That chorus from Paul Simon’s 1969 hit song “The Boxer” goes
through my head every time I hear Donald Trump speak. Lies roll off him and his
family like butter off hot corn. But they’re not standard run-of-the-mill lies.
They’re a special kind of lies like I’ve never seen before.
Let me explain.
I’ve known some pretty prodigious liars in my life, and most
of them weren’t very good at it. You know who I mean. There are two basic
types. You ask Type 1 a question and they answer with w-a-y more information
than you needed, droning on and on endlessly while spilling out every last
detail as if their story had been rehearsed – which, of course, it had.
I mean, nobody remembers that many details about routine stuff unless they made it all up. I probably had lunch two days ago, but I can’t tell you if I did and what I ate, let alone that it was a little overcooked, much too salty and served on a light blue plate with purple flowers, lavender cloth napkins and a frosted crystal glass served by a waitress with brown eyes, curly brown hair and small square glasses whose name was Jen.
I mean, nobody remembers that many details about routine stuff unless they made it all up. I probably had lunch two days ago, but I can’t tell you if I did and what I ate, let alone that it was a little overcooked, much too salty and served on a light blue plate with purple flowers, lavender cloth napkins and a frosted crystal glass served by a waitress with brown eyes, curly brown hair and small square glasses whose name was Jen.
I may have eaten a hot dog on a bun with mustard, but I
forget.
Type 2 liars go in the opposite direction. They are so bad
at it and so unprepared they can’t provide the simplest answer that anybody
should know, such as the name of the main character in the movie they claim to
have seen. They’ll try to talk their way around it, but that never works.
As for me, I’m not very good at lying, which is why I don’t
do it. Oh, I suppose I must have tried it a time two in my life, but I would
have failed miserably, spit out the truth eventually and given it up entirely. And
that brings me to the Trumps.
It has been well documented that Trump lies almost daily.
One news outlet demonstrated how he told at least one lie in each of his first
40 days in office. He didn’t stop after 40 days, but they probably wore themselves
out counting and dropped the story after that. Trump, however, is a different type
of liar. His lies are not over-stuffed with detail (like Type 1) and he barfs them up shamelessly, often with no remorse (like Type 2). He can
tell most of them in 140 characters or less.
Here’s an example from just this week:
Trump on Sunday, 4:50
a.m. – “Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so
that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded…”
Trump on Sunday, 5:45
p.m. (after being mocked unmercifully on Twitter) – “The fact that President
Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen.
It can't…”
His sons have picked up the habit as well. When it was
reported that Donald Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and others met with a
Russian lawyer during the campaign, they said they were discussing the adoption
of Russian children. Only after the press kept following the story did they
admit the truth – if it is the truth –
that they actually were trying to gather dirt on Hillary Clinton.
That’s just two examples from the past few days. I could
write this essay all afternoon and still not cover half of them. Besides, everybody
knows by now that Trump is a serial liar. While I’m still shocked by the ease
with which these whoppers fall out of his mouth, I am no longer surprised.
I’m also not surprised but extremely saddened by a recent
poll showing that more than one-third of Americans still approve of Trump. According
to news reports, many of those same people got upset with National Public Radio
for broadcasting the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July. It was
bad enough that they didn’t recognize the words to one of our most important documents, but many of them labeled it “subversive”
toward the Trump regime.
It was subversive, all right, but in a whole different
context. Without those words, we’d still be drinking tea with our crumpets every
afternoon and singing “God Save the Queen” at baseball games, which would be
called cricket matches and would look really silly out on the pitch.
Speaking of songs, here are some more lyrics from “The Boxer.”
Raise your hand if they mean anything to you.
I have squandered my
resistance
For a pocketful of
mumbles
Such are promises
All lies and jest
Still, a man hears
what he wants to hear
And disregards the
rest…From 1969. Insightful, to say the least.
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