I am not trained in understanding people’s motivations. I cannot read their minds or understand how they think. I can only observe patterns and extrapolate future actions from prior ones. We do as we have done.
I believe it is possible to correlate Mr. Trump and his actions to provide us with his view of how the world works, and therefore, how one needs to act in order to survive or advance in it.
In 1532, Machiavelli wrote: “Those princes who have done great things … have known how to circumvent the intellect of men by craft.” Machiavelli argued that rulers should do whatever it takes to retain power, and this could include “being a great dissembler”.
It seems to me, that based on his actions in his private life, business and politics that Mr. Trump does not seem to view statements as truths or lies; that statements are rather positions that support or oppose him. Because it is important to advance his goals and projects, it is ok to mislead an individual, a company or a country. He recently quoted Napoleon: “He who saves his country violates no law.” The same might also apply to statements: “He who bends the words to his advantage does not lie.”
Think about owning an office building. There may be a 50% vacancy rate, but if you tell that to a prospective renter then the renter has a negotiating advantage on suite location, price and lease terms. Therefore, it is not only right, but important that you express to that renter that there are only a few suites left, thereby shifting the power back to you and pressuring the potential renter to decide quickly on a deal in your favor.
There is no advantage in praising a country who has been an ally in the past if you want to get something from them. If you praise them, then they have an advantage because they can cite that friendship as a reason for you to treat them well. If, on the other hand, you are critical of them, that they have been "ripping us off", or have unfair trade practices, or are "takers" of our military "gifts", then you are in a far better negotiating position. It is not important whether you are correct or not, and if you add “or maybe not”, you have covered your back. Also, if you can force them to thank you or praise you in advance, they have lost their negotiating advantage.
In order to develop political power, it is most important that your supporters become emotionally outraged at your opponents and their perceived disastrous policies. If you acknowledge that there were successes in previous administrations (whether of your party or of the opposition’s party, or even for universally respected past Presidents), then your negotiating position with your supporters is eroded. It is less important that what you say is factually defended, than the emotional effect on your supporters is increased. Therefore, there are no "lies", only positioning.
And, in the event that you deny having said something, even when there is paper or video evidence that you actually said it, you counterattack. First, you accuse the reporters, their associates, their organizations and undefined internal leakers and "Never Trumpers" of faking the news. Second, you deny that you actually said it in the first place. And third, you say that you never said it and you can't imagine that you really would have ever said something like that, or that you would have to check with someone else about that.
When Mr. Trump claimed, despite video evidence, that his rallies had more attendees than Harris-Walz rallies, he said the video evidence was a computer-generated illusion.
Empathy is an impediment to liars, because concerns about potential consequences to opponents runs counter to the advantage to the liar. The ability to lie improves as our cognitive abilities develop, and the facility to utilize it matures as well.
When Trump said that immigrants are eating the dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio, it provided a vivid image to our emotional system. Any appeal to the rational system was secondary and lost.
A good example is James Cassidy, an unemployed construction worker in Newark, Ohio, who, when confronted with Trump’s statement about Obama wiretapping his phones, contradicted by the FBI Director, said that he knew that Trump made the whole thing up, but he was happy that he did. “He’s ruffling every feather in Washington that he can ruffle. These guys are scrambling. So: yeah! I like it. I think it’s a good thing. I want to see them jump around a little bit.” Supporters like Mr. Cassidy are willing to believe that Mr. Trump was correct, or maybe only possibly correct, or he may have been mistaken but well-intentioned, or that he is actually a very cunning politician maneuvering for power.
Mr. Trump has always understood that his statements get far more attention than the attempts to correct his errors, and making dramatic statements multiple times a day, replaced by new ones the next day, overwhelm the capacity of other voices to respond.
Afterall, it is not important whether those statements are true or not, because it corresponds more to how they make you feel and what you would like to think is true. Saying whatever the hell he wants is thus a symbol of his strength, a sign that he is a disrupter and doesn’t follow the standard script. His statements, whether adjudged as true or false by outside observers are seen as anti-establishment by his supporters.
