It is remarkable — and perhaps praiseworthy — that Donald Trump gave a long and detailed interview on the subject of his being a pathological liar. The interview, with Time’s
Michael Scherer, covers a wide range of Trump’s lies, and features many
of his own justifications for them. The truly revealing moment of the
interview comes at the end, when Trump gives up the game. “But isn’t
there, it strikes me there is still an issue of credibility,” asks
Scherer, referencing Trump’s hallucinatory claims to have been
surveilled by his predecessor, which his own intelligence officials have
refuted. Trump rambles through various talking points, and lands on
this conclusion: “I guess, I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m
president, and you’re not.”
This
small line is an important historical marker of the bizarre and
disconcerting reality into which American politics has plunged. Trump is
not merely making an attack on truth here. He is attacking the idea of truth. His statement is a frontal challenge to the notion that objective reality can be separated from power.
Trump
and his officials have been dancing around this notion since November.
When challenged on almost any of their lies, they point to the election,
which proves that the credibility of the crooked Fake News media is
nonexistent, and theirs is beyond reproach. Questions about veracity are
met with responses about voting in Wisconsin, Michigan, and
Pennsylvania. Trump made the argument explicit: The only measure of his
veracity is power, which he has, and his critics do not. [...]
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