Trumps Lies vs. Your Brain
Unfortunately, its no contest. Heres what psychology tells us about life under a leader totally indifferent to the truth.
By MARIA KONNIKOVA January/February 2017
All presidents lie. Richard Nixon said he was not a crook, yet he orchestrated the most shamelessly crooked act in the modern presidency. Ronald Reagan said he wasnt aware of the Iran-Contra deal; theres evidence he was. Bill Clinton said he did not have sex with that woman; he did, or close enough. Lying in politics transcends political party and era. It is, in some ways, an inherent part of the profession of politicking. But Donald Trump is in a different category. The sheer frequency, spontaneity and seeming irrelevance of his lies have no precedent. Nixon, Reagan and Clinton were protecting their reputations; Trump seems to lie for the pure joy of it. A whopping 70 percent of Trumps statements that PolitiFact checked during the campaign were false, while only 4 percent were completely true, and 11 percent mostly true. (Compare that to the politician Trump dubbed crooked, Hillary Clinton: Just 26 percent of her statements were deemed false.)
Those who have followed Trumps career say his lying isnt just a tactic, but an ingrained habit. New York tabloid writers who covered Trump as a mogul on the rise in the 1980s and 90s found him categorically different from the other self-promoting celebrities in just how often, and pointlessly, he would lie to them. In his own autobiography, Trump used the phrase truthful hyperbole, a term coined by his ghostwriter referring to the flagrant truth-stretching that Trump employed, over and over, to help close sales. Trump apparently loved the wording, and went on to adopt it as his own.
On January 20, Trumps truthful hyperboles will no longer be relegated to the world of dealmaking or campaigning. Donald Trump will become the chief executive of the most powerful nation in the world, the man charged with representing that nation globallyand, most importantly, telling the story of America back to Americans. He has the megaphone of the White House press office, his popular Twitter account and a loyal new right-wing media army that will not just parrot his version of the truth but actively argue against attempts to knock it down with verifiable facts. Unless Trump dramatically transforms himself, Americans are going to start living in a new reality, one in which their leader is a manifestly unreliable source.
What does this mean for the countryand for the Americans on the receiving end of Trumps constantly twisting version of reality? Its both a cultural question and a psychological one. For decades, researchers have been wrestling with the nature of falsehood: How does it arise? How does it affect our brains? Can we choose to combat it? The answers arent encouraging for those who worry about the national impact of a reign of untruth over the next four, or eight, years. Lies are exhausting to fight, pernicious in their effects and, perhaps worst of all, almost impossible to correct if their content resonates strongly enough with peoples sense of themselves, which Trumps clearly do.
Read more of this scary stuff: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/donald-trump-lies-liar-effect-brain-214658
JudyM
(29,270 posts)That may well have made a significant difference, if people questioned whether he would even do the things he promised. Of course it wouldn't make a difference with the racists, but with the others...
milestogo
(16,829 posts)People who understand narcissistic personality disorder have no trouble identifying Trump as having it. The lying is part of the disorder. Unfortunately this comes off as an insult when someone points it out.
world wide wally
(21,754 posts)I think we all tend to react in a similar way toward them, and that needs to be applied to Trump as well. It kind of goes in one ear and out the other. After a sufficient period of time, we assume they are lying unless something is proved truthful. (The opposite of our legal system).
Remember the moral of Trump's favorite story on the campaign trail.
"You knew I was a snake when you took me in"
milestogo
(16,829 posts)that once confronted with their lies they would be ashamed. But they don't even care and they keep on doing it. Its exhausting.