord knows what fantasy world he is in from day to day, and
what danger he puts our lives into.
Just ripping us out of the Paris climate accord should have set sirens off.
He even thinks the criminals he surrounds himself with are Great People, The Best !
Where are the men in the white coats?
BTW, there is a new word for Whitewash ! It's called, doing a Kavanaugh.
"Are facts and the truth good for me?" -- Donald Trump's default mental process.
"Are facts and the truth good for the country?" -- a foreign language to monolingual Donald Trump.
3
The problem is that reality will play itself out according to the truth and actual facts of the world. Even if he convince himself that something is true - say "Putin is good guy" - it doesn't become right- and Putin will have a lot more room to do his evil because of his delusions.
4
I heartily agree with the author about President Trump's avoidance of 'truth' & his tendency to reconstruct or select 'facts' to suit his personal views & beliefs. In short, he lies & behaves in an illogical & unreasonable manner. But the author leaves me empty. That is, the author is merely whining. Whine - verb - 'to snivel or complain in a peevish, self-pitying way: He is always whining about his problems.'
With a background as an engineer, I have a tendency to recognize a problem, develop clear factual evidence, deduce the impact vis-a-vis the current state, & then develop possible improvements & apply the best solution. I have a tendency to not dwell extensively on a analyzing a problem to the bottom of a pit & walking away. It does not provide any satisfaction or relief.
A helpful addition to the writer's article can be a pointed analysis of why voters choose to 'behave' similarly, that is, to dismiss this behavior & be happy that personal & political issues they favor are being successfully implemented by our president. The elephant in the room, therefore, is not the abhorrent behavior of our president, but that a majority of citizens are dissatisfied with our political schema. That is a more worthy subject of prose. As is the political solution (platform) that the Democratic party & electable candidates need to address. I would greatly look forward to such a thoughtful article.
5
For humanity's safety, he really needs to be evaluated.
Lord knows what fantasy world he is in from day to day, and
what danger he puts our lives into.
Just ripping us out of the Paris climate accord should have set sirens off.
He even thinks the criminals he surrounds himself with are Great People, The Best !
Where are the men in the white coats?
BTW There is a new word for Whitewash ! It's called, doing a Kavanaugh.
31
I also think Trump accepts lame denials from autocrats because he is essentially weak and not, in fact, the great and savvy deal maker he has made himself out to be, and he then wants to save face when he has clearly swallowed their lies whole like a gullible child.
15
Hot air can raise a balloon, but it can’t repeal the law of gravity.
20
“said that Mr. Trump could be coaxed into believing objective reality”
The guy has lived by his own set of facts for 72 years. What sort of coaxing does anyone realistically believe is going to help out NOW?
8
Trumps adores dictators and despots
and aspires to “rule” America like Putin and Duerte. Telling outright self serving lies and attacking truth fits right into their playbook. Sowing division and mistrust amongst citizens
erodes our collective strength as a nation. We are very vulnerable right now because of it. If we are not vigilant one day we will lose our “perfect union”. Just look around the world. Eastern Europe, Africa, the middle east. Whether its over religion or race, nations are ripped apart by divisions and hatred of “ the other”.
That could be us.
8
Just reinforces that there is no point in analyzing what motivates Trump, or pretending he has policy beliefs like the media often do. What you see are all symptoms of a malignant narcissistic personality disorder. It doesn't matter whether he's really racist, really a climate change denier, etc, what matters are the effects, the impact on everyone else.
That said, his selfish supporters rich and poor and enablers can best be described as a fascist cult; they should never be forgiven for foisting such an obvious fool and conman (not a brilliant or savvy one as often alleged) on the entire world because he either gave them something to hate or thirty pieces of silver. Not because they were hoodwinked.
79
More and more I have come to share this view. When the democrats get back into power and undo trumps actions and laws I will be very happy
@Joseph yes this is exactly right. His base only sees what's in it for themselves and enjoys the antics of his disruption of the norm. The poor who are too uninformed to realize they will pay the consequences and the rich who appreciate the distractions while they plunder their own nation.
It isn't about facts at all -- he thinks facts are completely irrelevant.
3
It's pretty simple. If "facts" are different than he wants them to be, he rejects them and invents his own to suit his personal interest. This is frightening in many ways, but perhaps the most dangerous with respect to the 2020 presidential election. Why would he ever accept an election defeat? He would surely invent a scenario where "election fraud" or "foreign interference" skewed the results against him, and not accept being a "loser". Would he ignore the results, refuse to leave office, or perhaps demand another "fair" election? This would test our Constitutional Democracy to the very core.
12
@talking horse All too true. You may recall that a few weeks before the 2016 election, everyone thought he would lose - including him. So he was talking about how the election "is rigged". That's what he'll say if he loses - he's never wrong or at fault. Everything good is his doing, everything bad is somebody else's doing. Pathetic ...
Let's just call it for what it is: Rich White Man's Entitlement.
Donald Trump has never had to work honestly a day in his life and has had everything handed to him on a silver platter.
Plus, he's even lied about that by claiming to be a "self-made millionaire".
How else do you explain why he's been able to live in his own phantasy-world of invented truths and facts for so long?
And how else has it been possible for him to get away with bullying all those around him until he gets his own way?
Is it any surprise that Trump's deepest regard is limited to strongmen and autocrats -- and that his next leap from president would be that to lifetime dictator?
Is this making America great again?
Is this "winning"?
7
The scariest thing about this presidency is that policy decisions are based upon selfish desire and gut instinct rather than rational thought and Republican Party leaders are okay with this because it suits their own personal agenda and their own denials of truth when it suits them. So, we've now got massive tax cuts that don't seem to be helping anyone but the wealthy, we've got deregulation of environmental rules that will have long-term consequences, alienation of our allies because we've abrogated a couple of pretty important treaties, tariffs that will wind up hurting rather than helping national industries. What next? I beg to differ that it is only Trump himself who ignores facts. He's got more than 250 lawmakers right behind him, cheering him on.
17
His base believes him. They refuse to think, even though he is destroying our reputation, our economy and our civil society. Many people don't seem to care what he is doing so long as the market is up. Everything he is doing is for short term gain but will result in long term pain for millions.
14
He is an autocrat.
3
His base helps Trump debase himself even more.
2
Does the President's rhetoric "belie" his lack of understanding, or does it prove it?
3
problem is - djt's information is fact free.
1
Definitely!!@bob lesch
When everything Trump said or has written is highly likely to be a lie or a gross exaggeration, it is impossible to trust him on any important issue. This unfortunately extends to most of the WH since truth does not seem to exist in that atmosphere. We are rapidly developing a high level of mistrust for the whole GOP and this mistrust has been well earned. Unfortunately, what has already been done will take a very long time to repair. And repair will only begin, if and only if we take the house in November. If we fail to do this, it will be the stay-at-homes at the root. We need to vote, or suffer from damaged health care, social security, medicare and medicaid.
