Alan Zendell, January 29, 2024

Futurists and speculative writers have warned that a long-term consequence of a fully open, unregulated internet would likely be graying the lines between truth and fiction. When anyone with an opinion, someone like me, for example, can share it with the world on an unvetted platform, it takes a discerning reader to know when they’re being lied to. When we add sound, video, CGI and AI technology, and the combined skills of professional influencers, almost anyone can be fooled into believing anything.

Some of the smartest writers of the past few decades told us it was inevitable that a time would come when everything we viewed as inherently true would become amorphous. Things we once viewed as hard fact would suddenly be soft and malleable. That includes mathematics, science, medicine, health, and statistics, but it applies most visibly to politics.

There are countless ways to distort truth and lie; one of the most insidious is hypocrisy, especially when it is dispensed by an unscrupulous individual gifted with charismatic appeal. I have no intention of subtlety. I’m referring to Donald Trump and his army of coattail-clinging sycophants. The Big Lie isn’t just about claiming the 2020 election was stolen. It extends to virtually everything that comes out of their mouths.

I taught my children that lies always come home to roost. Lie and cheat often enough and eventually people will catch on to you. We’re all accountable in the end. Every major religion contains some version of Judgment Day, and despite corrupt, broken legal systems, people who routinely lie and mislead usually face the consequences of their actions. Yes, I see circular fallacy, too. Ultimate accountability is only a fact of nature until it isn’t.

It’s all been hypothetical until now, and millions of people who most need to heed the warnings haven’t been paying attention. For more than eight years as a politician, Trump seemed Teflon-coated. When the 2024 election was more than a year off, we could defer concerns that Trump might get away with his crimes and win again. Until now, even his supporters acknowledged that they hate his behavior, but “like his policies,” and that’s the heart of the problem.

My first question is always, “What policies?” His only policy is pursuing what is best and most profitable for Donald Trump. His most impressive legislative achievement, the massive 2017 tax cuts that were almost entirely a gift for billionaires was the culmination of a years-long effort by Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. All Trump did was sign it. His other major policies included a disastrous trade war that alienated both allies and adversaries, and contributed significantly to inflation; disrespect of our major allies including NATO; and a love of autocrats, which goes hand-in-hand with his disdain for democracy.

But I left out his most hypocritical policies. First was his promise to appoint conservative justices who believed in the Constitution, and that his choices would be apolitical on specific issues. Trump isn’t the only politician who lied about that, but he did it in spades. Each of his three Supreme Court appointees lied to the Senate about their views on abortion. They were selected because of Trump’s pandering to evangelicals. Does anyone think Trump believes in the sanctity of human life or any other Judeo-Christian value?

The runner-up as Trump’s most heinous hypocrisy is respect for women. His adult life has been an ongoing scandal of disrespecting and sexually assaulting women. Before he became a politician, his misadventures were covered up with hush-money and non-disclosure agreements. Trump still doesn’t understand that the government isn’t his personal property, and as a politician he lives in the same bubble as the rest of us. As I warned my children, his actions are finally catching up with him. Courts have now awarded one of his victims a total of $88.8 million in damages and found him guilty of sexual assault in a civil trial.

Finally, the winner! Immigration. We have a serious southern border problem, one for which every president and every Congress in the past fifty years bears responsibility. The drum Trump has continually beaten since 2015 is that to make America great again we have to keep out undesirables, i.e., dark-skinned non-Europeans. He convinced millions of people, in 2016, that most immigrants and refugees were rapists and murderers.

Trump accomplished little in terms of controlling our border, and Mexico didn’t pay for any of it. But President Biden and Senate Leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell hammered out a strong, bipartisan compromise to spend billions on border enforcement personnel and cutting-edge technology, and to authorize the President to close the border if necessary to preserve our security. Candidate Trump is publicly lobbying his supporters in the House to scuttle the bill because it would given Biden a legislative victory and rob Trump of what he perceives as his strongest campaign issue. At a rally on Saturday, he told the media to blame him if the bill doesn’t pass.

There’s a reason Nikki Haley hasn’t dropped out of the primary race, the same reason the Koch Network of Conservative billionaires who believe in our Constitution continues to fund her campaign. They know the power of women in the voting booth, and as the Wall Street Journal suggested, Trump’s cynical attempt to scuttle border legislation will likely come back and bite him.

Enough is enough. By the time we reach this year’s nominating conventions, the glaring truth about Donald Trump will be out there for everyone to see. Millions who supported him will no longer be able to hold their noses while they cast their votes.