Starting at the very top, the level of dishonesty in this administration is unprecedented and cause for grave concern.
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Just two months into Donald Trump’s second term, we have reached a milestone in US politics: For the first time in US history, we must assume that nothing that comes out of the mouths of anybody associated with this administration is true*.
Nothing!
It might not be an outright lie in every case. Sometimes, it could just be spin or deception. But it’s rarely going to be the unvarnished truth.
Well, when the National Hurricane Center (if it still exists then) announces in the summer that a massive storm is about to slam into Florida, that might be true. Then again, Trump has already created his alternate reality when it comes to that, so who knows?
When it comes to the president, dishonesty is obviously nothing new. He is the most prolific liar in the history of politics. By now, he has probably lied more to the American people than all other presidents combined.
And, of course, there were plenty of officials in his first administration who lied. However, there were also still a lot of people left whom you could trust to be at least reasonably truthful.
That is no longer the case.
This time around, Trump specifically chose people for all key positions who are loyal to him, and you can’t be loyal to Trump while also speaking the truth.
Apart from the president, this rot of dishonesty starts right at the top with Whatever-His-Role-Is Elon Musk, one of the world’s greatest spreaders of misinformation (even according to his own AI), and Vice President JD Vance, who has admitted to making stuff up so that people will pay attention to him.
It then extends to every single person working in the White House, from Dishonesty Barbie Karoline Leavitt to Ghoul of Lies Stephen Miller.
Sadly, it does not stop there.
This disdain for honesty can be found throughout the administration, in just about every cabinet-level position and other influential post.
What is perhaps most troubling is that Department of Justice officials and even the lawyers representing the US government have proven to be extremely dishonest and are actively deceiving the federal courts that are the last line of defense against Trump’s attempts to turn the US into a totalitarian state.
And then there are congressional Republicans who are also lying with abandon. They have learned from Trump that GOP voters do not care (and neither do many other Americans) whether a politician speaks the truth or not, and that there are no fact checkers on Fox News or elsewhere in the right-wing echo chamber.
Now you might say that dishonesty in politics is nothing new, and that is a fair point.
No matter whether Democrats or Republicans were in power, there has always been an element of spin, deception, or even outright lies.
However, “lying” has never been the default modus operandi of the government until now.
And, more importantly, there used to be consequences for this kind of thing.
In spite of his efforts to convince Americans that he is not a crook, that is precisely what Richard Nixon is remembered for, not winning one of the greatest landslide victories in US history (another thing Trump has lied about).
Or Bill Clinton, who had a phenomenally successful presidency. However, when people hear his name, they don’t think of him as the only president in the last 50 years who managed a budget surplus, but rather as the guy who seduced an intern and then lied about it.
Then there is George W. Bush, whose legacy will forever be tarnished by his administration lying about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to draw the US into another war.
In other words, all of them have ultimately paid a heavy price for being dishonest.
However, Trump and his squadron of liars have gotten a pass from GOP voters, which has only emboldened them further.
If the US democracy makes it through the next four years, they will all be judged extraordinarily harshly in the future.
As for now, Americans would be best served if they viewed any information coming from this administration with a healthy dose of skepticism because, more than likely, it is either not true, meant to deceive, or an exaggeration of some kind.
*To be fair, when Trump administration officials are speaking to friendly news outlets, they sometimes reveal the truth. Case in point is Border Czar Tom Homan’s interview with a very sympathetic Fox News anchor on Monday about why the Trump administration ignored a court order related to its deportation flights to El Salvador. After talking himself into a rage, Homan blurted out the truth.
“We are not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think. I don’t care what the left thinks. We’re coming,” he said, and we can safely assume that he means it.
By the way, you won’t find that quote in this Fox News story on the interview, you’ll have to watch the clip. That’s because everything you hear on Fox is either also a lie or highly deceptive. Everything!
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