460
Does the GOP have any need, desire or moral fortitude to repair anything? They seem to be all in at this point. Even those that despise him are like,”as long as as my agenda gets attention, oh well”. They are the ends justify the means party.
2
@Paul Raffeld - There are also international implications that arise from Trump's ignorance, dishonesty, and dumb gullibility. Both allies and enemies can and do exploit these personality traits.
Since Donald Trump turns the narrative to his own view we need to vote convincingly in November that there is a viable alternative out there.
12
Trump does understand the institutions of government, he just doesn't think any process or rules apply to him. He makes his own facts fit his own rules.
If he thought he wasn't above the law, eh wouldn't be the subject of 3,500 law suits.
5
But this attitude has been part of the cabal aiming for their dream of the "permanent republican majority" all along. It's the apotheosis of mere power, the ultimate megalomania--and with Trump, they've found their poster child for sure. Karl Rove is credited with describing his republican pal Bush's administration, thus: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." Yes, they're the only real people on earth, and the rest of us so much detritus to be removed or repurposed by them. It's the tyrant's mindset--but Trump isn't any more a tyrant than the less garish men who paved the way for him, and who will come after to continue to bully the world, all of us, if we let them.
6
Perhaps the most important fact which Mr. Trump does accept and work with is the fact that most elements of his base tend not to accept evidence as facts if it does not support their biases but are quick to accept as facts any unsupported assertions which do. Like all great con men, he preys on this characteristic of the weak minded, spinning it as strong and decisive and, most important of all, loyal. For him, this isn't lying, it's just doing what he does.
383
@Jeff Atkinson
Trump´s most ardent supporters are religious….thus able to believe in a lot of things not supported by facts...
1
@Jeff Atkinson
See also: recent ACT score map by state.
1
Fortunately, Trump's base is a minority. A very vocal, close-minded and ignorant minority, but a minority nonetheless.
Maggie - Discourse around this President and the accuracy of his remarks most frequently veers toward the "alternate facts" track, or his beliefs, or his rhetorical manner of communication.
While continued access to the West Wing in future depends on what is written today, and I think most understand the need for civility, it is still baffling why so few call out this behaviour for what it appears to be - lying. Not just bending the truth or "spin", but outright whoppers. (I particularly like the ones where video evidence exists to refute the revisionist lies of the present).
Late night comedians seem to be able to call it for what it is, but the credible press seems to mitigate, soften, excuse, and rationalize the behaviours. By doing so, it actually legitimizes the behaviours to a degree.
Time to crank up the contrast and call him what he is, a liar.
23
Putting it bluntly, we've seen this stuff before--and where it leads--in our 20th-century history texts. We just can't believe it's happening here, with someone who makers his predecessors in greed and perversity seem couth in comparison.
6
It's getting old, reading over and over how wet water is, and how water is wet and the humidity content of water.
Trump lies. Trump is not hindered by facts. Trump says one thing one day and denies saying it the next. Trump cozies up to nasty people if it serves his own personal interests. We know this by now. We've known it for two years now. Accept it. We have. Repeating it everyday makes no difference now.
Can we now get on with interviewing the members of his party? Forcing them to take side, take issue, take action? Can we perhaps focus on what people are doing at the grassroots level to have the mad king removed?
Oh and by the way, it never pays to have Michael Hayden comment on another person's tendency to lie and make up stories. He himself lied repeatedly before congress regarding surveillance against Americans. He's no better than Trump, no matter what he thinks. He and his ilk are exactly like Trump. In fact, he and his ilk are one of the big reasons Trump got elected in the first place - everyday republicans thought they were getting somebody different than the establishment liars like Hayden, that pervade and infest the halls of power in Washington. They were wrong of course.
It's time for new blood, with new ways with better morals. It's the only chance to have Trump voted out.
Ps. Joe Biden won't cut it. Doesn't anybody understand yet?
6
Mr. Trump's credo is to do unto others as he would have them do unto him. Regardless of how deranged this man actually is, people dismiss the lies and give him what he wants. There are many people like Trump in this world, but few, if any, have been President. Exactly how he got there is under suspicion and rightfully so. At a minimum, what ever outside assistance he got helped him, whether it was from Russia or the FBI.
What we are witnessing is actually crazy, since the Republicans are using the situation to their own complete advantage, and the needs of the people are being checked at the door. In this day and age for us to be debating health care is due to the vacuum we have created at the top, allowing the worst elements of our political system to gain traction.
All the while the press tries to make things normal, that it is is this and that, when the actual situation is incoherent and insane. We will be lucky if all that happens is the corruption that we are witnessing daily. What is worse, though, is that there will be no consequences because each side will do unto the other what they would want to have done unto themselves.
Trump is the epitome of all that is wrong with our political system. The only differences is that he is quite gauche about it.
2
A clear and well laid out piece, but not news. Trump's response to the assassination of Mr Khashoggi was sadly predictable. His inability to feel or express empathy or emotion for this journalist's horrific death was also in line with his clear, psychological pathology that has been observed for years. Yet, here he is , President of the United States.. I will never be able to grasp fully how this came to be.
8
One might even say that Donald Trump is hooked on a feeling.
Which would serve to explain why he always seems to be high on something...
4
“It’s something else — it’s feeling, emotion, preference, loyalty, convenience of the moment..."?
NO, the "something else" is much simpler: a fundamental dishonesty, outright lies, the rawest sort of propaganda, and and a snarling contempt for facts and for the "little people" who deal with facts - news-people, scientists, and honest people, in general.
That's Trump's "reality"! The same egomaniacal self-grandiose reality of Putin, and many others like him throughout history.
25
People are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts and trump is a master of making up his own facts.
6
The headline should read, "A President Who Doesn't Care About Facts."
Trump is the kind of sociopath who believes facts are irrelevant. Yesterday he tweeted that the Republicans want to preserve pre-existing conditions and the democrats want to take it away when the exact opposite is true. So what?
Many will believe him and will vote for the Republicans. If they wind up bankrupt or dead because they weren't able to qualify for health insurance, so what? Why would that bother Trump?
33
He may tell the truth as he sees it, but he doesn't lie to the American people. He kept all the promises he made as a candidate and also as a president.
"You can keep your health care" president Obama was an outright liar.
@Marika "The truth as you see it" is not the same as what he does. He blatantly lies. All the time. For example - he said yesterday he would protect coverage for pre-existing conditions. His administration is right now party to a suit in federal court to end those protections.
