Trump: Truth, Lies and 'Lulz'

by James Burkinshaw 

(image by: Joe Shlabotnick - Wiki Commons)

The preacher and the salesman are two iconic American characters. A third, perhaps related to both, is the con-man, a central figure in American culture from Herman Melville's satirical novel, The Confidence-Man (1857) to the much-loved Wizard of Oz (1939), from huckster Phineas T Barnum ("there's a sucker born every minute") to Donald J Trump, epic liar, serial fraudster and (until today) 45th President of the United States. 

Following his surprise victory in 2016, uncomprehending journalists urgently sought Trump supporters to ask why they had voted for him. They were met more often than not by the response, "He tells it like it is". This seemed a surreal description of a man who, during the course of his presidency told 30,573 lies (according to the Washington Post) - and those just the ones on the record. However, what many of his followers meant was that, in contrast to the smooth, on-message, insincere politicians of both parties, he came across as spontaneous, unscripted, "real". Even his racism and corruption seemed authentic. Republican politicians had been using racist dog-whistles for many decades to appeal to white voters; Trump's language was just more explicit. Financial corruption was endemic to the American political system; Trump's bunco-artistry was simply more brazen.

Above all, Trump, in common with all successful con-men, had a talent for exposing the hypocrisy of others - not just the politicians he defeated but American culture itself. "America is a chronically untruthful country" writes historian Sarah Churchwell, "deceit written into its very framework . . . the declaration "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" was written by a man who enslaved men he did not consider his equal, and became the foundation of a country that incessantly declared its belief in truth and justice while enslaving and oppressing much of its population . . . It has often been said that America had to imagine itself into existence; less often remarked is the corollary that America is, in a very real sense, merely a story the nation tells itself." 

The master-storyteller of American Exceptionalism was Republican President Ronald Reagan who forty years ago described America as 'a shining city on a hill', a phrase endlessly repeated ever since by Democratic and Republican politicians alike. In 2016, Hillary Clinton claimed "The United States is an exceptional nation . . . We're still Reagan's shining city on a hill." However, Reagan had taken the phrase out of context from a sermon given by John Winthrop in 1630, which, far from being celebratory had been part of a blistering jeremiad against the hypocrisy and self-regard of a community (the Massachusetts colony) on the brink of collapse. Winthrop presented the barren New England soil, ruined crops, disease, death, dissension, violence and corruption as signs of human sin and divine displeasure. While Donald Trump might seem to have rather little in common with a 17th century Puritan preacher, his own stump speech in 2016, excoriating "poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad", his claim that "when the world looks at how bad the United States is, and then we go and talk about civil liberties, I don't think we're a very good messenger" seemed brutally honest, particularly in contrast to the hollow platitudes of his opponents (Hillary Clinton: "America is great because America is good"). Trump was unique in refusing to pay lip service to the idea of American Exceptionalism: "I don't think it is a very nice term. You're insulting the world . . . I never liked the expression." When challenged by a TV host, he replied, "You think our country's so innocent?" 

Thus, Trump may have been a liar and a cynic, but he did not appear to be a hypocrite, unlike his opponents. And what the con man seemed to be suggesting was that American Exceptionalism was the biggest con of all, that for the past forty years, of growing inequality, economic upheaval and seemingly endless wars, establishment politicians had been playing the electorate for suckers with their gauzy visions of progress and uplift in direct contrast to the actual, lived experience of so many Americans. Trump gleefully confirmed his voters' belief that American politics was a rigged game, arguing that his extensive background in casinos, beauty pageants, professional wrestling and reality TV (rigged games, all) gave him unique insight into the fraudulence of American politics and media; he would be the ultimate poacher-turned-gamekeeper. 

"All the places where Trump has thrived" says TV critic James Poniewozik, "have been fields where there is a thin boundary between fact and fiction." Like so many con-men before him, Trump lost sight of that boundary and became absorbed by his own show. Trump's TV career had taught him that it was essential to look like a successful businessman rather than to be one; the camera could not avert its gaze from the cartoonish fantasy that he created: the garish Trump Tower, the bizarre orange make-up, farcical hair, elongated ties. His candidacy and presidency made compelling television; the new hit show replacing 'The Apprentice' was 'The Trump Presidency', designed to keep the audience hooked as they watched to see what new crisis the protagonist would generate and how he would get out of it. Any remaining dividing-line beyond politics and entertainment seemed to have been completely erased. 

Some argued that to view Trump in terms of entertainment was to ignore the danger he posed as an authoritarian. However, the two are of a piece. Observing the rise of Hitler, Walter Benjamin argued, in his influential essay 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' (1935), "Fascism tends towards an aestheticisation of politics", creating spectacles that provide people with a sense of cultural solidarity through which to express grievance while at the same time distracting them from the socio-economic causes of that grievance. Trump was the master of spectacle, from his singular physical appearance to his packed-out MAGA rallies. However, even more consequential was the spectacle he created online. 

