All The President's Lies In A Single Article

Donald Trump started his move into politics by telling a big lie.  He entered the political arena by telling his believers that President Obama was not an American.  He joined the chorus of those who demanded that Obama show his birth certificate.  He did this as thoughtfully, and as provocatively, as he resisted revealing his income taxes.  "Show your birth certificate" morphed into "lock her up" during his presidential campaign.  He didn't wait long after winning the election to lie about the size of the crowd at his inauguration and how he lost the popular vote because of the votes by illegal immigrants.  A compendium of his lying history is contained in this article.  It provides a good start on a list that will grow rapidly over his career in the White House.  That may be valuable in some sense, but it is very disturbing in a more important way.  Donald Trump has proved that a prolific liar can be elected as the President of the United States.  His supporters have become immune to his lies and Republican leaders make excuses for them.  They tell us that it is part of his unique management style.  We may need to revise our MBA curriculum to bring it up to date with a superior form of management through deception.  In any case, Trump's lack of concern for the truth is not what our founders had in mind when they struggled to create a new form of government.  George Washington became our first president because a divided nation respected his honesty and his integrity.  We have come a long way from our first President who "never told a lie",  to a president who seldom tells the truth.  Lying has been turned into a virtue and many of our citizens shrug their shoulders when his lies are revealed in the "fake news" media which have been the backbone of our democracy.  We have to do better than this.  Donald Trump has sent us an important signal.  We can no longer take our democracy for granted and we may even be losing our respect for science which imposes a system of protection against false claims.