When President Obama said nothing in the ACA would preclude you from keeping your doctor that was true. Insurance companies decide on who is in network.
9
@Marika
How's that promise to release his tax returns "after the audit" going? Has Mexico paid for that wall yet?
2
@Marika
Not sure if you understand the concept of false equivalencies, Marika, or distractions, but you sure know how to use them. Clear, obvious reality somehow floats right past Trumpets, but you all are definitely quick to pivot. Unfortunately, you'll bring down the rest of the country -- never mind the world -- while you cling to nonsense and an alternate data-free universe.
2
For the first time, I have drawn a connection between The Trump Factlessness, and the preponderance of motivational literature that actually advocates for creating your own realities.
Consider one of the most prevalent of assertions in motivational books so omnipresent in heavy sales cultures: the idea that, if the mind and conceive something, and believe it strongly enough, a person can achieve it. This is the underlying message of “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill, as well as books like “The Power of Positive Thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale and the books by Robert Shuller. There are many others.
This area of popular literature is disparaged in academia and in more liberal theological circles. But it has a very large circulation, and many of these books, well over 75 years old, continue to be read widely in business settings where persistence is the primary tool needed to develop sales. Countless millions of these books have been sold and can be found on any self help bookshelf in America.
It can certainly be argued that Mr. Trump takes the concept to a whole new level of disingenuousness. But the phenomena is not really that new. Many things that establishments hold as truth are really beliefs, subject to challenge and refutation. Mr. Trump has proven that about American politics. If we don’t like his version, we have the same right to challenge and refute him.
And, of course, sometimes the man just ignores real facts.
105
Sometimes? SMFH...
@Steve Feldmann
Or you could simply say that Trump is totally insane. Makes much more sense than speculating that Trump is using motivational self-help books in order to create his own reality and become a dictator.
@Steve Feldmann
You mention Norman Vincent Peale, who Trump has cited as a major influence growing up. Considering how stunningly incurious Trump is about the world around him, his intellectual growth ceased at an early age. It's no wonder claptrap from half a century ago is still driving his decision-making today. Probably the last new information he ever took in.
1
Let’s see.
Everytime Trump lies:
• Call it out.
And in call a lie, a lie. Do not use “falsehood,” or “without evidence,” or “contrary to known facts,” or “although evidence says otherwise.”
Example:
The caravan of immigrants heading towards the southern border is organized by Democrats, Trump lies.
• Follow up with a question or dispute it.
Example:
Puerto Rico is an island. Surrounded by water. Lots of water. Big water. Huge water. Not many people knew that.
Dispute this with—
Everyone knew that Puerto Rico is an island. Every one. Only you, Trump, who does not know a single thing about the geography of the US did not know that.
5
Exactly! But it is probably a fact that Trump does not know about the Jones Act, and that Puerto Ricans have had to fight our wars and are by birth US citizens. But Trump is not a man of learning, history and books. He lives only for his own narcissistic narrative. That he is not in jail is an injustice.
4
Success has always been a great liar and crafty men deal in generalizations. Sound like someone you know?
1
Trump ‘identifies’ as a truth teller, and NYT’s refusal to call him by the title he prefers is an affront to humanity.
1
He's your rotten landlord. Saying whatever he has to say at the moment to weasel out of the broken heat, hot water or bogus fee, with no shred of morality or honesty. The kind of man who attracts friends who are ok with a "man" who cheated on his first wife with the second, took the 5th amendment 97 times in his second divorce and had unprotected sex with a porn star as his third wife was recovering from child birth.
The only answer is conviction- about medicare for all, a livable wage, curbs on run amuck business. Care for the environment, immediate cessation of foreign wars and building relationships with other countries. Care for refugees.
I hope one of the Democrats have the character to be that candidate. I'm not seeing it right now.
14
“It’s something else — it’s feeling, emotion, preference, loyalty, convenience of the moment,” Mr. Hayden said.
What it is, Mr. Hayden is a mental illness that causes Mr. Trump to live in a fantasy universe that exists only in his delusions.
9
trump should be impeached on basis of mental deficiency and made to pay back his ill-gotten gains made off of our backs.
9
This story demonstrates that you can’t discuss intelligence with someone who has none.
6
While he may believe incorrectly out of ignorance, all or much of it can also be attributed to deliberate lying to carry out his agenda. An example of this would be denials of fact for which there is video evidence and which he cannot claim to be fake. For example, he tried to claim he didn't make the statements he did about the neo-nazis at Charlottesville. And, as stated, the Republican base could care less in either case
6
Nice writing, but too nuanced.
The President is an unhinged pathological liar who does not even attempt to read history or understand science. Period.
272
Feelings as facts is the hallmark of Cluster B personality disorders. Because he the POTUS seems to be poster child, every citizen would be doing themselves a favor to learn more about Cluster B PD; the origins, the typifying behaviors, and the ways to deal with people who have PD.
For a primer on the president's behavior, I recommend, "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men" by Lundy Bancroft. Also the 'Out of the FOG' website.
The reason it's important for all concerned citizens to read up on this topic, is that people with PDs are effective at convincing their victims that the victims are the ones who are the problem. The only effective solutions are "grey rock" and No Contact. How does one do either of those to POTUS....?
3
This article could have been written in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, or 2017 . Why now?
2
@arthurExplain what you mean.
1
@arthur
I cannot understand how anybody capable of reading the NYT can be so adept at ignoring reality. I don't know quite why you invoke 2017, but it is patently ridiculous to suggest that gross and constant lying by the President of the United States was in issue in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.
1
Simply, Pres. Weasel 45* is deluded, or pretending to be so.
11
What can one say? If I lied or fabricated "truths" in the way that Trump does I'd be fired from my job. Students and parents, not to mention academic administrators, would have my head. Yet, reporters interview Trump and allow him to continue on his merry way making things up. Only later do you "fact check" him.
It would be far better if reporters stopped him in his tracks during these interviews and said, "no, Mr. President, what you are saying is not true, or not wholly accurate, or is a matter of interpretation which most -- as in the case of climate change -- scientists disagree, no matter their political affiliation". At least viewers/listeners would know there are those who dare to push back. Where's our generation's Edward R. Murrow when we need one?
39
Leslie Stahl in her 60 Minutes interview with Trump attempted to fact check him on several patently unsubstantiated claims without success. She made the same mistakes nearly everyone does when interviewing Trump, and which mainstream press has been doing for over two years now. They treat him seriously—not because he’s earned it, but because the office commands respect. The press should treat him relentlessly with disrespect for the pathological liar he is which has already tainted and diminished that office beyond the pale.
