Saturday, August 19, 2017                                                2:17 AM

The Art of the Lie   (2017Aug19)

You have to give the alt-right credit for being creative liars—even unto what the science-fiction writers refer to as ‘world building’, where they create a planet that is like Earth, but with some major differences.

In the same way, the alt-right is heavily invested in trying to get us all to perceive reality through their own special filter (which removes pesky ideas such as inclusion, human rights, the dignity of the individual, etc.) and simplifies everything down to ‘us vs. them’ and ‘the one with the most money makes the rules’.

Take Steve Bannon—on leaving the Administration he boasted that they had achieved the Trump presidency they wanted, and that from now on, it would be a ‘different presidency’. Would that it were true. The truth, however, is that the presidency is the mess is started out as—and nothing changed except that Bannon lost his job.

But nothing beats Trump for lying. He invented the term ‘alt-left’ during his Tuesday nazi-rally/press-conference, in a stunning attempt to both equalize the Nazi marchers and the counter-protestors—and to pigeonhole any of the vast majority of good Americans who dare to speak against white supremacy, with a dismissive nickname. The truth is, there is no ‘alt-left’—it was an inspired piece of lying by the president—but the 90% of Americans who understand the character of our nation do not call themselves by that label—nor does anyone else.

Thus the question arises—which is crazier: to suffer from delusions or to make a career out of attempting to delude the public? And we can add to that another question: With Trump’s brain so busy churning out moment-by-moment revisions of reality, isn’t it likely that he may himself be sadly unclear about what is real and what is the lie?