The Only Reason I Need to Vote Against Trump

Why Are Lies Bad?

Through mid-January, Trump is estimated to have made over 20,000 false or misleading comments during the first year and a half of his term. Yes, I know that’s a silly number – Trump lies so often and frequently does so in half-baked fragments, the exact size and shape of his epic mountain of dishonesty will never be known. And reasonable people can differ about what is a lie, what is an exaggeration, and what is true. But it is my contention that Trump lies more than any other President by a wide margin. If you don’t believe this is true, if you think that I am lying about Trump’s lies, this article is not for you.

I've written this instead for those who admit/accept that Trump lies prodigiously but believe that this is acceptable for a US President because of Trump's other "qualities". As I wrote in my post, It’s Not the Tweets!, many Republicans are disgusted with Trump’s lies, racist comments, and grade school taunts but support him anyway because they perceive his policies on the economy (or whatever is most important to them) are superior to what they think Biden’s will be -- and because they minimize the cost of his lies. They manage this intellectual twister move (right hand red, left leg orange) by putting all Trump’s lies and all the other toxic sludge that spews from his mouth into a tidy little breadbasket called, “persona” or “manner” or “personality” or “those darn tweets” where they can be efficiently filed away and hence forgotten. But they are wrong. Deeply, horribly wrong.

Continue reading