16
This article describes the President of the United States as having the worldview of a 3 year old.
37
@Padfoot, on a good day.
The M.O. of Trump is etched in stone.
Fred Trump created the Donald persona through his over-indulgence and support of a pathologically inclined adolescent and adult.
The President's skill set was molded by his success as an unrestrained bully, braggart, and con-man. He has found a receptive audience in the underbelly of America and in the unfettered support of self-serving Republicans.
To expect any change from this President is foolish.
17
@Phil Zaleon.
It appears Fred Trump lied and cheated as much, if not more than his offspring. They are all vile. There is nothing redeeming about any of them.
4
The logical endpoint of decades of FOX and talk radio. The dumbing down of America is a roaring success for the GOP. For our Country, not so much.
Seriously. VOTE in November. Straight Democratic ticket.
123
@Phyliss Dalmatian
All part of the GOP endgame - cut funding to education, make the population as ignorant as possible so the people can be easily manipulated into voting against their own interests.
How anyone with a decent education and a conscience can vote GOP is beyond me.
1
When you are King, you create your own rules...and "facts". Life is cheap and really the only thing that matters is that the kingdom obey your every pronouncement. He is a mad and viscous "king" and we must stand up and say so. Vote, because our lives depend on it.
5
The stubborn embrace of ignorance, myth and empty bluster by Trump and followers is shameful.
Fox gets much of the blame for fostering and promoting such backward and blatantly false propaganda.
17
And there are still millions of Americans who believe none of this matters... because?
Because it doesn't really matter how you get what you want, only that you get it.
It's the American way. Self made millionaires. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Hard work. The streets are lined with gold. Anything and anyone can make it if they try hard enough. OR?
Wall Street, Casino, The Wolf of Wall Street, Catch Me If You Can, There Will Be Blood, The Social Network, The Big Short. Who do we really admire and look up to? We shall see come the mid-terms and next presidential election. Who do Americans really wish they could be? Dylan Lauren, one of the housewives of...name your city...or a Kardashian? Donald Trump or Gordon Gekko? These people are admired for their wealth and power but not too many really care how they went about getting it...only that they did.
25
I am glad some of the media is paying attention to Mr. Trump’s dishonesty, whether just to expose it or, like this article, to analyze the way it works. But I blame the same media, at least in part, for Trump’s political success. His dishonesty comes straight out of the mainstream of right-wing media, which has been central to establishment GOP power for decades. The ‘MSM’ never thought it worthwhile to analyze, or even notice, that dishonesty, even as it itself was attacked as dishonest by the right-wing every day of the week. The GOP made their peace with useful lying, conspiracy theories, hoaxes and attacks on journalism, and the ‘MSM’ treated them with the kid-gloves of ‘’balance.’’ And here we are.
15
100% correct
1
@Martin
To be fair, I believe that the majority of people were simply dismissive of this gory roadside wreck -- couldn't look away, couldn't take it seriously.
We as a people had no idea that one-third of the nation was as racist, ignorant, lacking in critical thinking skills, and sulking instead of trying to thrive.
Think about it: the people who attend Trump rallies were once claiming that they were tough, boot straps types who scorned those dependent on the government. Now they have nothing but atavistic grievances, and excuses.
The modern world has pitched nearly everyone a curve ball, but some of us refuse to abandon our humanity or allegiance to our own nation.
2
Trump's greatest talent is in being a superb con artist. That despite unending boldface lies, he has a totally dedicated base of tens of millions of supporters. He is so good at lying, they don't even know they are working against their own interests. This is truly one of the greatest mysteries in the universe. We have gone from George Washington's "I cannot tell a lie" to Donald Trump unable to tell the truth.
Massive activism by the majority of Americans who clearly see through this monstrosity is the ONLY answer. VOTE!
97
“If there’s no truth, how do we discuss and make decisions that are rooted in fact?” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican operative based in California. “It’s been abandoned. And it’s something that the Republican base certainly isn’t going to revolt on him on. But it is a huge fundamental problem of how to govern when there are no facts.”
That is the really scary paragraph in the story.
17
This is not on Trump, it is on the fools and goobers who got suckered into voting for him. They used the same tricks on the emotionally-vulnerable used by Cheney and Dubya to lie us into that Republican War, still unpaid-for.
The evangelicals betrayed to us their true character, . . no more "we're holy and you're not!" nonsense and blatant falsehoods. They enthusiastically went for the National Liar, Narcissist, Tax Cheat, Braggart, Grabber, Serial Adulterer, and Payoff King, . . one of their own.
32
It’s clearly on trump, he lies almost every time he opens his mouth and unfortunately there are people out there who’d rather hear his lies than the truth.
3
The only time Trump tells the truth is when he's not speaking. The same can be said for most GOP affiliated politicians today. They are deliberately undermining our faith in government. I do hope that they've considered the consequences that might follow. History does provide some excellent examples: the French Revolution, the Russian revolution when the Tsar and his entire family were murdered, the death of Kaddafi in Libya.
To paraphrase an old ad, it's not nice to fool the citizens. They may get even.
18
Why are his outageous statemens treated with a wnk and nod by notonlyhis base,but many Republicans who know better?
I think that an unexpected consequence of the ( liberal!) movement to respect different voices and points of view --encouraging people to speak their minds - has had the effect of convincing them that every opinion is equal to any other, with "veracity" something that to be decided by popular vote ( or force).
A person like Trump, who absolutely does not care about "truth," or fairness, or facts - just about his gut reactions and "winning" in the moment - is impossible to deal with using logical argument, facts, intelligence, etc, because he doesn't play by any rules.
Context only matters to someone who wants to understand a problem. Trump is uninterested in the past or future; uninterested in motivations beyond the one he grasps: material greed. He has never exhibited any regard for anyone who isn't of use to him; and in his transactions, the other is useful only for as long as he has something to gain.
His approach demeans the office and country.
The US has had many "rogue" operations that were sanctioned by different administrations; the point is that they were secret, and that if they had been fully public, would have aroused opposition. Trump is shameless and ruthless, a disturbed man leaving a stain.
