Denial - The river fueling the Trump Campaign

Hillary Clinton claims Donald Trump called climate change a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese during the first presidential debate.  Trump's response "I did not say that.  I do not say that.  I do not say that."  The problem is that he said just that in a tweet in November of 2012.

An objective evaluation of this would be that Trump lied. The same type of objective analysis would determine that the following list of Trump statements are also lies:

Stop and frisk was not ruled unconstitutional in New York.
Hillary Clinton started the birther controversy.
He did not initially support the war in Iraq.
NATO opened a terrorism division because of his comments.
We can learn more from his financial disclosure forms than from his tax returns.
His claim he never said Muslims would be subject to profiling under his policies
His claim Hillary Clinton has no child care plan.

And many, many, more.

The question is why?  How pervasive is Trump's lying?  According to Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale, there was one nine day period where Trump told 64 unique lies.  Some claim he is simply a pathological liar while others attribute his penchant for prevarication is simply a symptom of a narcissistic personality disorder. 

I do not know that either is completely provable.  What I do know is that there is a truth here.  That truth is that his supporters don't give a darn about what lies he tells.  He believes in dissembling and said so in his first book.  In The Art of the Deal he wrote “I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole.” 

He has become so entrenched in this mindset that he has made a major leap beyond hyperbole and now believes (rightly so) that he can get away with baldfaced falsehoods.  The biggest lie he is selling at the moment is that he is an outsider, an agent of change.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Trump wants to cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans (including himself, BTW).  So has every Republican presidential nominee since Ronald Reagan.  He claims he can achieve reductions in government spending by eliminating waste.  So have the other Republican presidential nominees.   Analyses of his economic and tax proposals by independent organizations show they would add trillions to the national debt, just like the plans of those predecessors who ran as Republicans.

This is the same old failed formula but in a shiny new wrapper of orange spray tan and expensive tailored suits that aren't made in Mexico and China like Trump's signature clothing lines are.  That is the big lie.  The one he doesn't want you to see.  So he keeps telling smaller lies to distract you.