“Nobody believes a liar, even when he’s telling the truth.” That is the moral of Aesop’s fable about the boy who cried wolf and it has become the story of Donald Trump’s Presidency. In the fable, the villagers did believe the shepherd boy the first two times that he cried “WOLF!” They came to rescue him and to save the sheep. The third time, there really was a wolf but no one came to help. The villagers had learned that the shepherd boy was a liar so they ignored his cries.
On March 4, 2017, President Trump said this, “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!…Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!…I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!..How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!” President Trump has also said that millions of people voted illegally in our last election, citing that as the only reason that he did not win the popular vote. And he claimed on numerous occasions that our elections are rigged.
Some of candidate Trump’s outrageous statements got people excited, and he won enough electoral votes to make him President of the United States. Now it seems that a growing majority of Americans – even a large number of his supporters – don’t take his wild accusations seriously. I recently heard one Trump supporter respond by saying, “That’s not serious. It’s just Trump being Trump.”
The President’s statements are accusations of criminal activity that would undermine our nation and our freedom – IF they were true. But he has not produced evidence to support any of them. Current and former government officials have denied the wire-tapping claims. Numerous studies of our elections have disproven the claims of massive voter fraud and election rigging. If a President makes such damning statements about our nation, he should demonstrate to us that they are true. Otherwise, it is the President himself who is undermining our nation, our faith in our democratic electoral process and our freedom.
What public reaction can we expect when the President needs to speak to us about a real crisis? Suppose, for example, that President Kennedy had told such lies before he needed to address the nation and lead our military forces during the Cuban missile crisis. We could easily have bungled our way into a nuclear war. What if we could not have trusted President Eisenhower’s honesty about Soviet Troops entering Hungary? After the intelligence assessments about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction turned out to be wrong, most Americans saw it as a mistake, not a lie.
In 1962, President Kennedy needed international support for the naval blockade that prevented the Soviet Union bringing more nuclear weapons to Cuba. He called the French President, Charles de Gaulle, and explained the situation. He told de Gaulle that Secretary of State Dean Acheson would fly to Paris with photographs proving the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. The French President responded that he did not need to see the pictures saying, “The word of the President of the United States is good enough for me.” It’s hard to imagine that any of our allies would give such a response today. They would want proof. Why would they trust our President?
In a world where a new crisis can arrive at internet speed, citizens need to be able to trust the word of our President. So do our military and intelligence leaders. But he’s lied about them too. How can they trust him?
What would we do if President Trump were to tell us of an urgent problem that requires an immediate and risky response? I certainly don’t know, but my best guess is that the nation would be divided. Some would believe. Many would not because trust has been broken.
Our congress and courts have never faced a situation like this. There are procedures, if needed, for removing a President, either via impeachment or for mental health reasons. The time for that could soon be on the horizon if our President continues to lie.