4
Trump is merely the froth on the cauldron. A recent Rand Corporation study indicates that Americans of all political affiliations now suffer from "Truth Decay," a complete rejection of facts that do not agree with their preconceived notions of reality itself. The report considers other eras in U.S. history when people lost faith in basic institutions, but the authors conclude that today's political environment is more toxic than at any time since the founding of our Republic. “Although we see some evidence that previous eras also experienced a decline in trust in institutions, this trend seems to be more pronounced now than in the past,” said Michael D. Rich, co-author of the report and president and CEO of the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. “Today we see that lack of trust across many more pillars of society—in government, media and financial institutions—and a far lower absolute level of trust in these institutions than before.” - https://www.rand.org/news/press/2018/01/16.html
5
@Dave Longtin, great first line--
Hayden is completely on-message here that Trump will give airtime to foreign despots more than people in his own institutions. That is a treasonous disgrace. Now his warped way of thinking and governing is pretty much crystallised almost daily, can we not assemble some mental health experts to collate the evidence, including the some 4,500 lies assembled by the Washington Post, to trigger the 25th Amendment? I just don't see what is the delay in a free and fair country?
11
It has gotten so bad that even his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, a former United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, was heard to pronounce 'Truth isn't truth'!
Amazing.
11
Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don't do what I want them to
Facts just twist the truth around
Facts are living turned inside out
Facts are getting the best of them
Credit: Byrne, Frantz, Eno, Weyman and Harrison
7
and of course the next line, "I'm still waiting"
1
The spoiled child who is used to his father fixing all his problems.
A man whose mental and emotional growth ended in high school, at the latest.
Like a child, all that matters is if he wins. Then he can berate and humiliate the losers all he wants.
Don't forget, he's "very presidential."
16
"He lives in the eternal now." Something he has in common with dogs.
17
The problem is not that fact that these statements would - in past times - be dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic. Its that 40% of the voters in this country actually swallow it whole and elected him President. What is wrong with them?
28
@Meza - The only Trump supporters I have ever met live on a steady diet of Fox news and reality TV. They don't live in the real world.
4
@Meza: "What's wrong with them?"
Please see the very insightful documentary, "The Brainwashing of My Dad" to find out 'why'.
When I was a young teen, my dad listened to conservative talk radio exclusively and that is where I had my political awakening. The tactics of the right are very effective; I was set to join their ranks until I heard the term 'feminazi' applied to people who fought to ensure that I (as a woman) could enjoy the full rights of citizenship. Then discovering George Carlin (and later, Bill Hicks) sealed the deal on my escape. A brainwashed dad in the documentary discovered Wait Wait Don't Tell Me on NPR.
Seems like getting em laughing while they think might be the best way to help folks who are averse to reality.
3
My abiding hope for our country is that the Trump presidency will force a resounding awakening to affirm decency and inclusion as we address the challenges facing us.
I want to believe that the president's profound dishonesty and the depravity of his leadership have sounded the alarms needed to reset our nation's course - and reminded the Republican Party of what responsible conservative values needs to look like.
Sending a message this November and beyond has never been more important.
16
One does not know where to start when reading about this president's fairy tales on vaccinations, climate change, even birth certificates, or his scientific and/or brilliant mind. The Americans who are naturalized citizens should be glad they are, until Trump starts questioning the legitimacy of it. Constitution, who cares, he is the president. He dismissively told his audience that Mr. Jamal Khashoggi and his ordeal does not count, for he wasn't even a citizen of the United States. One can only wonder what is next on his agenda.
8
People who live in an alternative reality based on "feelings and instincts" and not established objective reality are often felt to be mentally ill. No one has raised this issue of his mental fitness in a while but the way he operates is NOT NORMAL! Especially when one is President of the US! His personality disorder continues to show itself daily and he may be unaware of "consequences" but the rest of us are. Heaven help us!
18
“He’s got a personal relationship,” Mr. Hayden said, “and he’s built it himself, with three heads of state who have murdered somebody within another person’s country within the last year.”
VOTE!!!
25
You quoted Hayden, the criminal who lied under oath to Congress? That's rich.
Come on, people. Can't you find someone who isn't a liar to complain about President Trump's lies?
Okay. I will testify to the depths of his deceitfulness and the pathology of his lying. Satisfied?
4
Come back to reality, JND. Michael Hayden is not a "criminal," and he is quoted here giving his opinions in the form of observations about Trump. Hayden, at least, appears to be in touch with reality.
1
Trump is the nightmare from which we can't awaken. Not only am I so offended by his vacuousness, his misogynistic comments and behavior, and his total immorality and immaturity, I wonder about his mental health.
I don't even think we are talking about senility; he seems to have been born with this vacuum of intelligence, an inability to tell the truth (about anything) and a total lack of compassion, empathy or regard for his fellow humans. I don't know what you call this condition.
And to think that somehow we have allowed ourselves to be governed by such a man keeps me up at night.
God help us!
37
Insanity. n. mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior.
Sound like anyone you know?
Can we please stop talking about this man as if he is normal. He is not, and he proves it every single day. Stop ignoring the bleeding obvious! "Trump being Trump" is the long worn out excuse for America electing a mad man, and hoping the world will not notice. Sorry to have to tell you, they noticed.
10
This is a critically important story and should be kept on the front burner, through the 2020 election. The future of our nation and world must not be determined by a congenital liar and ignorant, narcissistic fool as POTUS. We must see reality straight on - the realities of history, science and today's context (eg: climate change, thugs and liars running other nations - Putin, Duarte, Kim Jong-un, MBS, etc.). My hope is this is a lesson in the kind of people to not elect to even dog catcher, let alone President. Certainly there are issues that are legitimately clouded by differing points of view and there are times when the best we can do is to tell the truth as we know it, admitting that we may be incorrect. That's not what trump is about. He is clearly lying to suit whatever thought comes into his head, whatever will gain him more personal wealth and ego - that is his measure of truth.
This is clearly an insane moment in history that will end soon and should be a lesson for history. NEVER again. The nation and world are facing precarious and existential threats that will not simply go away because some lunatic POTUS declares it so. Unfortunately we have millions of uninformed people who choose to watch Fox "News" and are therefore fed daily diet of lies, fantasies and corruption. Then they believe this crackpot stuff.
So, it's up to our real media to provide the truth as best they can and do not let this kind of story go in favor of the "story du jour".
7
I have long felt that Trump has little idea or care about how democracy works. He is interested in his own personal philosophy and will not bend from it, will only give credence to his own personal instincts even when proven wrong as this column points to. It is incredible that when all intelligence points to the truth of things that he continues on his way refusing to acknowledge proven facts to the contrary of his beliefs. His behavior is shameful and I am forced to think his interests are purely personal and have little to do with the stability of our once great nation, once great until he took office that is.
8
This awful condition is exacerbated by a feckless Republican leadership that continues to keep its collective head in the sand. Too often the leadership declares it doesn't have time to keep up with the president's tweets or hasn't listened to the latest speeches or wasn't aware of his most recent goals. When pressed, leaders like Paul Ryan step barely an inch out of line to declare that Trump's statements were "not helpful" or "unfortunate."
