![]() ![]() Donald Trump will become the chief executive of the most powerful nation in the world, the man charged with representing that nation globally-and, most importantly, telling the story of America back to Americans. On January 20, Trump’s truthful hyperboles will no longer be relegated to the world of dealmaking or campaigning. ![]() Trump apparently loved the wording, and went on to adopt it as his own. In his own autobiography, Trump used the phrase “truthful hyperbole,” a term coined by his ghostwriter referring to the flagrant truth-stretching that Trump employed, over and over, to help close sales. New York tabloid writers who covered Trump as a mogul on the rise in the 1980s and ’90s found him categorically different from the other self-promoting celebrities in just how often, and pointlessly, he would lie to them. Those who have followed Trump’s career say his lying isn’t just a tactic, but an ingrained habit. (Compare that to the politician Trump dubbed “crooked,” Hillary Clinton: Just 26 percent of her statements were deemed false.) A whopping 70 percent of Trump’s statements that PolitiFact checked during the campaign were false, while only 4 percent were completely true, and 11 percent mostly true. Nixon, Reagan and Clinton were protecting their reputations Trump seems to lie for the pure joy of it. The sheer frequency, spontaneity and seeming irrelevance of his lies have no precedent. It is, in some ways, an inherent part of the profession of politicking.īut Donald Trump is in a different category. ![]() Lying in politics transcends political party and era. Bill Clinton said he did not have sex with that woman he did, or close enough. Ronald Reagan said he wasn’t aware of the Iran-Contra deal there’s evidence he was. Richard Nixon said he was not a crook, yet he orchestrated the most shamelessly crooked act in the modern presidency. ![]() Maria Konnikova is a contributing writer at the New Yorker and author, most recently, of The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It … Every Time. ![]()
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