Merged Why does Trump lie about EVERYTHING?/Commander in Cheat

[Skeptic Ginger]

Certainly possible.

Also possible is it’s learned behavior. Hardfast rules first gleaned from Roy Cohn, and later refined by Roger Stone. Never admit you’re wrong. Take credit for everything good, blame others for everything bad. Praise those who are useful to you. Belittle and mock and caricature anyone who dare oppose you.

I think a sane person could just make a conscious effort to follow those rules. Which, we have to admit, got a very small man all the way to the White House. But I suspect over the years these rules have been internalized to the extent they are indistinguishable from a mental disorder. And as such, may have actually become a mental disorder.

Supporting facts not in evidence.

Yeah, sure, devise any hypothetical you want.

That ignores everything we know about this *******.

 

[Thermal]

Understanding that is the key to realizing it really is a mental illness. Lots of people lie, but usually it's a scheme to gain something. Part of the decision to lie is assuming you can get away with it and not get caught. I don't think Trump ever gets to that point. He isn't trying to get away with telling a lie. He's altering reality to make it fit his needs. That's why he lies even when his claims are demonstrably false. He has shifted his world view to make them true in his head.
That's why it's a mental illness. I think he actually believes almost everything he says, and the next day, when something else would be more convenient, but it contradicts what he said yesterday, he believes that, too.

This. It's reality control. The ultimate exercising of power. If you dictate what is real, you control the world.

You know, or delude yourself into thinking you do.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Remember how kids will claim the most outrageous things to impress their peers?

Trump is a kid on a playground desperate to be respected by everyone, especially the Rich Kids, the Cool Kids, the Smart Kids and, of course, the Girls.
And since he isn't very good at anything, he blows himself up like a pufferfish to look more impressive.

 

[Chanakya]

My question is this. Why does Trump feel the need to lie about everything

Because he is profoundly stupid, astonishingly ignorant, wholly unaware about his stupidity and ignorance -- intellectually more like an animal than a human being -- combined with a very high opinion of his non-existent qualities, a singular lack of integrity, and a compulsion to air his ridiculous opinions. A dishonest windbag who loves the sound of his own voice.

and why do some people ignore this? ...

We're probably programmed to becoming inured to anything and everything over time, no matter how wholly monstrous at first blush. A survival trait, probably?


What is astonishing to me is how so MANY people STILL continue to SUPPORT this ... this unbelievable monstrosity. What this says about 'us' is what is very, very disturbing.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

At the core, Trump has based his life on a misunderstanding of the phrase:" fake it till you make it".
He thinks it means that once you are able to fake doing something it's just like actually doing it.

 

[Ladewig]

Certainly possible.

Also possible is it’s learned behavior. Hardfast rules first gleaned from Roy Cohn, and later refined by Roger Stone. Never admit you’re wrong. Take credit for everything good, blame others for everything bad. Praise those who are useful to you. Belittle and mock and caricature anyone who dare oppose you.

I think a sane person could just make a conscious effort to follow those rules. Which, we have to admit, got a very small man all the way to the White House. But I suspect over the years these rules have been internalized to the extent they are indistinguishable from a mental disorder. And as such, may have actually become a mental disorder.

Yes, a sane person could follow the rules, but I don’t know if a sane person could ever do it as forcefully, as confidently, and as quickly as Chief Lies-a-Lot.


ETA
A sane person playing a game could have handled the press briefing with the why-is-it-a-competition question. But that question was beyond POTUS.

MORE ETA:
The line on the weather map is the best example of a mental disorder.

 

[Ladewig]

Maybe not everything, but damn close.
A lot of people will lie when backed ito a corner. And people will often attempt to put a positive spin on things. But Trump lies about so many things without a decent reason.

For example, Instead of saying that the companies are working on getting enough tests available, he lies about it. What does he think it will buy him when the words are demonstrably false?

Demonstrably false to whom?
You will have a devil of a time convincing his followers that his claims can easily be demonstrated to be false with widely-accepted and well-documented facts.

The guy spends 20-60 minutes every day and 50-70 minutes every rally hammering home the message that everyone but him is a liar. The US press, the foreign press, foreign leaders - they are all liars. FFS, he has even convinced his followers that the CIA, the NSA, DHS, the FBI are all liars out to get him (OMG, the Deep State is After me!!11!).