So, while all the criticism of Trump is justly deserved for the job he is doing, the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue is equally to blame for the job it is trying hard NOT to do, mainly being an equal branch of government.
That's a fact none of us can or should ignore.
14
In the South, we love great writers and the stories they tell. Their fiction becomes our reality as we see and hear their words play out into a plausible tale. The story seems true but there are no facts, only an assemblage of convent observations told with conviction.
So what's not to like about trump's fiction, especially when it feeds our long-held beliefs. It gets in our heads, and occasionally in our hearts, and we treasure it, we caress it, we share it.
Unfortunately, this charlatan, this yankee, this big city fellow has stumbled across this trait of ours, this peculiar Southern trait, and learned that his fiction is as good as William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Robert Penn Warren, Thomas Wolfe, Caroline Gordon, and Katherine Anne Porter.
We believe him because we want to believe him. We didn't lose the "War of Northern Aggression", it was just put on hold for a century or so. It is "OUR country" and others want to take it. Even though we may be poor, we are happy. We are better than "them", whoever they may be. The outsiders (nominally yankees, but fill in your own boggieman -- Democrat is now a convenient word) want to take advantage of us. Working in the cotton mill is better than share cropping; the mine is better than moonshine.
Yes, trump has found a seam of gold in our rugged soil, and he is mining it like crazy. And what is so convenient is that it is even easier to sell his lies to us than it is to sell his condos to money laundering Russians.
22
That we let this man become President, a man without morals, ethics, or basic belief in REALITY and FACTS is just astounding. This is not normal. This is not what "mentally fit" looks like. And the fact that this Republican controlled Senate and Congress cannot seem to use the Checks and Balances necessary for our Democracy, screams for change.
Please vote November 6th. Our very Democracy is at stake.
10
I teach reading, writing and critical thinking. I believe this failure to acknowledge "truth" and "facts" to be one of the very worst features of this new regime. It has many sources, including 45's own education and experience. It is supported by many others who have equally weak educational backgrounds (no matter what a diploma might state). And it is ignored or condoned by operatives with personal interests in using a weak demagogue to further their own agenda (primarily packing the courts with conservatives who will endure far past this regime). This fast and loose view of "truth" will also last a long time, will be an excuse to further degrade public education (who needs to read and think?). It is insidious, and thus much more frightening than overt attempts to subvert the public discourse and realm. Lack of thinking leads to many dangerous decisions and consequences. I fear for this.
9
That President Trump believes his "own facts" has been obvious since he declared himself a candidate. His disavowal of inconvenient facts related to intelligence, the climate, the law, and a whole host of other issues has been well documented in these pages when specific issues arise.
My question is why is this a newsworthy "story" for the New York Times to publish on the front page of their website? Is there something new here, or is this quasi-editorial clickbait masquerading as a story for those of us already demoralized and angry at the President and his allies?
I understand all news media are guided by how much time viewers spend on their site/channel, because this directly affects revenue. While I greatly appreciate Ms. Haberman's reporting, I hold the New York Times to a high standard, and this "memo" seems to skirt an editorial line as an opinion piece, re-presenting old information but updated with the Khashoggi story. Please do continue to do the wonderful, investigative journalism you do, and continue to call President Trump to account for his lies and misdeeds. But perhaps it's better to leave "memos" like this to the editorial pages.
2
@jrinsc. When "The president lies" is not an opinion but a fact, it belongs with the news. And it is a clear and proven fact.
1
This article is based on the assumption that he believes what he claims to believe. In fact, I think he knows when his "facts" are untrue but he promotes them because they support his political decisions. In other words, he knowingly lies.
17
Anyone who has knowledge of Trump's history knows he has been a blatant liar for a long time. Just ask anyone in NJ after his casino debacles. What is sad Is that so many either believe his lies or do not care. Also that so many believe the end justifies the means. This shows an erosion of mind and spirit and rather than being made great again we may be declining morally.
37
Donald Trump is the avatar for what the Republican party has become. Witness the current ads for the upcoming elections. If Trump and the GOP have done wonderful things for this country, why don't they expound on them rather than going strictly negative on their opponents.
18
I guess you can parse Trump from a multitude of perspectives, but it just gets down to the fact that he's a pathological liar and has been his whole life.
10
It’s not just the President. It’s an entire political party, back up by a massive bullhorn of online, radio, local, and cable news, who have devoted the last few decades to carving a Trump sized hole in our Constitutional Republic. It’s a reality reinforced daily by outlets like the 700 Club, Breitbart, the Drudge Report, Sinclair, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Alex Jones, and a reality given legislative and judicial backing by the Republican Party and (now) the highest court in the land. Trump is just an expression of a pathological unwillingness to accept the challenges and uncertainties of a modern world.
19
The Republicans have been doing exactly this for years. Trump has only justified (in their minds) their long corruption with a suspect electoral victory. Look no further than Mitch McConnell for a Republican leader who has never, ever, allowed truth to prevent him from drawling one bald-faced lie after the other. The fact that it has worked only proves P.T.Barnum’s dictum all the more sadly correct: “Nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”
634
This is very apt. The presidents judge sister actually calls him pt Barnum.
3
@Michael Judge
The quote is more accurately attributed to H. L. Mencken.
PT was the "sucker is born every minute" guy.
@Michael Judge Sorry, Mr.Judge, that was said by H. L. Mencken not by Barnum. Barnum said ,"there's a sucker born every minute."
1
As a taxpayer and voter, I demand to know the truth. Facts are facts and chronic lying by Trump is a pathological trait. We cannot let this continue. I hope everyone reconsiders their vote for Trump and recognizes he's not for America, but for lining his pockets by deception.
60
nothing here is new or surprisng and should have been called out loudly during the campaign for what it was -- it was apparent then, too
33
MBS is on thin ice here; if he is remotely connected to the brutal murder of Mr Khashoggi then trump is going to impose severe sanctions.
MBS, you are at risk of losing all your accumulated reward points from the trump hotel chain.
Reinstating your points is going to cost no less than the purchase price of two condos in the trump tower.
43
@Tim
MBS - Mr. Bone Saw. Pre-meditated murder.
1
I have long thought that trump should be confined to a holodeck (to be built in the bowling alley down in the White House basement). There he could incite his adoring crowds, pal around with his favorite murderous authoritarian buds, and grab an endless supply of you know what. I would put the congressional GOP members of congress into an adjoining suite to legislate the renaming all the the post offices, water treatment plants and nuclear waste dumps not yet named after Reagan. Then the grownups could attend to the nation's business.
Oh yes, and in this fantasy life, Jesus would be called before some Senate select committee to apologize for chasing the moneylenders out of the temple.