Trump's transition from business and showbiz to politics coincided with the rise of online Meme Culture, cascading from sites such as 4chan, Tumblr and Reddit, comic, ironic, cynical and satirical, constantly pushing boundaries. However, observers such as Whitney Phillips noted that memes  disproportionately targeted women, people of colour and the LGBTQ community: "There was an assumption that everyone in the room "got it", that they understood who was being satirised - racists, homophobes - and that everything was just for 'lulz'. But the blizzard of memes didn't allow any time to distinguish between the satirical and the offensive. What seemed to be fun and funny ended up functioning as a Trojan horse for white-supremacist, violent ideologies to shuffle through the gates and not be recognised." Ultimately, Tumblr, 4chan et al paved the way for QAnon. Trump flourished in this culture: "I use the media the way the media uses me - to attract attention . . . So sometimes I make outrageous comments and give them what they want . . . I'm a businessman with a brand to sell." It was never clear to what extent his provocations, from questioning President Obama's birth certificate to attacking the parents of a Muslim war hero were the products of cynicism or racism, but, either way, it was a toxic combination that electrified a significant portion of the electorate including many "channers": did they believe in him or did they just see him as a way to trigger "normies" and "libs" and, in the end, was it a distinction without a difference? 

It is "the incapacity or unwillingness to distinguish altogether between fact and opinion that makes the totalitarian system possible," wrote Hannah Arendt, as people "at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything is possible and that nothing is true." George Orwell, saw the blurring of fact as "integral to totalitarianism (which) demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth . . . From the totalitarian point of view, history is something to be created rather than learned." There is a long tradition of authoritarians, from Stalin to Kim Jong-un, exerting their power by forcing followers to believe things that are not true. "Power is proven" writes Fintan O'Toole, "not when the sycophants have to obey reasonable commands but when they have to follow and justify the craziest orders . . . However," he writes, referring specifically to Trump and his supporters, "it's one thing to get your cult followers to do your bidding. It's something else indeed to be able to persuade them not only to say that black is white and up is down, but to actually believe it." 

To date, 400,000 Americans have died as a result of Covid-19, including those who believed Trump's claim that there was nothing to fear. What remains unclear is whether he himself believed this or not. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, it was similarly uncertain to what extent Trump's refusal to concede was another grift (he fundraised millions of dollars to fight the result in the courts, most of which went straight into his own coffers) or a genuinely delusional belief that he had been the victim of wide-scale electoral fraud. The culmination of this overlap of belief, lies and 'lulz' was the invasion of the Capitol on 6th January, generated by an explosive combination of conspiracist websites such as QAnon and the President's unrelenting claims (in speeches and online) that the election had been stolen; the rioters comprised individuals sincere in their belief they were there to save the constitution, cosplayers ready for a carnival and purposeful extremists prepared to kidnap and even kill.

Ultimately, the con man had fallen for his own tall tales. As James Poniewozik said presciently last October, "I feel like the truest story for the character Donald Trump is for him never to be defeated in his mind. That is Trump's narrative. As a character in the story, he will never acknowledge getting his comeuppance, disgrace, failure or punishment." The man who promised to show his supporters what was behind the curtain of American politics had been seduced by his own spectacle.  

Trump certainly wasn't the first. In 2004, during the Iraq War, senior Bush adviser Karl Rove hubristically mocked what he called "the reality-based community . . . That's not the way the world really works any more . . . We're an empire now, and, when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality . . . we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." One of the highlights of 2012 Election Night was watching the same Karl Rove having an on-air meltdown as his confident belief that President Obama had lost the election proved completely unfounded in any reality. 

Citing Hannah Arendt's insight that the ability to imagine ourselves as other than we are is the predicate for political action but also for lying, Sarah Churchwell writes, "Political and cultural rhetoric creates the conditions for its own realisation: thus we can only save ourselves if we tell the truth. Democracy relies on foundations of shared truths, because the social contract depends on mutual trust." As President Joe Biden takes office today, it is to be hoped that in his Inauguration Address there are no references to shining cities on hills. 

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)

Walter Benjamin, ''The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' (1935)

Sarah Churchwell, 'Can American Democracy Survive Donald Trump?' (November, 2020) here

George Orwell, 'The Prevention of Literature' (1946) here

Whitney Phillips, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things (2015)

Interview with James Poniewozik (October, 2020) here

Fintan O'Toole, 'Trump Has Unfinished Business' (December, 2020) here