Does Trump genuinely believe his own ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊?

[BillC]

I understand we have a mental illness thread, and a Why does Tump lie all the time? thread, but I felt there was something to this topic that lay outside these two.

For a long time, I have wondered: does the man actually believe what comes out of his mouth, or is he knowingly lying? Despite him being one of the most studied, analysed and written-about individuals on Earth, I felt I was no closer to answering it, and I was sceptical anyone else really knew either. When he repeats long- and easily debunked lies, perhaps it was possible that deep down he knew them to be untrue. Or had he convinced himself they were true, and was repeating them sincerely?

Make of this next step what you will, but I put the following question to Grok:

Psychologically, can people who lie end up genuinely believing the lies they have told? Or can it be impossible to tell?

And this is what it replied with:

Yes, psychologically, people who lie can — and often do — end up genuinely believing the lies they have told. This phenomenon is well-supported in psychology and is closely tied to self-deception, motivated reasoning, cognitive dissonance reduction, and memory distortion.

Here's how it typically works:

• When someone tells a lie (especially repeatedly), holding both the truth and the lie in mind creates psychological discomfort — known as cognitive dissonance. To reduce this tension, the brain often reshapes beliefs to align with behavior. Over time, the person may come to accept the false version as true, particularly if the lie serves self-esteem, avoids guilt, or justifies actions.
• Self-deception mechanisms help this process. Research shows people engage in biased information processing: they selectively seek/interpret evidence that supports the lie, discount contradictory facts, and even distort memories (e.g., misremembering events in a self-serving way). Evolutionary psychologists argue this ability may have evolved partly to make deception of others more convincing — if you believe your own story, you show fewer tell-tale signs of lying (like inconsistent body language or hesitation).
• In cases of habitual, compulsive, or pathological lying, belief in one's own fabrications is especially common. Many such individuals repeat elaborate stories so often that the boundary between truth and fiction blurs; they may defend the lie passionately even when confronted with clear evidence. Studies on pathological lying note that people can develop a "weak grip on reality" regarding their falsehoods, genuinely experiencing them as accurate.
• Everyday examples abound: someone exaggerates achievements repeatedly until they "remember" the inflated version as fact; a person in denial about infidelity convinces themselves it "didn't mean anything" or "never happened"; or politicians/scammers who start with strategic lies but grow to sincerely believe their own narrative.

That said, it isn't universal — some people (especially calculated or "natural" liars) remain fully aware their statements are false and experience no belief shift. The difference often depends on:

• Motivation (self-protective lies are more likely to be internalized than purely manipulative ones)
• Repetition and emotional investment
• Personality factors (e.g., higher in narcissistic or borderline traits)
• Individual differences in self-awareness

Can it be impossible to tell? Often yes — from the outside, and sometimes even from the inside. A person who has fully self-deceived will appear (and feel) completely sincere. They pass lie-detection cues because there is no internal conflict left to leak out. Therapists or close observers might spot inconsistencies over time, but distinguishing "genuine belief in a falsehood" from "knowing deception" can be extremely difficult without deep insight into their history and thought processes.

In short: the human mind is remarkably flexible at protecting itself from uncomfortable truths, and repeatedly lying is one of the most powerful ways to recruit that flexibility.

So much of this behaviour pattern we see from Trump that I have swung towards the idea that, yes, he genuinely does believe his own ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊. Maybe not at first -- it comes out as a direct and calculated lie, but over time, his mind pushes his words into (for him) the realm of truth.

 

[dirtywick]

i think he does sometimes, particularly i believe his cabinet is lying to him to further their own agendas. he's also pretty obviously struggling with dementia imo, best piece of evidence is the constant cognitive tests he brags about acing. but, he obviously lies for his own benefit, he's done that countless times. you should not let him off the hook for doing that. but, how much of that is getting murked together in his dementia brain as time goes on, idk.

 

[Flo]

I've met a number of people just like this, mostly in the martial arts.

