Ernest Hemingway wrote that “the best ammunition against lies is the truth." Hemingway never encountered the MAGA Magpie, Donald Trump. Lies are so much a part of what Trump does that newspapers as far flung as the Washington Post, Toronto Star and U.K.'s Guardian have reporters assigned to keep track of them. Doug Dole, tracker of Trump's transgressions against the truth for the Toronto star noted that Trump started off fairly low at 2.9 lies a day early in his presidency. That increased rapidly, requiring Dole to develop a system employing a spreadsheet. The Post reports that Trump told more than 20 lies a day, on average, for the four years he was president.
All politicians have followers who rally around them if they are caught in a lie. Trump's are so many and far ranging that his MAGA Minions are like a permanent protective cocoon between him and dishonesty diviners. His followers are too clever to not be aware of the magnitude of his untruths. Nor does it appear that their perpetual state of forgiveness has sinister intent. He's more like the bad kid your parents wish you wouldn't hang out with. You know he's not good, but his ability to brush off well deserved criticism is somehow empowering. He is the menacing Marlon Brando in "The Wild One," and James Dean's vulnerable character from "Rebel Without a Cause," rolled into one.
