43
« Last post by rainman2 on Today at 05:34:22 PM »
I think it's really important to emphasize not just the factual basis for what I'm about to say, but also to really make sure we all realize that this isn't normal, should never be allowed to be normal, and damn sure can't be the new "normal" going forward.
Donald Trump is the current President of the United States — and he's a pathological liar.
In fact, he's worse than that. I'm not sure there's a proper term that exists to really and truly describe the level of dishonesty we see from this president every single day, practically all day, with damn near everything he says or posts.
Politics has always been filled with half-truths, cherry-picked comments, and contextually inaccurate statements from both Democrats and Republicans. That's nothing new. It's been part of politics since some form of democracy and "politicians" were invented.
But what Trump does goes beyond anything we've ever seen before. He's not just a liar, he literally makes stuff up.
There's always some unnamed person of power or status who told him how "wonderful" he's doing and how "everything he's doing is right."
"They" are always telling him something — though we never know who "they" are... because "they" don't exist.
He just makes it up.
During his first administration, when he misspoke and accidentally mentioned Alabama as being part of a hurricane watch when it wasn't, did he simply apologize, admit he misspoke, and move on like a normal person might?
Nope — he used a Sharpie to draw a comically fake line to include Alabama that he sat right next to, then completely denied having any knowledge of how that black line drawn in Sharpie ended up on the map, when it was 100% either drawn by him or he told someone to do it.
Even on something as innocuous as that, Trump couldn't admit he did anything wrong.
He lied.
Now we have the Reflecting Pool, where his own Department of Justice has debunked all his lies about "vandalism" by citing flawed installation as the reason why the surface peeled, and he just keeps lying. Even after he spent weeks claiming there was video evidence of people on their "hands and knees cutting the surface with box cutters" that he never showed anyone — video evidence he then had to admit didn't actually exist, which is why he couldn't show it to anyone — he still keeps lying.
On Iran — forget it.
Let me try to write the following without going cross-eyed because it's such incoherent, illogical, and fictional bullsh*t that it's hard to follow.
We attacked Iran last year, "totally obliterated" their nuclear capabilities, but then had to go to war with them just a few months later to stop them from building a nuclear weapon, even though we were told their capabilities were "totally obliterated" — a claim this administration still stands by, which contradicts why they went to war. Then we "won" the war months ago, and Iran is "begging" and "desperate" to make a deal, but the war's still ongoing, Iran has clearly been defiant, the weak deal Trump did sign in June is all but dissolved by now, but Trump claims we control the Strait of Hormuz... even though data from that waterway shows it's still almost completely closed and attacks on ships are still occurring.
Yet Iran has no military, but somehow we "mostly" left their military alone (both comments made by Trump), but the war is still "won" — but then there are no ongoing or scheduled talks to end the war, per Trump just Tuesday morning.
Nothing of what I just wrote, which are all claims directly from this president, makes any sense. They're illogical, often completely contradictory, and not backed by any sort of factual information.
It's just Trump making stuff up.
There's lying, like the one time years ago I wrote about Sen. Ted Cruz citing a 17-year span of climate data to "prove climate change is a hoax," only for me to dig into the research and realize that the reason he stopped at 17 years is because if he went further back than that, it debunked his propaganda. That's typical political dishonesty. That's nothing all that extraordinary.
What Trump does goes even beyond gaslighting.
It's literally someone telling you the sky is red while you're looking right up and clearly seeing that it's bright blue — then saying you're "nasty" and "fake news" for saying that the sky isn't red and that it's, in fact, blue.
Donald Trump lives under the philosophy that, no matter what, you don't apologize and you don't admit a mistake.
Never, under any circumstances.
That's how weak and pathetic he is — but it also showcases how far he's really willing to go to never admit he's done anything wrong.
It's a level of dishonesty unlike anything most of us have probably ever experienced.
This is someone who'll lie about how "great" the economy is, demanding praise from everyone and whining when he doesn't get it — he's called the current economy the "best ever" — who will then come out and blame Joe Biden, who hasn't been in office in nearly two years, for anything negative.
If it's positive, he wants credit — if it's negative, it's never his fault.
Look at his bullsh*t about "rigged" elections.
The entire argument is completely and totally illogical and ridiculous.
He won in 2016 with a Democrat in the White House — but the popular vote, which doesn't elect the president, was "rigged" because Hillary Clinton won that.
In 2020, with him as president, and the government run by his own people, the election was "rigged." In fact, his most recent claim is that we had one of the biggest national security failures in history — while he was president. Somehow, in the warped and twisted mind of Trump, he wants to claim there was a huge national security failure that compromised our elections — but none of it was his fault — except he was president and the government was run by all people he chose to lead those agencies.
But, again, it wasn't his fault.
Then in 2024, he won again, with a Democrat in the White House and Democrats in charge of the Senate, and that election was totally fine. In fact, he didn't just win a second term. Republicans took full power in Congress. Trump even won in Democrat-run states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
But we can't forget for months he claimed that election, too, was going to be "rigged," claims he was making early on Election Day, until the data showed him likely to win, then -- just like that -- the election was "totally fair."
So, it was "totally going to be rigged," and he already had "proof" that it was, until he won, then it wasn't, and we've never heard him make any of those claims about the validity of the 2024 election again.
Because he won.
Yet, just two years later, with Republicans in control of the House, the Senate, and the White House — with Democrats not in charge of any part of our federal government — Democrats are set to "rig" the midterms.
So, using Trump's "logic," Democrats didn't "rig" the 2016 Electoral College because he won, but they did "rig" the popular vote. Then, in 2020, when he was president, Democrats "rigged" that election, even though Biden won in red states like Arizona and Georgia. After that, in 2024, when Democrats held the White House and the Senate, they didn't "rig" that election — but now that they have no power, they're going to "rig" the 2026 midterms.
That makes no f*cking sense!
He just makes stuff up.
Donald Trump's lies have lies. His conspiracies have conspiracies.
It's endless.
I know I'm not saying anything here that's groundbreaking or that anyone doesn't already know. I just think it's important to remind the world that this isn't normal and we can't allow it to be normal. We cannot be desensitized to a reality where, even when we're currently at war with an adversary, it's not inappropriate to wonder who's being more honest about the status of that conflict: the Iranian government, which is a propaganda machine, or the current President of the United States, who lies faster than we can fact-check and once drew a line on a hurricane map to include Alabama in the potential strike zone because he would rather do that than simply admit he misspoke.
When Trump's finally gone, and that can't come soon enough, we have to erase the past 10+ years. Yes, let's preserve the shameful parts of this president and those who enabled him so we won't forget the damage and shame they brought to this country, but then we have to get back to the politics of pre-Trump and a country run by people who, yes, are going to twist facts and lie to us from time to time, but nothing like the dishonesty, gaslighting, and unbelievable just making sh*t up that we've become accustomed to with Donald Trump.
We cannot keep going down this path; otherwise, we're screwed.
It won't be easy, but we can do it. We can move on from this orange goblin and take our country back.
What we cannot do is allow what Donald Trump has done to how acceptable it is for someone in that position to literally just make sh*t up every single day to become an accepted norm.
That cannot happen.