Can Democrats Stop Trump's Wave of Lies? Probably Not

[Demovictory9]

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-07-13/even-a-democratic-win-probably-can-t-stop-trump-from-lying

Can Democrats Stop Trump’s Wave of Lies? Probably Not



We’ve had three years now of Donald Trump as a politician, almost half of that as president. I think we’ve collectively just about failed in one thing: how to deal with a leading politician who just doesn’t bother telling the truth.


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And there’s evidence that Trump’s failure to tell the truth is getting worse, not better, over time. Trump dishonesty chronicler Daniel Dale finds that he went from an average of about three false claims a day in 2017 to five a day in 2018, with peak numbers over two recent weeks.



The question remains what anyone can do about it. No one really has come up with anything. Sure, there’s a case to be made that the cable news networks should dial back on taking his speeches live since they know they’ll be misinforming their viewers. And I do think that the fact-checkers, including the ones I’ve mentioned above, are overall doing good work. But it’s pretty clear that nothing the media or anyone else has done has convinced Trump to stop doing it.

Nor, for that matter, has the damage it’s done to his presidency convinced him to change. No one he deals with trusts anything he says, making negotiation with him virtually impossible.It’s one of the reasons that, despite his claims of being a brilliant deal-maker, he’s come up basically empty in making deals so far.

For a normal president, I’d hold out hope that a Democratic landslide in November could convince him to try a different path — and I’d urge his closest advisers to push him to see electoral defeat as a signal to that effect. Unfortunately, I’m fairly certain that Trump will hold himself blameless if Republicans do get clobbered. For that matter, he’ll probably make up some statistic “showing” that his party did far better than those of other presidents at their midterm elections. And then we can add that one to the continuing false statement counts, and nothing will change.