There is a common refrain that occurs regularly in the mainstream, anti-Trump media, and it goes something like this: “Trump is a liar! Trump is a liar! Everybody knows Trump is a liar!” Or sometimes the charge is embellished by the addition of adjectives such as “pathological”: “Trump is a pathological liar!” This was Bernie Sanders’ choice of words in a recent interview in which he announced his presidential candidacy. Leaving aside the Senator’s claim to psychoanalytic expertise and diagnostic skill – how could he possibly diagnose the President? –, there is nothing new in his criticism of the President. It is, as I said, a common refrain.
Contrary to what many readers will expect in this article, I have no intention of defending the President against the charge that he has on occasion uttered an intentional falsehood. As a matter of fact, I would never attempt to exonerate any Washington politician, Democrat or Republican, from the charge of prevarication. In my opinion that would be a Herculean task. Who seriously thinks that Senator Feinstein has never lied? or Senator Graham? What amazes me about the charge against the President is this: The Democrats seem to be suggesting that Washington in the pre-Trump era was a paradise of virtue. Before Donald Trump arrived, nobody in Washington ever lied, but since this “pathological liar” has come to the Oval Office, the situation has drastically changed for the worse. The very moral fabric of our political system is at stake! Fears abound that “Trump’s illness” might be contagious. It might spread through the entire House and Senate, resulting in a deluge of lying on both sides of the aisle. Alas, paradise has been lost! Thus the Senator from Vermont is willing to enter the presidential race again in order to reestablish the pristine virtue of Washington.
It is a very ridiculous scenario, and one would have expected the “intellectual” Democrats to come up with something better. Sadly, they haven’t. In fact, they make the situation even more ridiculous by quoting statistics gathered by the so-called “fact-checkers”, as though the number of lies is more significant than the consequences of each one. Consider the case of President Lyndon Johnson. On the 50th anniversary of Johnson’s lie about the attack on two US ships in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, the Guardian published an article outlining the now infamous events. This one lie was the basis for escalating the war in Vietnam – a war in which over 58,000 Americans lost their lives. Lies must be judged by their consequences. Perhaps Trump has misquoted statistics on occasion, but the consequences of such statements pale in comparison with really detrimental lies.
By now, those readers who grow weary after 300 words will have clicked onto some other site, but for those hearty souls who still remain, I would like to suggest some rather important distinctions. There is a fundamental distinction between a false statement and a lie. We frequently make false statements out of ignorance. We intend to tell the truth, but we are just plain wrong about the facts. Then there are those cases of hyperbole when we exaggerate the facts for effect. The statement: “The Villages – Florida’s Friendliest Hometown” may not be strictly accurate, but it makes a point through exaggeration. I suspect that many of the false statements attributed to Trump fall into this category. Finally, we have the real lies – the false statements made for the purpose of deception, and these lies must be judged on the severity of their consequences.
Consider another situation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian who opposed Hitler during the period of National Socialism and who was indirectly involved in an assassination attempt on Hitler’s life in 1944. The assassination attempt failed, and Bonhoeffer was arrested as a suspect. In the subsequent months he was interrogated repeatedly by the Nazis who were seeking the names of the would-be assassins. Had Bonhoeffer divulged their names, they would have been summarily executed. So he claimed to have no knowledge of the assassination plot or of the people behind it. So how should we judge the consequences of his lie? Perhaps we would have done the same thing in his place.
Between the extremes of Johnson’s lie and Bonhoeffer’s lie, we encounter a spectrum of minor infractions, many of which have no apparent consequences in daily life. So my word to the fact-checkers is this: Please spare us your useless statistics about lies. It is always the consequences that matter. As for the hypocrisy of the Democrats, history speaks for itself. Washington never was a bulwark of virtue.
Jack E. Brush is a Villager and a frequent contributor to Villages-News.com