 

[acbytesla]

What is astonishing to me is how so MANY people STILL continue to SUPPORT this ... this unbelievable monstrosity. What this says about 'us' is what is very, very disturbing.

It stuns me. I haven't liked a single Republican president of my life time. But I understood their appeal. Trump is truly a despicable human being absent of any redeeming character I can see. I have never seen a single person in my entire life more self centered, more rude and more dishonest.

A very distant second was one of my older brothers who lied and exaggerated a lot. The difference being, my brother went to prison and deserved it. Trump is much worse and the country made him President.

I don't get it.

 

[acbytesla]

Demonstrably false to whom?
You will have a devil of a time convincing his followers that his claims can easily be demonstrated to be false with widely-accepted and well-documented facts.

The guy spends 20-60 minutes every day and 50-70 minutes every rally hammering home the message that everyone but him is a liar. The US press, the foreign press, foreign leaders - they are all liars. FFS, he has even convinced his followers that the CIA, the NSA, DHS, the FBI are all liars out to get him (OMG, the Deep State is After me!!11!).

Yes he does. But that doesn't mean that his lies are not demonstrably false.

You really have to do a reality check when someone says everybody, but you are lying. Trump has often contradicted a lie he told earlier in the same press conference. You don't need "fake news" to tell you Trump lies, you can view many many of his the lies on video.

Big trouble on day one when he grotesquely talked about the crowds at his inauguration and the pictures contradicted him. His own staff contradicts him. We've watched it over and over during this pandemic.

 

[Giordano]

Understanding that is the key to realizing it really is a mental illness. Lots of people lie, but usually it's a scheme to gain something. Part of the decision to lie is assuming you can get away with it and not get caught. I don't think Trump ever gets to that point. He isn't trying to get away with telling a lie. He's altering reality to make it fit his needs. That's why he lies even when his claims are demonstrably false. He has shifted his world view to make them true in his head.

That's why it's a mental illness. I think he actually believes almost everything he says, and the next day, when something else would be more convenient, but it contradicts what he said yesterday, he believes that, too.

I agree. For him there is no such thing as reality (and no such thing as morality). He just says what he believes, or wants to believe at that moment and in his head it becomes reality.

A little like Shiva, as Lord Nataraja, dances the world into existence, Trump’s thoughts create his world as he thinks them.

Okay that was a reach. Trump is more like the demon of confusion and ignorance on which Shiva stands during the dance.

 

[Stacyhs]

I don't believe Trump is insane. Not at all. But he is mentally ill. The two are not synonymous.

Interestingly, a study was done concerning the acceptance of lying. Unsurprisingly, people with a right-wing authoritarian mindset are much more accepting of politicians lying:

Why So Many Trump Supporters Are OK With the President's Lies

The research, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, finds Republicans are more likely than Democrats or independents to consider overt lying on the part of a politician morally acceptable behavior. This difference is largely driven by Trump supporters' endorsement of authoritarianism.

In addition, self-declared Republicans were significantly more tolerant of overt lying or paltering than Democrats (and slightly more tolerant of lying by omission). The researchers found this could be traced to their much higher levels of right-wing authoritarianism.

The results provide new evidence that our current political polarization reflects deep-seated differences that extend far beyond individual issues. "Right-wing authoritarianism captures the tendency to defer to legitimized authority," the researchers write. If, in your mind, your leader can do no wrong, it follows that he can lie with impunity.

I think this also explains Evangelicals' support of Trump even though he breaks the Ninth Commandment several times a day.

 

[Ladewig]

Another trait of his is that he is always accusing others of doing things that he has already done or of things he wants to do.

I suppose it could be something that he is consciously doing. But I suspect (with no medical qualifications at all) that he is rather incapable of understanding that other people might have a moral code that prevents them from considering these actions.

Also, his attitude about loyalty also indicates a self-centeredness that may rise to the level of a mental disorder. He expects everyone to be loyal to him and to display that loyalty by agreeing with him unquestioningly. But that loyalty is a one way street. He never displays loyalty to others if it inconveniences him in any way.

 

[dann]

Pathological lying: Psychopathy (Wikipedia)

 

[Belz...]

50% mental illness, 50% the actual desire to live in a post-truth world.

I'm not kidding or exaggerating when I say we are staring down the barrel of sizeable number of people desiring to abandon factualness as a concept.

