Liars and Common Sense Responses

Common sense questions undermine Trump’s lies

Take Donald Trump at his word. Assume he has valid grounds for claiming to be the victim of a “rigged” Department of Justice and a legal system manipulated by President Joe Biden.

If he is right, then there should be easy answers to simple questions.

If President Biden is able to rig the legal system to prosecute Trump, why wouldn’t Biden use that same power to make the Hunter Biden case go away? Certainly, the publicity around son Hunter and his problems won’t help Joe Biden’s reelection campaign.

Or how about this question: If Biden has the power Trump attributes to him, why settle for the least compelling of the four cases facing the former president? The hush money case is the fast-food of Trump’s legal challenges. It may satisfy some for the moment, but it likely has few long-term political benefits for Democrats. An NORC-AP Center for Public Affairs poll found that only about one-third of U.S. adults think Trump acted illegally in the hush money case. But in the other three criminal cases facing Trump, nearly one-half believe he committed illegal acts. If one has the power to corrupt the legal system for political gain, doesn’t it make sense to deliver the steak dinner and not settle for a snack?

Or, moving on to Trump’s other Big Lie - the “stolen” 2020 election - how can Trump loyalists answer this question: When the people Trump put in charge of investigating charges of widespread fraud in the 2020 election now have admitted they lied, why do 60% or more of Republicans still believe the election was stolen? The lead attorneys charged by Trump with pursuing his charge of widespread fraud, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell, all  have acknowledged their claims of fraud were bogus. Powell went as far as blaming the faithful for even trusting her, telling a court that “no reasonable person” would believe the lies she promulgated.

Never mind the multiple court cases, recounts, audits and Republican-led legislative investigations in many states, all of which have concluded there was no widespread election fraud. Just ask this: When liars tell you they are lying and then, for good measure, insult the believers for their naïveté, shouldn’t that be the end of the conversation? Apparently not. According to many polls 60% or more of Republicans still believe the 2020 election was stolen.

Trump’s lies should easily be dismissed by common sense. If Biden could manipulate the judicial system, Hunter Biden wouldn’t be heading into a trial that can only be a political disaster for the president. If Democrats had the ability to fraudulently change election outcomes in multiple states, they certainly would have stolen enough seats to make the Senate filibuster-proof in 2020. At a minimum, scheming Democrats would not have let the House of Representatives slide into Republican hands in 2022.

Trump makes claims that are ludicrously false, yet his advocates believe. They have become like the White Queen in “Through the Looking Glass.” When Alice told her that "one can't believe impossible things” the Queen said it was just a matter of practice. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” To still believe Donald Trump’s outlandish lies after all these years is to have had a great deal of practice believing the impossible.

Psychologists attribute the phenomenon to “confirmation bias.” People reach a conclusion, they believe only the evidence that reinforces what they already believe.

The more one becomes invested in believing lies, the more lies one is apt to believe. If it is accepted that Biden and Democrats were brazen enough to steal an election, it’s no leap to find credible the claim that they would corrupt the legal system for political purposes.

The policies and proposals of candidates Trump and Biden are fair game for analysis and agreement or disagreement. Reasonable people, to quote Sidney Powell, can believe, for example, that renewing the 2017 tax cuts that will expire next year will be a boon to economic growth (Trump) or a multi-trillion dollar sop for the wealthy (Biden).

What shouldn’t be debated, though, is the harm done by political lies. They undermine the core institutions of democracy and pave the way for campaigns based on misinformation and disinformation.

That is no small risk. In January, the World Economic Forum published its 2024 “Global Risks Report.” Nearly 1,500 international experts came together to assess the most serious challenges facing the world, from climate change to economic disparities. Their conclusion is that the most serious threat over the next two years comes from misinformation and disinformation.

“Beyond elections, perceptions of reality are likely to also become more polarized, infiltrating the public discourse on issues ranging from public health to social justice. However, as truth is undermined, the risk of domestic propaganda and censorship will also rise in turn. In response to mis- and disinformation, governments could be increasingly empowered to control information based on what they determine to be ‘true.’Freedoms relating to the internet, press and access to wider sources of information that are already in decline risk descending into broader repression of information flows across a wider set of countries.” (https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-risks-report-2024/)

What can be done to counter the threat? A few suggestions:

Research should inform, not just affirm. If most emails you receive or the bulk of posts that show up on your social media accounts cause you to exclaim in outrage,”I knew it!”, it’s reasonable to ask if you need to expand your information-gathering to more diverse sources.

When friends and family parrot the lies of politicians, trust your listeners’ critical thinking ability. Often, asking common sense questions is more effective (and less confrontational) than debate.

Ask the questions that are basic to good journalism: who, what, when, where and how? And give them a chance to respond without filling in your answers. Consider the model set by journalist Jonathan Swan in his 2020 interview of Trump on testing for Covid:

Trump: “You know, there are those that say you can test too much, you do know that.”

Swan: “Who says that?”

Trump: “Oh, just read the manuals. Read the books.”

Swan: “Manuals? What manuals?”

Trump: “Read the books. Read the books.”

Swan: “What books?”

Trump, of course, never provided a direct answer. But Swan’s questions made obvious the nonsense of Trump’s responses.

Certainly, there are those - many, in fact - who will believe the lies regardless of evidence, critical thinking or persistence. They challenge the challengers with questions of their own: “Have you not figured out yet that ‘facts’ are strictly in the eye of the beholder now?”, as one Trump faithful asked of me.

Even in the face of such nonsense, keep trying. It’s that important.

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