Trump isn't a liar. He's a bullshitter. That's worse.

[elfs]

The thing about Trump Lies is that Trump's lack of connection to reality isn't lying: it's worse than that.

It's bullshit.

Time after time in the WaPo article outlining a court case from 2008 that broke open just how often, easily, and readily Trump says what isn't true, it's plain that Trump doesn't connect what he's saying to what he knows. When the lawyers actually call him out and point to things he said or did that don't jibe with his current testimony, he blames someone else for the mistake, or tries to explain how in his version of reality $400K is really $1M. In the philosophy of bullshit (yes, there really is a "philosophy of bullshit"), it's explained this way:

The bullshitter may not deceive us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be. What he does necessarily attempt to deceive us about is his enterprise. His only indispensably distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he misrepresents what he is up to.

The bullshitter hides that the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the truth nor co conceal it. This does not mean that his speech is anarchically impulsive, but that the motive guiding and controlling it is unconcerned with how the things about which he speaks truly are.

A person who lies is responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.

Now you tell me that isn't the GOP candidate.

Comments

[polydad.livejournal.com]

I agree with you completely.

Unfortunately, it is *also* the Democratic candidate. Difference is, she's *good* at it and doesn't get caught nearly as often.

Since I know my vote won't affect things anyway (me being in Oregon, which will go heavily to Clinton), I'm going to write in Bernie when it's time, even though he has already conceded.

FWIW, while I can't bring myself to vote for him, Trump might do less damage than Clinton, precisely because he *is* fucking incompetent.