
No Honesty Required
“Confronted with Facts on Fox News, Trump Claims Ignorance.”
The New York Times headline says it all.1 But does it say anything to the MAGA crowd intent on putting Donald J. Trump back in the White House? Yes, but not what you might think. To them, Trump’s lying confirms: “He’s our man.”
During that Fox News interview, Donald Trump defended some of the lies he continues to repeat and spread through Trump Social:2 rioters who assaulted the Capitol on Jan. 6 were peaceful, unarmed patriots participating in a “day of love”; his defeat in the 2020 election was rigged; Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eat household pets; the “enemy from within” are the very dangerous Americans who oppose him.
Although thoroughly debunked, Trump must repeat those lies and come up with new ones on a regular basis. He must be persistent and aggressive in spreading myths, rumors, and falsehoods and defiant and vigorous in defending them. The lies appeal to his base, and Trump must appeal to it. That crazy base is his only chance of regaining the White House, and regaining the White House is his only chance of evading prison and bankruptcy.
What’s important to understand is that Trump supporters don’t believe his lies; they bond with Trump through those lies. The lies are Trump’s credentials. They show he can fulfill the single, most important promise he’s made them: bust up the joint.3 Those lies prove he’s the bad dude who can drain the swamp he’s been telling them about; sic the IRS on the Biden crime family; send Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer scampering across red-hot coals; punch through the nonsense institutions supposed to be the foundation of democracy; face down Vladimir Putin by being his best buddy; save America.
Trump’s lies constitute the single tool he requires to fulfill MAGA’s vision of a free, gun-toting, totally dysfunctional America.
Trump’s got what it takes, MAGA knows. Those brazen lies prove it.
The lies constitute the single tool Trump requires to fulfill MAGA’s vision of a free, gun-toting, totally dysfunctional America. Though perfectly green at the White House game, Trump demonstrated prodigious skill sowing chaos during his first presidential term. He was off to a great start by lying about the weather: God held off the rain until his inaugural address was over, he told audiences, contradicting the experience of those present who got pretty wet. With the eyes of the nation on him, Trump managed to interfere with Robert Mueller’s two-year inquiry into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. He denied the existence of the pandemic, then said the virus was as harmless as the flu, then said it was under control. When he flubbed by tweeting that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama, he altered the weather map to include Alabama, then enlisted his staff to pressure weather bureau officials into confirming Trump’s uninformed prediction.4 He informed the nation that windmill noises cause cancer and that he had been named Michigan’s Man of the Year. Trump lied without flinching on countless other occasions under all circumstances: in the face of eyewitnesses, victims, lawyers, legislators, judges, and the nation. It’s a rare creature that has the fiber to do that, let alone perform with the ease and fluency Trump has demonstrated time and time again. Trump was indeed MAGA’s man.
Not only does Trump lie, he’s a master at cheating, another credential weighing in his favor with supporters. No occasion goes by where he does not manage to pocket something for himself. As president, he charged taxpayers $2.5 million to fly him and family members to his private properties and host their stays. Taxpayers paid $17,000 a month May through November for a cottage at Trump’s New Jersey club just in case Secret Service might need to use it while protecting Trump or his family on one of their jaunts there. Taxpayers paid for government officials’ rooms at Mar-a-Lago at rates Trump hiked up to $650 a night. A Mar-a-Lago drinking session cost taxpayers $1,000. Taxpayers paid the tip as well although, due to the confidentiality of that particular binge, no service people were present. For then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s 2018 visit to Mar-a-Lago, taxpayers paid $6,000 for floral arrangements; $1,584 per night for a house Trump offered Abe for an office; and $3 plus service charge for the glass of water served Abe on his arrival.5 Trump pocketed it all and was still able to weasel his way out of every emolument suit brought against him.
MAGAs don’t resent Trump for screwing them over. They hail him as their champion for screwing everyone else over.
As Brian E. Frosh, Maryland’s attorney general, and Karl A. Racine, the District of Columbia’s attorney general, stated: “President Trump and political appointees at the Department of Justice went to extreme lengths to prevent us from uncovering the true extent of his corruption. He attempted to short-circuit the rules of legal procedure to have our case dismissed and avoid discovery into his finances, arguing that the law did not apply to him.”6
Way to go, Donald! What outsiders just don’t understand is that MAGAs don’t resent Trump for screwing them over. They hail him as their champion for screwing everyone else over: lawyers, courts, opposing politicians, patsy taxpayers. (No MAGA is a patsy taxpayer.)
Trump’s greatest trick is breaking the law so fast that the system can’t keep up. By the time it does ramp up its unwieldy operations — draining the department’s budget in the process — all it finds is more wreckage left by Trump to plow through. The American legal apparatus is too slow and clumsy to touch him, which does not mean Trump is innocent. MAGA doesn’t want someone innocent. They want someone guilty as hell who can singlehandedly paralyze the U.S. government. Someone wily enough to delegitimize the electoral system. Someone with the stamina to sue state governments for voter fraud so often — despite no evidence — that it gums up the works. Trump has what it takes. He’s their man.
It is odd to consider which of Trump’s lies MAGA followers do believe. On June 10, 2023, after being indicted for concealing classified documents and lying to federal investigators about it, the defiant former president addressed supporters in Columbus, Georgia, mocking the indictment and reassuring them, as he did in a later 2024 campaign rally: “Never forget our enemies want to take take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom . . . They want to silence me because I will never let them silence you . . . They’re not after me, they are after you. I just happen to be standing in their way, and I always will.”7
Trump supporters believe that one. Naturally they would. As Trump thumbs his nose at the nation’s highest authorities, dodges the courts, breaks laws, and cheats the huddled masses, who’s standing right behind him cheering him on? They are. If Trump were ever taken down, who would be exposed as complicit? They would, because they are complicit. Of that, they are well aware. Naturally they want Trump back in the White House for at least one more presidential term, protecting them while they help him finish the job of trashing the joint, at which point they can see about fixing things. Except Trump has no tools for that. And neither do they.
- https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/20/us/politics/trump-fox-news-jan-6-haitians.html ↩︎
- My term for Donald Trump’s social media platform is Trump Social. When someone forwards one of his messages, I consider them re-Trumped and name them accordingly. ↩︎
- This is a very vague way of expressing a goal, but Trump supporters don’t require anything more specific from him. What Trump means by “the joint” — the government? Federal agencies? the Democrats? the legal system? the world? — remains unspecified. How thorough the busting up will be doesn’t concern them either. They are, after all, merely voters, common citizens, constituents with no binding responsibilities, not candidates with any knowledge of economics, politics, foreign relations, the law, or even the Constitution. They can’t be expected to articulate a detailed vision of policy or implementation. ↩︎
- The alteration of official government weather forecasts is illegal per 18 U.S. Code 2074, and is punishable by fine or imprisonment or a combination of both. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hurricane_Dorian%E2%80%93Alabama_controversy&oldid=1238841967. ↩︎
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/key-charges-trump-properties/2020/10/27/bfa39b08-16cd-11eb-82db-60b15c874105_story.html ↩︎
- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/us/emoluments-trump-supreme-court.html ↩︎
- https://youtu.be/NTXanVBpkH0?si=mSjQ6iu2cY-ZIJhi ↩︎