Comments by "" (@DavidJ222) on "Ex-Pence adviser warns of 'grave concern' among ex-Trump staffers" video.

  1. Abraham Lincoln once said, “No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.” To be a good liar you have to keep track of all the lies you’ve told, and to whom, in order to keep the truth hidden. But Honest Abe never knew Trump, or perhaps anybody like him. Trump is a successful liar because he refuses to remember. Not only that: He refuses to anticipate that he will remember the current moment in the future. If you live mainly in the current moment, then the future consequences of your lies will not matter to you. And if you have lived your entire life this way, and to great acclaim and success, why would you ever want to change? Trump was annoyed when Dr. Fauci stole the spotlight by throwing out the first pitch for Major League Baseball’s opening game. In response, he falsely claimed that the Yankees invited him to throw out the first pitch. His lie was roundly refuted a short time later. The incident recalls Trump’s false boast that the crowd attending his 2017 inaugural address was the largest in history. Objective photographic evidence decisively refuted that lie. And yet Trump never pulls back on blatantly false statements — lies that are so obvious that they often defy the laws of physics, chemistry and common sense. Defying biology, even in the face of soaring coronavirus cases and mounting deaths, Trump claimed that the virus at some point is “going to sort of just disappear.” The key to Trump’s psychology is that he moves through life as “the episodic man.” For Trump, each day is a temporary moment of time. Psychological research shows that nearly all adults develop stories in their minds about their own lives. These stories — what psychologists call “narrative identities” — reconstruct the past and imagine the future. As you make daily decisions, you implicitly remember how you have come to be who you are, and you anticipate where your life may be going. You live within narrative time. But the episodic man does not live that way. Instead, he immerses himself in the angry, combative moment, striving desperately to win the moment. But the episodes do not add up. They do not form a narrative arc. In Trump’s case, it is as if he wakes up each morning nearly oblivious to what happened the day before. What he said and did yesterday, in order to win yesterday, no longer matters to him. And what he will do today, in order to win today, will not matter for tomorrow. What is truth for the episodic man? Truth is whatever works to win the moment. For most people, and every other president in the history of the US, an episodic life would be unsustainable in the long run. There is a primal authenticity in Trump. He tells you exactly what he feels in the moment. He lies straight to your face, without shame, without any concern for future consequences. It is the stark audacity of untruth.
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  2. In an interview with the New Yorker, Tony Schwartz, the journalist who wrote Trump’s “The Art of the Deal,” said of Trump “Lying is second nature to him, more than anyone else I have ever met. Trump has the ability to convince himself that whatever he is saying at any given moment is true, or sort of true, or at least ought to be true." Schwartz says of Trump, “He lied strategically. He had a complete lack of conscience about it.” Since most people are “constrained by the truth,” Trump’s indifference to it “gave him a strange advantage.” When challenged about the facts, Schwartz says, Trump would often double down, repeat himself, and grow belligerent. Schwartz — and other journalists who have spent extended periods of time with Trump — paint a much more disturbing picture. They describe a man constitutionally incapable of logic, moral reasoning or self-reflection. If he were writing “The Art of the Deal” today, Schwartz said, it would be a very different book with a very different title. Asked what he would call it, he answered, “The Sociopath.” There are some politicians who will say anything to get elected or reelected. It doesn’t matter if they are Democrats. Or Republicans. Some of them are going to lie. Maybe a majority of them are going to fib. But to even suggest that anything Democrats have done over the years — or even to suggest that what other Republicans have done over the years — is on par with what Trump has normalized since he was sworn in is simply laughable. Richard Nixon, the Republican president who was run out of office for covering up the Watergate break-in, was not as dishonest as Trump. Not even close. Nixon’s arc bends closer to “Honest Abe” Lincoln than it does to a serial liar like Trump. Trump’s arc bends more toward James Tate, the Kentucky state treasurer who fled the state in 1888 with two tobacco sacks full of taxpayers’ gold and silver. You'd trust Charles Ponzi or Bernie Madoff before you'd trust Trump. Trump was given the “Lie of the Year” award in both 2015 and 2017. The first award was not for a single lie, but was for the sheer volume of lies Trump told. PolitiFact said that 76 percent of Trump’s statements that it checked that year were “mostly false,” “false” or “pants on fire.” Many politicians make false and misleading statements when they are trapped or cornered or don’t have a better answer. Trump on the other hand, lies when he doesn’t have to. He lies when the truth is a better answer. Trump’s first instinct is to lie.
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