Yes, damn facts and their useful reproducibility.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

I'm not kidding or exaggerating when I say we are staring down the barrel of sizeable number of people desiring to abandon factualness as a concept.

Oh, absolutely. There's always been those who forego facts to achieve some goal, with a kind of "the end justifies the means" approach, but this is the first time in modern times we've had such a person as POTUS, and he seems to have caused a heck of a lot of them to come out of the woodwork.

 

[dejudge]

People seem to forget that Trump was elected!!

Why did America elect a known liar?

It would be expected that by now his approval rating would be near zero but it is not. His approval rating is almost the same since before he was elected President which means America is satisfied with the known liar?

Why does a known liar appeal to America?

Who has really gone mad- Trump or America??

 

[JoeMorgue]

People seem to forget that Trump was elected!!

Why did America elect a known liar?

Because a tipping point, not necessarily a majority but a tipping point of voters localized in areas with out of balance political power due to how our system is set up (electoral college, first past the post voting, gerrymandering, etc) are reliant on facts no longer mattering in order to maintain their core identifies.

You can't think the Earth is younger than 6,000 years, that climate change isn't real, that Hillary Clinton is running a pizza parlor child sex dungeon, that the world is secretly run by a cabal of elite pedophiles, in the "Deep State,"or any of a number of other insane fantasies and be intellectually... whole.

At the end of the day the core of what happened is enough people finally had to choose between retaining their opinion or rejecting the very concept of factual correctness and a lot of them chose the latter.

We're in a very, very weird time because "Well I'm just going to be wrong" still isn't something most people are willing to say; either to other people or themselves. So they are trying, desperately, to find a way to say it without saying it. What we are seeing now is the great masses of factually wrong people trying to agree on a code word, a euphemism, a rationalization they can all agree on.

If we let them solidify a central mentality around "Well I'm not factually correct but that doesn't matter" it will truly be over. Facts will no longer matter.

 

[Horatius]

Yes he does. But that doesn't mean that his lies are not demonstrably false.

You really have to do a reality check when someone says everybody, but you are lying. Trump has often contradicted a lie he told earlier in the same press conference. You don't need "fake news" to tell you Trump lies, you can view many many of his the lies on video.

Except that, after decades of arguing with conspiracy theorists and truthers, it's become clear that there is a certain percentage of the population who actually, literally, cannot see things that contradict their beliefs, even when it's right in front of them.

I mean this literally. There were several examples of CT videos wherein the video presenter was narrating what was seen on the screen, and their narration was completely at odds with what was being shown in the video. There was one video (I think it was of the Madrid Towers fire), where the truther says something like "...and the steel framing was completely unharmed!" at exactly the same moment the video showed the complete collapse of the steel framing.

And what the election of Trump, and the continued levels of support for Trump, shows is that the CT segment of our population is larger than we ever suspected. We're at a point where 30-40% of the US population actually believes that the entire intelligence apparatus of the US is involved in a plot to take down Trump at the behest of Obama.

This is an argument we cannot win, because the people we are arguing with are literally incapable of understanding arguments.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Except that, after decades of arguing with conspiracy theorists and truthers, it's become clear that there is a certain percentage of the population who actually, literally, cannot see things that contradict their beliefs, even when it's right in front of them.

And that's the thing I keep coming back to, how... absolutely not new this is to anyone who's been a skeptic for a while.

You really want an answer to "Why did Trump happen?" Because of a generation of "Oh come on now just let people believe what they want, why do you have to be right all the time, they aren't hurting anybody, just ignore them."

 

[Crazy Chainsaw]

And that's the thing I keep coming back to, how... absolutely not new this is to anyone who's been a skeptic for a while.

You really want an answer to "Why did Trump happen?" Because of a generation of "Oh come on now just let people believe what they want, why do you have to be right all the time, they aren't hurting anybody, just ignore them."

It goes deeper than that Trump feeds on a Type of Racist American Nationalism, and Taps into people's fears and conspiracy theories that have been seen even when this Forum was Jref,. Fear of Communist China, Low wage earners taking American Jobs and Out competiting Americans, thieft of intellectual property and other like issues.
There are many reasons Trump can get away with Lying and many people I talk to locally just reply the Deep State and Soros owned media Lie more than Trump.
It's a class if cutures actually, Brains against conspiracy theories.