Trump’s Depraved Disregard for Truth Undermines Democracy

Mary McCarthy famously said of Lillian Hellman, Every word she writes is a lie, including “and” and “the.”

Tuesday Trump said, about Alabama Senate candidate Doug Jones, “I’ve looked at his record. It’s terrible on crime. It’s terrible on the border. It’s terrible on the military.”

“I’ve looked at his record.” Every word in that sentence is a lie. Trump never looks at any records. He only looks at TV.

“Terrible on crime?” Jones was a federal prosecutor. He prosecuted crimes. Roy Moore, Trump’s candidate, commits them.

Doug Jones prosecuted perpetrators of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, which killed four young girls. That redeemed rule of law in Alabama. Roy Moore defied rule of law, resulting in his removal from the bench, twice. He has molested underage girls (based on credible testimony of more than a few victims).

Yet it’s Jones who’s “terrible on crime?” I want to throw up.

And “terrible on the border?” And “terrible on the military?” How, exactly? Trump doesn’t say. Because he can’t. There’s nothing there. He just flings out these slippery, slimy accusations. The loathsome creep spewed exactly the same pus at Arizona Senator Jeff Flake. (And he’s never retracted his idiotic lie that President Obama wiretapped him.)

“All politicians lie,” is a common refrain. It isn’t true, though some bend and shade the truth. But none, in American history, has ever shown such depraved disregard for truth as Trump. He simply could not care less whether anything he says corresponds to reality. Recently he deemed it “disgusting” that the press can say whatever it wants. Yet mainstream press is very careful about reporting truthfully. It’s Trump himself saying whatever he wants, truth be damned. That’s disgusting.

I may sound like a broken record, but this is so important that every fresh travesty compels my bearing witness. This — like a computer program that’s corrupted and scrambles information — corrupts the public discourse and debate vital to democracy. They fundamentally depend upon a concept of what a fact is. Upon words themselves having meaning. In Trump’s mouth they do not; the concept of “fact” has no meaning.

And the words “president of the United States” used to carry a certain dignity. Now they convey the howl of the madhouse; the stench of the sewer.

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