19
The upcoming midterm elections need to be a referendum on Donald Trump's dangerous, jaw-dropping incompetence as our President. For me and for many others - it will be a chance for a total "do over" of November 8, 2016.
65
There is no question that Trump lives in his own little world, the real question that has to be asked, is it his ego, a mental illness, his up bringing, his money or what?
This poses a real problem because as big as this world is we all have to live on it together and like it or not we need to come to an agreement on things that directly affect us.
Since we are a republic and not a monarchy no one person should have the final say on anything.
We all need to get involved with our government, even if it is only to vote.
28
Inconceivable as it may be, when Trump is haranguing his base, he seems adamant in lying 'freely', however debunked his assertions. To him, the truth is what is convenient at the time. Quite frankly, when one lies whenever the mouth opens, the curse may be worse that the moment of glory when being applauded, however wildly, and that is the irremediable loss of knowing fact from fiction anymore. I suspect Trump is in this predicament. And the only remedy is his ouster, as there is no known remedy for so much nonsense and ill will.
7
The contorted view of reality that directs Donald Trump's behavior is not a revelation to the majority of Americans who do realize that Mr Trump for all his political success is still delusional and reality to him is what his uninformed ignorant intelligence concocts at any moment. The real problem for America is that at least 40% of Americans still love this real estate developer from Queens and actually think he is going to make America great again.
24
The president plays fantasy football with reality. Without any game rules.
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The greatest enemy of fascism is the truth. It is no coincidence the same holds true where Trump is concerned, truth is always an existential threat to his purpose.
Hanna Arendt noted that the expedience of the crafted lie has always been the door through which politics seduces truth, which is why politics unmitigated by principle or morality becomes fascism.
Reagan was an public relations actor/politician, but one who believed in his own framework that he was bound by morality and the truths that were dictated by his precepts and beliefs.
Reagan advanced his popularity by reliance on old bromides and weight shifting homilies, "there you go again. . . "
Trump has adapted one of Reagan's catch phrases to advance protecting a candidate for our highest court from objective scrutiny of charges of lying about alcohol abuse and accusations leveled concerning planned assaults on young women by himself and his circle using drugs and booze. Now, Trump has morphed that defense to stall investigation and findings that an American resident political refuge from Saudi Arabia was abducted, tortured, murdered, and dismembered in an insidious threatening message to all Saudi dissidents and all journalists.
Trump's own son, Donny Jr., quickly entered the right's frenzy to defame and justify Saudi's abduction/murder/dismemberment misrepresenting that Khashoggi "is a terrorist" implying somehow that the Washington Post, abets terrorism.
The Big Lie is alive and well in Trumpland.
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@jwp-nyc - "... truth is always an existential threat to his purpose." Well said. Thank you or pointing this out.
@jwp-nyc, yes! It's at times like these that Arendt needs to be read and reread.
One of the many ironies of Trump is if a business person shows up for meetings without facts to support their point of view and continually misrepresents reality, they will promptly get fired.
Identifying the most relevant facts to support a claim or conclusion is known as making an argument. It requires discipline and knowledge of the subject matter to make an effective argument.
Researching a subject and making good arguments about it are what professionals do every day on the job. Trump can't do it. It is unsurprising that Trump inherited most of his wealth and then sold his father's companies for the remainder; he has mainly destroyed wealth, often other people's.
Why does Trump get away with it? It's about white nationalism a.k.a. racism, a global virus. As long as Trump makes it clear he advocates a "Make America White Again" strategy, he'll retain nearly 90% Republican support. His supporters are willing to forgive virtually anything to stick it to immigrants. The degree of rationalization and hypocrisy among his supporters is unbelievable; look at the deficit issue for instance, an existential threat only under Democrats.
Everyone knows Trump lies all the time; his supporters don't care and Democrats have to make sure they focus on what they will do if they get power again. I suggest a focus on universal healthcare and education and a return to the Obama baseline on immigration.
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I sometimes wonder if Trump really believes these "alternative facts" or whether he is just propounding them to suit his political needs of the moment. His version of reality is so preposterous that it defies rational explanation. So I think it's possible that Trump is being deliberately deceptive, despite all evidence to the contrary on any given subject.
What disturbs me more than Trump's constant prevarication is the number of people in this country who swallow his twisted versions of the truth, or, even worse, simply don't care. I have read many articles which try to explain why his base continues to follow him, regardless of his disreputable behavior. I still don't get it.
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I too am unsure of whether he is just scheming or is actually as profoundly, fundamentally, childishly ignorant as he appears. Usually I lean toward the radical honesty thesis: he really is saying what he thinks. He has no inkling of the depth of his own ignorance, and things really are as bad as they look. He would be deserving of pity if he weren't at the helm.
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@gigi I think most of the outrage he perpetuates generates a smoke screen to conceal either his or his plutocratic boosters looting or breaking conventional government. Note the second part of the massive tax cuts were passed while during the outrage (legitimate to a point, but it obscured other serious news) about the supreme court nominee. All sorts of economic and environmental crimes are being perpetuated as Trump generates daily outrage by name-calling or flagrantly lying about something else.
...and our congress continues to turn a blind eye to this? We have had presidents lie to us for any number of reasons over my life time, but Donald Trump lives in a scary reality of his own. Our nation is on a slippery slope.
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The article lays out the Trumpian alt-worldview nicely, but says nothing about the Republican Party or about his base of fans who delight in his 'eccentricities'.
We have been governed in other dark periods by firm believers in racism, eugenics, prohibition, slavery, keeping women from voting, and by "Know-Nothings". How does the alt-personality of the President mesh with the 170 year old GOP, and how do they govern together, in whose interest?
"These are the times that try men's souls." T. Paine
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The man, as well as those that support him, suffers from "psychotic belief." In psychology, it is defined as an erroneous belief that is held in the face of evidence to the contrary.
Although, frankly, one wonders if sociopaths are really that concerned with evidence.
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The President has his own facts - and the Republican Party is also happy to go along with his alternate reality. These delusional people must be outvoted everywhere possible. Vote Blue!
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"White House Memo"? Seriously?
1) How does a truly unbiased news organization let their lead White House correspondent write this kind of opinion piece? Shouldn't she (or he) be insulated from the appearance of bias?
2) How do does same allegedly unbiased news organization let a clear opinion piece be labeled "White House Memo"
This is one of the reasons why people have a hard time believing the "news", since it is more opinion than news.
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@Wondering - Haberman hasn't written anything that isn't true.
Trump lies at least six times EVERY DAY. That should worry you.
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It's called "White House Memo" because it's not a breaking news story, it's an analytical piece. Just because it presents an argument supported by examples doesn't mean it's an opinion, however. No rational observer could fail to notice Trump's pattern of accepting "very strong denials" from wrongdoers.
