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TNR’s Walter Shapiro may have been stating the obvious when he reported that Donald Trump is a liar. He wrote that “on Tuesday, in the midst of a rant against the World Health Organization, Donald Trump actually said, ‘It would have been so easy to be truthful.’”
But our mendacious president may have finally reached the end of the line.
Polls clearly show that Americans understand the dangers of this pandemic. “And despite Rush Limbaugh continually likening Covid-19 to the flu, 64 percent of Republicans in the Quinnipiac poll” are among them. “That’s why persuadable voters in swing states are apt to remember Trump’s irresponsible distortions in November,” Walter reports.
These are frightening times, and even a majority of Republicans know it. But they seem satisfied with Fox News and Trump’s daily propaganda being broadcast by mainstream media.
“Trump gets away with many of his lies either because they are too inconsequential or because they would require too much effort to disprove,” but his “lies about Covid-19 are both more serious and more politically devastating,” Shapiro warns.
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Shapiro is on to something: “As the nation confronts the worst public health crisis in a century, almost any other president would have displayed the flexibility needed to offer comfort and competence to the millions of Americans who have lost a job or a loved one in the last few months. But Trump has only one act—juggling lies after lies to bamboozle the credulous—and, at the worst moment of his presidency, his usual tricks and distractions are suddenly not working.”
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