Trump Loses a Battle in His War on Truth
Trump Loses a Battle in His War on Truth
The torrent of false speech is largely quarantined in the executive branch
President Donald Trump admitted over the weekend that the true purpose of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his senior campaign team and a group of Russians was to obtain actionable information on Hillary Clinton. The admission is a landmark in Trump's awkward struggle to contain the Russia scandal. But it may also signal a landmark defeat in Trump's larger battle against truth.
The essential tool of democratic politics is speech. As Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson wrote in “Deeds Done in Words,” their study of U.S. presidential rhetoric, “Public communication is the medium through which the national fabric is woven.”
Trump's furious assault on truth claws at that fabric daily. But it has yet to shred it. When he is forced to retreat from falsehoods -- such as the series of lies that he and his aides told about the Trump Tower meeting -- it's a victory for truth and for democratic institutions.
While Trump's unprecedented dishonesty is well-documented -- see Susan Glasser's fine piece last week in the New Yorker -- it's still unclear what it means for American democracy. "I don't believe our democracy can function for long on lies," writes former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in a new book.
That's no doubt true. But how many political lies, of what sort, does it take to break the democratic camel’s back?
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-06/trump-loses-a-battle-in-his-war-on-truth