"Commentary: I study liars. I've never seen one like Donald Trump."

[StevieM]

~snip~

I spent the first two decades of my career as a social scientist studying liars and their lies. I thought I had developed a sense of what to expect from them. Then along came President Donald Trump. His lies are both more frequent and more malicious than ordinary people's.

At The Washington Post, the Fact Checker feature has been tracking every false and misleading claim and flip-flop made by Trump this year. The inclusion of misleading statements and flip-flops is consistent with the definition of lying my colleagues and I gave to our participants: "A lie occurs any time you intentionally try to mislead someone." In the case of Trump's claims, though, it is possible to ascertain only whether they were false or misleading, and not what the president's intentions were.

The college students in our research told an average of two lies a day, and the community members told one. (A more recent study of the lies 1,000 U. S. adults told in the previous 24 hours found that people told an average of 1.65 lies per day; the authors noted that 60 percent of the participants said they told no lies at all, while the top 5 percent of liars told nearly half of all the falsehoods in the study.) The most prolific liar among the students told an average of 6.6 lies a day. The biggest liar in the community sample told 4.3 lies in an average day.

In Trump's first 298 days in office, however, he made 1,628 false or misleading claims or flip-flops, by The Post's tally. That's about six per day, far higher than the average rate in our studies. And of course, reporters have access to only a subset of Trump's false statements — the ones he makes publicly — so unless he never stretches the truth in private, his actual rate of lying is almost certainly higher.

Read More: https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-donald-trump-liar-20171208-story.html?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=exchange&tblci=GiC-b7ccBLxMLVT2PugUFaHsk8uPxEkpIqnO68pz8ssVXiCP3z8#tblciGiC-b7ccBLxMLVT2PugUFaHsk8uPxEkpIqnO68pz8ssVXiCP3z8

[BigmanPigman]

1. His niece Mary has answered a question I've had for years about this topic.

Last edited Sat Aug 29, 2020, 01:34 AM - Edit history (2)

Does he intentionally lie or does he really believe this BS he spouts? Mary said it is both. Often he intentionally lies and "you can tell he is doing this when you see that little smirk on his face". Other times he says or hears something repeated by others or himself so many times that he eventually has convinced himself it is the truth.

[Chainfire]

3. I don't think that it is either

I really don't think that Trump can differentiate a lie from the truth. To him, the truth is anything that seems good in the moment, as if there is no history and no future. I think that he is confused about why people are so concerned about truth or honor.

[dchill]

2. Trump is a political vampire, and truth is his sunlight.

[hydrolastic]

4. Tired of hearing this

He knows exactly what he is doing and saying. What Trump has found out is by lying he can gain advantage over people and it will eventually pay off for him. For instance he knows science is real. He just doesn't confirm it because it will benefit him by allowing the fossil fuel industry to thrive longer. Its all about saying what will enrich him and others. Also notice when he says stuff like "Russia 30,000 emails" comment he looks down at his notes.... He knows exactly what he is doing. Its hurting us to keep calling him a baffoon and a idiot.

[dalton99a]

5. Most of Trump's lies are malicious and intentional.

A few are born of willful ignorance, e.g. invisible airplanes