They like to lie – Mother Jones

Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Thursday Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

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For nearly a decade, our world has been shaped and distorted by the lies of Donald Trump. He ascended to the White House eight years ago and was forced out four years later by popular demand. Yet, like a monster in a horror film, he was not sent away for good. He challenged norms and the Constitution and attacked American democracy. He failed in his underhanded efforts to overturn the election, but he succeeded in persuading millions of our citizens to believe the baseless conspiracy theory that he had been cheated out of victory by a nefarious cabal of terrorist actors. Deep State, Democrats, Media, and other evildoers. It was quite an achievement. During his presidency, according to the Washington Post, Trump made at least 30,573 false or misleading statements. (And the newspaper has not verified all of his statements.) Yet he still retained the trust of a large portion of Americans.

Trump is unprecedented in the annals of deception. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University who studies authoritarianism, recently told me: Trump is one of the most successful propagandists in history. He managed to convince tens of millions of people that he had won a national election by working not in a domesticated media system or a one-party state, but in a fully pluralistic media environment in a democracy. No one has ever done this on this scale. Also look at what he accomplished with the perception of January 6th.

As we approach a new day of reckoning for Trump, like many of you, I have remained perplexed by Trump's ability to maintain his position as champion for so many Americans, despite his obvious lies and his character deeply base and petty. He's a con artist whose deceptions and hypocrisies are easy to detect (including his consequential lies about the pandemic and the assault on the U.S. Capitol that he incited). The question will never go away: how is he doing?

He is a con artist whose deceptions and hypocrisies are easy to detect. The question will not go away: how is he doing?

As we approach a new day of reckoning for Trump, like many of you, I have remained perplexed by Trump's ability to maintain his position as champion for so many Americans, despite his obvious lies and his character deeply base and petty. He's a con artist whose deceptions and hypocrisies are easy to detect (including his consequential lies about the pandemic and the assault on the U.S. Capitol that he incited). The question will never go away: how is he doing?

Not long ago, I came across an academic study that sought to answer this question. In 2018, Oliver Hahl of the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University and Minjae Kim and Ezra Zuckerman Sivan of the MIT Sloan School of Management published an article in the American Sociological Review titled The Authentic Appeal of the Lying Demagogue: Proclaiming the Deeper Truth About. Political illegitimacy. They said they were seeking to explain a puzzling trend that has been the subject of much discussion since the 2016 U.S. presidential election.[H]How can a group of voters find a candidate authentically appealing (i.e. view him positively as authentic) even if he is a lying demagogue (someone who deliberately lies and appeals to private biases non-normative)? In short, how to understand popular support for Trump.

This trio noted that during the 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton was harmed by the perception that she was not authentic. Rightly or not, many voters saw her as self-interested and disingenuous. But, they write, Trump was perceived by his supporters as appealingly authentic despite ample evidence that (1) he was at least as sensitive to self-interest as Clinton, without any corresponding record of public service; (2) he was considerably more prone to lying than Clinton; and (3) he deliberately flouted many norms taken for granted for many years and widely approved.

After reviewing the existing literature on populist demagogues and conducting a few studies, these three scholars came up with an explanation. Here it is (without quotes):

We argue that a particular set of social and political conditions must be in place for the lying demagogue to appear authentically attractive to his or her constituents. In short, if that constituency feels that its interests are not served by a political establishment that claims to represent it fairly, a lying demagogue can appear to be a true defender of its interests. As first noted [political scientist Seymour Martin] According to Lipset, such a crisis of legitimacy can arise under at least two conditions: (1) when one or more social groups experience what we call a crisis of representation because the political establishment does not seem to govern on its behalf; and (2) when an established group experiences a crisis of power devaluation because the political establishment favors new social groups over established groups. These scenarios largely reflect the basis of populist ideologies that promote a politics of resentment, whereby aggrieved voters come to believe that institutions purport to represent the interests of real people, which belies a ulterior agenda that they feel powerless to stop. . As such, a candidate who engages in mendacious demagoguery may be seen as courageously expressing a profound and otherwise repressed truth. By blatantly violating the norms that the establishment insists on, and thus earning the opprobrium of that establishment, the candidate appears very committed to the interests of her constituency. On the other hand, a serious opposition candidate seems less authentic.

I would summarize their conclusion as follows: Trump voters love lies. Or, the lie is the important point.

Trump's boldly false statements about himself, about his rivals and critics, about the world are not a bug. It's a feature. They demonstrate that he sticks to the other side. To the elites, the media, the establishment, the government, academia, Hollywood, the liberals, the woke mob, the minorities, the… whoever it is, its supporters feel resentment, disdain or disdain . So if he lies about legal immigrants eating pets, or that Kamala Harris has a low IQ, isn't really black and is a communist, or about schools carrying out drug operations gender assertion about children without their parents' consent, or about doctors in Democratic states killing babies after they are born, or about criminal gangs of foreign thugs conquering cities and towns across the Midwest, or about the America's economy being a hellscape, or about his majestic accomplishments as president, or about the evil Democrats who are deliberately bringing undocumented immigrants (and criminals) into the United States. States want to destroy the nation, or you can't cross the street these days without being assaulted, raped or killed, it doesn't matter.

Certainly, some Trump supporters are buying his bunk. But I suspect many don't care whether it's true or not. To them it is true, in the sense that it corresponds to what they feel and what they think is true.

Trump demonstrates that he does not respect the rules of the establishment that these people perceive (for various reasons) as their enemy.

His wild claims, narcissistic boasts and offensive insults do not necessarily have to be factual. Trump's ability to say what he wants is not due to his bigoted followers simply telling it like it is. It's a sign of strength. It's his way of giving them the finger. Trump demonstrates that he does not respect the rules of the establishment that these people perceive (for various reasons) as their enemy. It’s the same reason they aren’t put off or even accept his rudeness, pettiness, bigotry, misogyny, and racism.

Trump's lies and indecency are proof to them that he will do whatever it takes to be their hero. And some Trump probably envy his ability to say whatever he wants and escape the usual consequences. Trump can achieve all this because millions of people want him to be able to achieve it. His lies are not just a personal flaw. His multiple deceptions and their acceptance by tens of millions are a sign that our politics, and perhaps our nation, is broken. The degree of disruption will be determined by what happens on Tuesday and in the days and weeks that follow.

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