Commentary: Donald Trump’s constant struggle with accuracy faces another trial with the electorate

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The lore of the cherry tree might be too ideal to be factual, but it’s undeniable that George Washington had a profound respect for truthfulness. “I regard this principle as equally relevant to public and private affairs: honesty is the supreme policy,” he penned in his final address.

Several decades later, another future president’s credibility garnered him a famous moniker: Honest Abe Lincoln.

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Then there’s Donald Trump, who during his tenure as president faced scrutiny over business transactions in Moscow. “I have no involvement with Russia,” he declared in 2016. His narrative changed when the details of his extended endeavor to construct a luxury tower there surfaced. According to Trump, “Everybody” was always aware of the project, implying that only a fool would abandon such a plan merely due to a desire to serve their nation as president.

“Why should I forfeit a multitude of opportunities?” Trump questioned.

While America has previously seen Oval Office occupants who’ve twisted the truth, none have been as persistently in conflict with the reality across so many different topics. Both as a contender and president, Trump showed an impressive capacity to exploit broadcast and social media to propagate his misrepresentations, and succeeded remarkably in swaying large segments of the American population.

As Trump endeavors for a second term amidst battling federal and state charges, the country faces the potential for another election campaign riddled with inaccuracies and disinformation, and the possibility that he could be reinstated in the White House by an electorate that either buys into his falsities or remains indifferent.

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“This is a defining moment. We have not faced a situation like this,” stated Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Jamieson remarked that pre-Trump, it was assumed that certain lies — ones that shake confidence in democracy or the judiciary, for instance — would render a person unfit for public office. “If declaring the election was manipulated doesn’t fit into that category, then what does?”

As a contender, Trump made disinformation a primary campaign strategy, frequently employing falsities to undermine his opponents, as he did when he inexplicably suggested that Ted Cruz’s father might have been implicated in the Kennedy assassination. Cruz is now an unrepentant Trump supporter.

As president, Trump misinformed Americans about economic indicators, a hurricane, climate change, and his previous actions and meetings with foreign dignitaries. Amidst leading the nation through the pandemic, he downplayed the severity of the coronavirus while endorsing baseless treatments.

In the current scattered information landscape, the attempts by journalists to fact-check the president didn’t consistently reach those who accepted his words as the gospel. However, that might be changing, according to a Republican strategist who believes his party is starting to recognize Trump’s reality distortion field.

“In my view, he’s essentially a tragic 77-year-old individual who is entirely detached from reality and sort of creates his own reality,” said Craig Fuller, who served in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Fuller believes the relatively sizable roster of Republicans competing with Trump for the GOP endorsement indicates that many voters desire a more truthful alternative, even as a large field also bolsters Trump’s chances of victory.

“I think it’s nearly too perilous to contemplate,” Fuller responded when queried about the prospect of a second Trump term.

A request for comment from Trump’s campaign was not immediately responded to on Friday.

Throughout his presidency, Trump lied so frequently — in person, on TV, on Twitter — that counts of his falsehoods rapidly exceeded 100, then 1,000, then 10,000, and finally 30,000. A dedicated wikipedia page was even created to keep track.

Elections and voting have been the most common targets of Trump’s inaccuracies. He won the 2016 race but still alleged it was rigged because he lost the popular vote. He called the 2020 race rigged even before Election Day, and stated prior to the vote that the only way he could lose was if cheating took place. No evidence was ever provided, and after the election, Trump’s assertions were dismissed by numerous courts, including ones presided over by judges he appointed.

It was Trump’s lies about democracy, the integrity of elections, and the judiciary that most perturbed experts on voting, politics, and history.

“It’s not the first step, it’s the 100th step on the path to despotism,” said Jeffrey Engel, director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University, referring to Trump’s attacks on judicial independence and law enforcement. “What’s astonishing to me is how blatant Trump is about it.”

Engel stated that conflicts between presidents, Congress, and the courts are a fundamental part of American governance, and a fair share of presidents have distorted the truth regarding personal and public failures. But none have openly defied another branch in the manner Trump has.

For months leading up to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, Trump bombarded supporters with a consistent stream of unfounded claims about rigged elections, mail-in voting, and manipulated ballot boxes. He did little to disperse the violent mob that soon overran the Capitol. The congressional inquiry into the attack concluded that Trump participated in a conspiracy to overturn the election.

To those working to fortify American democracy, the deadly riot demonstrated the consequences when lies are permitted to supplant the truth.

“On Jan. 6 we were reminded of the vulnerability of our democracy,” said Nathan Empsall, an Episcopal priest who leads Faithful America, a nonprofit religious organization that has criticized attempts to distort the history of Jan. 6. “If we fail to remember that, if we forget what transpired, we might not be able to resist next time.”

While Trump didn’t create the factors that resulted in our current era of polarization and disinformation, he indeed exploited those elements, stated Julian E. Zelizer, a Princeton University historian and political scientist.

“I’m uncertain whether Donald Trump is the cause or the effect but I do know he’s part of the confusion,” Zelizer noted. “He entered politics in an age of social media and increasing trust issues and he accelerated them. He fueled the already smoldering issues, and his proclamations seemingly don’t need to align with reality because his followers prefer his version.”

When Trump was arraigned in April in New York on charges that he falsified business records to conceal hush money payments in an attempt to influence the 2016 election, many of his online supporters openly compared the scandal-ridden thrice-married businessman to Jesus Christ, who Christians believe rose from the dead following his crucifixion.

His vocal online supporters have remained just as supportive following his federal indictment this month.

Trump might be symbolic of our current era of disinformation, but skepticism and political polarization can’t be attributed to one individual and generally emerge from deep societal divisions and economic pressures, according to Nealin Parker, executive director of Common Ground USA, a nonprofit that researches ways to bridge America’s political divide.

“Often people are searching for a magic solution: if only we didn’t have this one political leader, we’d be alright,” Parker said. “But that’s not the reality.”

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EDITOR’S NOTE — David Klepper has been covering misinformation for The Big Big News since 2019.

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