They usually show some level of skills, but never enough to place them at the top compared to other practitioners (poor results in competition, for example). They therefore rely on forming a coterie of less skilled, and more importantly poorly informed, people who will be impressed by their lies and tricks, will support and take care of the aggrandisement part, and will defend them against critics.
It is generally at that point that the crook turns guru and starts believing his own ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊, up to a point. The point is when he is confronted by someone who can clearly and irrefutably demonstrate how full of it he is, but the realisation is generally temporary, and swiftly negated once the troublemaker is removed by the sycophantic disciples …

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Take a step back and consider that Trump doesn't think it's worth to find out what is objectively accurate or not - all he wants is to hear what the people in front of him say, and how strongly they will defend their position when getting pushback if he doesn't like it. Then he takes that as the basis of his operational facts in any given situation. And because he is convinced of the power of his weird type of Neurolinguistic Programming, he thinks he can impose these facts on the perceived reality. He honestly believes that if Fox and other channels had just declared him the winner in 2020, everything else would have fallen into place to make it so.

As far as he is concerned, reality changes when the feedback he can't ignore changes. Hence, what he said before was true before, and what he is saying now is true now, and why would you even bother to look up what he said before, since that happened in a reality that no longer exists?

 

[Random]

As I have said before...

Donald Trump does not lie. Donald Trump does not tell the truth. Donald Trump says whatever he needs to say to "win" whatever conversation he is in. Sometimes that means saying things that are true, sometimes that means saying things that are false. The key thing to remember about Donald Trump is that in his heart of hearts, he genuinely does not see the difference.

 

[Norman Alexander]

Trump says whatever is needed right now! to win an argument, mollify or hoodwink a reporter, or feed his Base. That is, it's all about him, and what's in it for him. First and foremost. To "win" includes disposing of any concepts like decency, responsibility, honesty and pride. His dad and Roy Cohn taught him that.

Next, he has a fixed repository of "big facts" and epithets engrained on the inside of his vacuum-packed skull which he trots out time after time: Won yuge 2020, won yuge 2024, Crooked Joe, Democrats are communists, build the wall, illegals and asylum seekers, biggest ratings, booming economy, etc., etc. Everyone knows these repeated pachinko ball ideas he keeps running down his brain every day. He gets no new ones, so they just keep on popping up, anywhere, even wildly at inappropriate times.

Last, he is fed only filtered, cleansed and "corrected" information about current affairs, given to him from a sewer-pipe consisting of his people like Miller, Bannon, etc. It is clearly edited to be pleasing and praising of Trump. Nothing negative. Trump loves praise...

In all cases, Trump has made himself the actual victim of Goebbels's Big Lie theory: Repeat the lie often enough and it becomes fact. And Trump has long proven himself one of the few psychopathic people who can actually gaslight themselves. So Trump does believe the stuff he says, because he knows nothing else, his ego won't let him believe otherwise, it pays him to believe his own lies, and he feels good lying to people.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

As I have said before...

Donald Trump does not lie. Donald Trump does not tell the truth. Donald Trump says whatever he needs to say to "win" whatever conversation he is in. Sometimes that means saying things that are true, sometimes that means saying things that are false. The key thing to remember about Donald Trump is that in his heart of hearts, he genuinely does not see the difference.

This goes for his cult, too. They don't just do it with Dump either. I've been in my share of comments thread city planning discussions, and the opponents of, well, anything but more cars and parking lots have a tendency to just say whatever helps them the most in any given situation. One day the city is a desert empty of people because the road tolls are too high, the next day they'll claim it's impossible to find vacant parking spaces. One day they'll say the city is dying because you can't easily get into the city centre by car, the next the planned downtown light rail line is horrible because it'd ruin their dreams of a car-free city centre. You can correct their lies and explain how they're wrong and they'll be right back at it the next day with the exact same falsehoods.

Facts mean nothing to them, the only thing they care about is advancing their own politics, while deflecting all criticism. The same people also tend to be incredibly grumpy and hostile, which tends to make people give up trying to talk to them. Which is probably exactly what they want.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Come now, gentlements and ladytypes! We are skeptics, and can solve any issue with empiricism! Is Trump accurately perceiving reality? Is reality real to Trump? What if he's just a brain (a small one) in a jar? We cannot know until we make the experiment! Let Trump's brain (such as it is) be placed in a (perfectly spherical) container, connected to sensory inputs, and launched into the vacuum of space. If he reports back accurate perception of what he encounters there we will know. At least, it'll be a data point towards knowing. And isn't that the real magic of the holidays? As Papa Smurf remarked in the 1983 Xmas special "there is much we cannot know until dissection occurs".