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"His long career in the New York real estate world convinced Mr. Trump that all people are prone to shading their views according to their own self-interest. Objectivity is not something he expects of people, and he long ago came to believe that “facts” are really arbitrary."
The above would be true if Trump said it. When Maggie writes what she believes, it is opinion.
This should terrify everyone, regardless of party affiliation.
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How is it possible in this situation that our only option as outraged citizens is to vote. I realize it is important but thought there were other safeguards that can be used in this situation where you have a leader who does not share simple beliefs in facts. And has convinced so many fellow citizens that he is "leading" us in the right direction. He encourages violence, bullying, disrespect and so many negatives it is difficult to absorb. And who do I feel is at the greatest risk? Our children.
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@Yolanda
Schedued elections are not your only option.
One of the great things about US democracy is most areas/positions include the electorate right of recall. It has been successfully used in the Senate before.
If you don't like what you are seeing and you are in a republican represented state, a petition will start the process.
If enouh people start the process against their sitting republican senators, then maybe they will start to pay attention to you the voters instead of Trump the narcisist.
"The most noticeable new variation of that tendency that Mr. Trump has adopted as president is his penchant for giving the benefit of the doubt to authoritarian leaders with whom he has tried to develop personal or political relationships."
In what milieu did Trump get his business beginning? Was it not in NYC real estate development, and wasn't there much mafia infiltration there then? And isn't giving the benefit of the doubt to the top dog a key to 'success' in such a milieu?
6
“If there’s no truth, how do we discuss and make decisions that are rooted in fact?” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican operative based in California. “It’s been abandoned. And it’s something that the Republican base certainly isn’t going to revolt on him on. But it is a huge fundamental problem of how to govern when there are no facts.”
Trump voters got exactly what they wanted: a fact-free President.
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This will end, soon or badly.
Let us fervently hope it ends soon.
If it continues long the consequences may be terrible.
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To this day it astounds me that American politics are so tribal that Trump’s followers won’t give a shred of credence to Ms. Haberman’s careful reporting of one of our president’s greatest and most dangerous flaws. Equally troubling to me is how long it will take our nation and the world to heal once his presidency has ended. Long live Maggie Haberman and others like her willing to diligently get to the truth about one of the most devastating and destructive times in our lifetimes and the man responsible for them.
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@Anti guns, not a tribe so much as a cult.
I continue to hope that one day we'll look back on all this as a short-lived aberration.
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@sandgk it has gone on too long already. The damage done willl be difficult if not impossible to fix. It is hard to imagine there is no remedy to get this horrible person out of office before he divides the country into further tribalism, ruins what is left of put international reputation, and completely bankrupts our economy.. just as his own failed businesses have been bailed out time after time.
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@sandgk, Unfortunately with long term consequences.
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So, what are the Republicans waiting for? Trump will probably have someone "silenced" and no one will do anything about it.
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I suspect that one lesson Trump has learnt from Vlad is that it doesn't matter whether what you say is true or not, what's important is to stir dis-information. Get the public to not believe either side and you generate apathy, at which point you can get away with anything.
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I do not believe that this statement reflects his thought process. Trump is person who reads little, knows few facts and has no understanding of science or research. He operates on personal beliefs and takes stances which make him feel good regardless of truth or evidence. The tragedy here is that there are so many likeminded people in this country who will agree with any irrational statements that he makes. When denying climate change he said that there are scientists on both sides of the question and that he has an uncle who was a scientist at MIT. He didn't speak with this relative,but actually believes that because of this familial connection that he ha scientific aptitude. Yes he said that in an interview with the associated press.
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Language has always been subject to ambivalence. It is why studying and researching issues is so important. When a president or anyone depends on only one source for ideas only one view can prevail and it allows that person to fall back onto self created delusions.
A person shrouded in delusions in some ways has it easy anything that contradicts that delusion is merely disregarded. There is not need to do the hard work of reading a book or studying background evidence because you think you know everything before hand.
Trump lives in a bubble of his own making reinforced by opinions from FOX news that allow him to continue in that bubble. The press, the courts, women he has abused or political opponents to this shadow man exist only to be hated and further abused.
That so many are willing to by into this is shocking and Democracy can only become an authoritarian rule as the search for truth no longer means anything. The cult of personality is an acid that can not help but eat at everything this country has sought so hard to create, a rule of law and dignity for all.
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Mr. Trump believes whatever that is most profitable financially or otherwise to him at any given moment. His only driving force is to benefit from any opportunity. He has no convictions or moral values.
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President Trump continually expands the boundaries of what is commonly considered acceptable behavior for any human being, let alone a president. When he said that he could shoot someone in 5th Avenue and not lose any votes, he was effectively saying that he could commit any crime without suffering consequences. His subsequent election proved that he can get away with saying anything, regardless of it's morality or veracity.
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@Phillip Goodwin - He was also openly jeering at his supporters but they refuse to see it.
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@Phillip Goodwin The horror of this has been demonstrably true for a year. We must continue to ask why this man is still in the office of the President of the United States.
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@Phillip Goodwin And enough U.S. citizens vote to elect him president. Here it takes millions to tango.
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He’s a sociopath, a psychopath and an untreated mental patient that has created a political-religious cult of personality.
His only accomplishment is sucking the United States of America into his psychological black hole.
Any decent American - Rebublican, Democrat or independent - should be alarmed about this man’s destruction of truth and sanity.
November 6 2018
Neither the Psychopath-In-Chief nor his Grand Old Prevaricators can stand the truth or democracy.
VOTE
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@Socrates. I have made this point over and over again. Trump is seriously mentally ill. The evidence is irrefutable.
Yet the cowardly Republicans and their sycophants enable him to get tax cuts for the superrich and supreme court appointments.
How any man or woman with a conscience can pull the lever for a Republican these days is beyond me.
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@Socrates
This is the true issue. Mental illness.
Trump is divorced from reality and there is no way to change his delusions or his behavior. He is unable to see it himself, this is similar to many other mentally ill people.
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Does Trump have one redeeming feature?
He’s an all round most obnoxious creature,
Pick a topic and he
Sides with sheer thuggery
A target for any impeacher.
Morality? Never a trace!
And Science? Unprovable case!
Ignorance does not bar
A Program sure to mar,
#Me too? A National disgrace!
Awkward at whatever he tries
A man not too hard to despise
He’s evil incarnate
Has two more years, darn it!
A Saint in his supporters’ eyes.
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@Larry Eisenberg Hey, another post by the wonderful Larry Eisenberg. His recent absence from these comment sections had worried his many friends.
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