Last week Fareed Zakaria called Trump a bullshit artist on CNN and then wrote an article that touches on exactly this same issue - random lying just for the sake of lying.
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I think that Trump does a fair amount of actual lying.
BUT most of what people notice is merely a stream of bullshit conscious(less)ness. I have a relative mother and daughter who both do this constantly, Trump reminds me of them, and as no surprise to me these two intend to vote for him.
Some people are so worried about what others think of them, that they model whatever they suppose a good, smart person should say. To avoid being held to specifics, this yields a constant stream of incoherent fragments. Since they would be horrified to think of themselves or be thought of as liars, they try to get their way by making up nonsense as they go along. Meanwhile they have a determined if superficial confidence in everything they say.
What ruins it for them is if I backtrack a little and ask them to actually complete a sentence or thought before the skip to the next one. Also, the need to Gish gallop and keep throwing stuff out there so that nothing is examined. But my memory is fairly good. When I ask them about prior statements they have made - even two minutes ago - the answers change. It’s like trying to read a book in a dream.When I ask them to clarify, they simply make up something else which is often inconsistent with the first thing. They insist on getting “their way” while often flatly denying even their own past statements.
In short, Trump appears to be a good liar to so many because he believes a lot of his own bullshit. How he is perceived is more important than what he actually says.
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I recall the first time I ever much noticed this was I was amused at the premise of the first season of The Apprentice and watched a few episodes, and he routinely talked about The Trump Organization as being a parent organization of “hundreds of companies” – now, as a lawyer who did a lot of project finance, and a fair bit of real estate interacting with that – this was just so ridiculous.
I was not unusual to see six or eight LLCs and LPs stacked above and between an operating company and a property – this is far simplified but The Trump Tower in Chicago has several, if not ten or more to manage all aspects of the business (say, “Trump Tower Operating Company LLC”, along with “Trump Tower Owner Trust A LLC” “Trump Tower Owner Trust B LLC” “Trump Tower Owner Trust C LLC”, “Trump Tower Operating Partnership LP” “Trump Tower Residential Leasing Company, Inc.” “Trump Tower Commercial Leasing, Inc.” etc etc.) – now there are lots of valid** tax reasons to structure things this way, but no one in the real estate business would ever talk to one another about owning “five companies” in this context – they are vehicles solely there to position the building in an appropriate, bankruptcy-remote and tax efficient form.
So while most real estate people would talk about “owning” Trump Tower, with the implication that – of course, there are all sorts of holding companies to deal with the finances – the phrasing on TV was clearly meant to dazzle the viewing public. Oooo, hundreds of companies! he must own hundreds of buildings, or maybe – he owns lots of buildings, but also steaks and wine and water and what else! Just pure bullshit by any normal measure of what normal people mean by “owning a company”.
** Please, please let’s not argue about the whether this is “valid” in some moral or economic sense because I used the word valid. I mean valid only because they are contemplated under the Internal Revenue Code and legal.
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Yeah, there’s a psych term for it, some pathology we’re witnessing.
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yup and bs’ing about easily disprovable things like he knew Putin because they were on 60minutes together - even though it can easily be checked that Putin’s interview was from Moscow etc. Fareed’s right.
That old saw “How can you tell if a politician is lying? Because his lips are moving!” has met its match.
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That’s what it looks like to me. I think he has a genuine mental disorder - he can’t actually tell truth from lies, and/or he just can’t remember the truth so he makes something up. Some sort of dementia or scizophrenia or something. It would be very sad, if he weren’t so goddamn mean about it, and if he weren’t in a position to endanger the existence of all life on the planet. If we’re lucky, he’s too far gone to be able to win the election.
Dsiclaimer: no sarcasm, no joking, no hyperbole intended. I’m 100% dead serious.
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These are all clear hallmarks of psychopathy. I’m not diagnosing the guy. But I am saying everyone should treat him like the dangerous psychopath he’s been acting like for decades.
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For a bout with despair, go ahead and read the comments after the linked article.
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Yeah, even if he’s not clinically a psychopath, it would certainly be safest to treat him that way…
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Some days, I miss that show.
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Trump alone is enough to fill my quota of despair, thanks.
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“In private dealings, Trump lies constantly and without apparent purpose”-- the purpose is obvious: he’s a small man who needs to feel big.
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Well now you get to live the reality!
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Could it be that Trump just hasn’t clued into the fact that every word out of his mouth is being recorded now that he’s running for president? Or does he just not care?
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I do so love your posts. And your portrait is nice. Passport or fishing license?
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That’s a well known technique called “The big lie.” The worse he is at it, the better it works.
Your run-of-the-mill politician, like Clinton, constantly tells calculated lies for a purpose. This guy, on the other hand, is a born demagogue.
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