 

[LiteBright]

As I have said before...

Donald Trump does not lie. Donald Trump does not tell the truth. Donald Trump says whatever he needs to say to "win" whatever conversation he is in. Sometimes that means saying things that are true, sometimes that means saying things that are false. The key thing to remember about Donald Trump is that in his heart of hearts, he genuinely does not see the difference.

I think this is the most succinct way of putting it.

I once had a boss like this. He lied constantly and everyone knew. You couldn't rely on a single word or commitment he made. Yet if you had called him a liar, he would have been deeply offended because he obviously didn't think of himself as such. He just had a different relationship to the truth than the rest of us. To him, truth was whatever he needed it to be in that moment to accomplish his goals. That was it.

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

THe man is the result of unbridled nepotism and a bigger snowflake than anyone. He's never heard 'no' in his life, the US system has ensured he has never had to deal with the negative consequences of his many error and his whole life he's been told that this is the true and rightful way.
Combine it with the ever more obvious dementia?

Yes, he believes everything he says. Why shouldn't he?

 

[jimbob]

i think he does sometimes, particularly i believe his cabinet is lying to him to further their own agendas. he's also pretty obviously struggling with dementia imo, best piece of evidence is the constant cognitive tests he brags about acing. but, he obviously lies for his own benefit, he's done that countless times. you should not let him off the hook for doing that. but, how much of that is getting murked together in his dementia brain as time goes on, idk.

Yup. Especially now.

But I think he might start by lying then convince himself that he's telling the truth.

 

[MostlyHarmless]

Yup. Especially now.

But I think he might start by lying then convince himself that he's telling the truth.

Yeah, I think he has always done this. I think his addled brain is convincing itself faster now.

 

[Tero]

One, he can't math.

Two, he cannot back out of things. If he says it is lowered 2000%, it is always that.

 

[Orphia Nay]

To add to the OP list, self-justification is part and parcel of cognitive dissonance.

With Trump, if he lies, to him it's OK if it gets him what he wants.

If he lies, he thinks the other side do it so he can do it.

To him, he's not lying, because to him, he's a great person who never does anything wrong, and lying isn't wrong if he does it.

"Winning".

 

[8enotto]

Then his idea of 'manifesting' his ideas into reality.

If you believe it to be possible to achieve its as simple as acting as if it is true now.
This is something deluded folks of all flavors do. In fact YT gurus suggest you do this!
Want to be rich, live as if you already are. Buy that Gucci bag, those designer shoes and pay off the cards later. Be rich now. Eat at the fancy 5 star places too, just make sure someone can pay the bill. Hopefully not you.

He wants the world of his youth when wealth and luxury were diversity free. When rich white man ruled by decree and all others bowed and gave until he had what he wanted.
This new idea of judges and congress telling him no, seizing his properties, ordering arrest of his lackeys and other mean stuff is killing him.
How dare they! Do they not know he is Donald J Trump? He does not buy groceries, he does not pay the bills of his gold plated plans. He only reaps the benefits and lives in his luxury.

A case in point of this blindness. The Mel movie. It's glorious, his arm candy wife preparing for the most glorious day of HIS life becoming president.
Do you think it even occurred to him that now a majority of citizens veiw this day as the end of life as they knew it?
How dare they!
Even if it is in fact rubbing our faces in the mess he makes.

 

[ahhell]

It's perennial question of skepticism, are they true believers or just con artist. Hard to tell and in most cases some of both. Never underestimate the human ability to rationalize our own BS.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

He's a narcessistic meglomaniac, anything he says is true because he said it.

 

[theprestige]

I think it's like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. Some parts are true, some parts are false, even he isn't sure which is which, and he basically doesn't care.

 

[zooterkin]

I think it's like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. Some parts are true, some parts are false, even he isn't sure which is which, and he basically doesn't care.

Sounds a lot like ChatGPT or other LLM.

 

[ahhell]

I think it's like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. Some parts are true, some parts are false, even he isn't sure which is which, and
he basically doesn't care.

That's the thing there. He doesn't seem to care. What he says and truth are orthogonal to one another.