Sometimes, Mr. Trump will say something in the spur of the moment, guided by instincts and short on supporting facts, or sometimes he will just throw off an idea for effect without a genuine belief. And sometimes, this will be called out in the Press. But Mr. Trump learned at the side of Roy Cohn, who taught him to “Sue them; intimidate them; never back down." So, that first statement, whether backed by evidence or not, needs to be supported and never abandoned in the future.
It would seem to me, based on these observations, that in Mr. Trump’s view of the world, there are no truths and lies, there are only negotiation positions that provide leverage, or statements and actions which are dangerous because they undermine your position.
So, how do I see this manifesting itself in the next few years? If my observations are on point, then we can expect to see constant statements that appeal to his base, that reinforce their desire to have a strong leader, one who is turning the economy around, forcing out those who would turn this country over to socialist lunatics who want to force you to marry people THEY want you to marry, who want to teach your children to hate this country, who want to take your money from you and give it to government bureaucrats, and who want to give our riches to other countries who don’t contribute their fair share. It will not be important if those statements can be supported by facts, pass critical review or reflect academically researched positions. It is only important that they reflect what you feel.
A good example is claiming that “many people” tell me that I am the greatest President of all time, greater than Lincoln (who could have ended that war), or even Washington; that I won the greatest mandate in American History. These statements stimulate the pride in his supporters. Questioning the facts behind them are seen by these same people as “sour grapes”, or worse, as undermining the authority of the Presidency. “Just give him a f**king chance. See what happens.”
This authority given to a leader is extremely powerful, because it allows the leader to claim ownership of the belief system and superiority over those who oppose him.
We will see examples of this as Mr. Trump continues his assault on the US relations with traditional friends like Canada, Mexico, England and the EU. Isolation can be a way of providing insulation from other points of view, a feeling of Patriotism (i.e., Nativism), a way of controlling resentment and anger, and a lever to influence other politicians.
More importantly, if my analysis is correct, trying to fight Mr. Trump by calling out his lies or correcting his statements to the public will be fruitless. That effort will only reinforce the positions of his supporters who already have chosen to believe his positions. Those statements by themselves are not relevant, it is the emotional impact of them which satisfies the desire for disruption of the politics in this country and globalism abroad.
I would think that the only way to resist this emotional appeal, is with an emotional appeal of your own. Democrats have not shown an ability to coalesce around such an emotional message. They have been outmaneuvered and trapped into fighting a water balloon where one punch at one location simply pushes out another bulge on a different one. Lawsuits still remain important because the courts have always been the arbiters of what is legal and what is not, thereby reining in the actions of the Executive Branch. That is apparently why the current administration is going after both the judges who rule against them, and the law firms that represent opposing viewpoints.
I have not seen a Democrat rise to the call of leading a chorus of discontent, a leader for whom what they want to do reflects what so many citizens want rather than only condemning what the other side is doing.
As hard as it may be to admit, running a candidate, at this moment in time, who comes from a minority, whether by religion, race or sexual identity will fail, because it plays directly into the sense that the Democratic Party is not working for the average American, but for a coalition of minority interest groups. And the single greatest problem for the Democrats today, is that a very large fraction of their registered voters was unmotivated to vote in 2024. Joe Biden received 81 million votes in his successful election in 2020, while Donald Trump received 77 million votes in 2024. When Democrats vote, they win. When they sit home, they lose.
A successful campaign will never rely on calls to be afraid of the future effects of current actions, because it so easily parried by claims that the future will only be fantastic if you let these current policies have some time to work. If you want to believe that the future is bright, then the screams of people about the dangers of the future will fall on deaf ears and will play into the narrative that all Democrats do is hate Mr. Trump and everything that he does.
This is how the “truth of lies” works. As Meredith Wilson wrote: “Either you are closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge, or you are unaware of the caliber of disaster indicated by…”