Poor Donald. He can’t win for losing – now displaced in the global, political lying competition. Trump will just have to up his game, boldly taking mendacity where no shameless hustler has gone before. Look at the latest, appalling overseas competition, making up in rashness and stupidity (if possible) what it lacked in media visibility. Surging ahead after a ham-fisted assassination for the ages, front-running Saudis tried a gauntlet of farcical misdirections, none of which survived an hour. Even two-faced Trump threw in the towel, conceding groundbreaking deception and lying tainted the Kashoggi coverup.
The Saudis display to the world how mendacity works its own boomerang. What twisted advice, oblivious to surveillance cameras, came up with murder, then body chopping, followed by total denial – even claiming Kashoggi walked out of the consulate? What, without legs? Why then admit the crime but invoke “fist fight” (to explain murder!) – already having dispatched a clumsy body double wearing the victim’s clothes (except for the shoes)? Yikes! Where were KGB when needed? We’re talking more obtuse, more ludicrous than Donald’s irrepressible worst. Of course, cynics cluck that only broadcasted brutality truly shutters other mouthy, opposition journalists.
Whatever the inscrutable motivation, the horror of murdering a relative nobody – then dissecting the body – has managed to deflect press attention for weeks from mounting Trump/GOP scandals and his latest lies. What about obstruction, Russian collusion, an unpopular tax bill, the dumbest tariff war imaginable, zero immigration reform (despite faux outrage) – and the ill-timed, feminist-bating calamity that was the Kavanaugh circus?
Stand aside, Trump. An even more insular, autocratic, certainly richer KING elbowed you aside – as a world-class liar. Gosh, who can’t understand Don Corleone’s angry irritation, especially after gaslighting about “rogue killers” murdering Khashoggi? What a pathetic, brainless fabrication when stacked against Saudi flimflammery.
What whoppers will the Donald now concoct to regain his standing, especially considering how mortified he gets when perceived as loser? Image control is mother’s milk for malignant narcissists – obsessed about pushing make-believe worlds that confirm their matchless heroism. What Trump thought he owned on the global stage – lying hand over fist without retribution – is in serious doubt as impeachment looms. After all, what can outsiders do to an actual king, endowed by family and his version of divine right, who controls trillions of dollars, sitting atop a fossil fuel fortune?
Trump’s best falls far short
True, this president has done his best to lie as often and as crudely as possible. Per quantity and visibility – but not quality, Lyin’ Donald’s 5000 lies made him look the temporary front-runner. But too many Trump whoppers are bizarre, trivial, stupidly personal or instantly discredited. Sound and fury, signifying nothing but low-brow bad faith. He may sucker his base with witless ploys, but nearly 60% of America know exactly who Trump is and how his tiresome routine works: lie to create a fake enemy, claim to defeat this woeful foe, then brag incessantly only he alone could pull off such triumphs.
In short, up against all-powerful, foreign competitors running even nastier wars, with enormous casualties, the Donald is a crude, clownish amateur. After all, it takes years (if ever) to undercut a Putin lie about Russian troops in Ukraine, whose missiles struck which commercial aircraft, or which victimized Kremlin critic met an unavoidable, “accidental” demise. It’s already taken weeks for Saudi Arabia’s blundering deceit to play out – yet without evidence the top guy knew in advance or authorized the hit. Likewise, has not the North Korean crank outdone the Donald with his bizarre fantasies, especially with infantile threats of retaliation? Shouldn’t the president of Venezuela be in the running, with paranoid, nonsense conspiracies that fail to explain his disintegrating country?
Truth – the enemy of the people
Clearly, it’s the truth, rather than the media, that tyrants dread as “the enemy of the people.” And we must acknowledge what Trump has learned from historic legacies of liars: the more outrageous the Big Lie, repeated endlessly, the more likely to snare the gullible, often with remarkable staying power. Consider Donald’s cult flock: two years into the Trump era and they’re still hooked, despite abysmal payoffs in job advances, retraining or raises, degraded work safety, worse health care and support nets – with nary an incentive to move where better jobs exist. Torrential lies turn fans into screaming fanatics, worsened no doubt by brain injuries caused by racing from mirage to mirage.
How will Trump plan his come-back? He’d can’t invoke the Divine Right of Kings, as would an actual king apparently capable of still declaring, “off with his head.” It’s not as if Trump isn’t working the campaign crowd with absurd whoppers. To a one, Democrats are evil, bad faith disrupters (!), losers who lie all the time (!), who incite and favor “mob-rule” (!) – even favor thousands of illegals crossing border to commit voter fraud and elect Democrats. He’s already blaming Ryan and McConnell were the GOP to lose the House or Senate.
Let’s see. Trump could allege top Democrats are in cahoots with priestly sexual predators – to explain why so few have been brought to justice. Trump could allege that the corrupt, establishment GOP leadership can’t stand him – enduring his mayhem because of tax breaks, deregulation and right-wing judges. Oh, that’s not untrue. Will Trump not eventually demonize all ornery Americans electing Democrats as disloyal, even treasonous obstacles that keep America from getting great again? Why not scapegoat a dozen fraudulent voters, to explain how millions of illegals voted against him in 2016 (thus stealing his popular vote win)? And what happened to the actual vote winner – Hillary, who with Bill orchestrated the entire phony Kavanaugh brouhaha?
No, Trump will have to do better, indeed outdo himself, in the lying sweepstakes. I wouldn’t be shocked to hear Trump indict truth-tellers who keep calling him the worst liar and worst person, if not the worst president in our history. They are obviously malcontents who hate America and must be guilty of something – just like rank complainers from Trump University who forced him to fork over $25 million. Another “rigged” decision, defining a pattern geared solely to take him down. After all, what is the “deep state” for, if not to squash heroic challengers who can alone fix everything? It’s a boundless conspiracy, and there’s no wall that can stop either Robert Mueller – or those “enemies” who reject the bigotry of Palin’s “real America.” Why shouldn’t a career pathological liar duplicate what took him to this improbable, dubious pinnacle – a top spot in the world’s greatest lying competition?
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