Why does Trump lie so much?

[pwa]

Trump even lies when he doesn't need to. I remember when someone challenged him about his lack of modesty. And without any hint of irony he said that he was very modest. In fact, the most modest person ever. Or something like that. It had me rolling around with laughter.

[roubaixtuesday]

Anyway, looking at the question posed by the thread title, I haven’t changed my long-held view that the answer is: because it works; it gets for him what he wants.

Is the right answer

[jimster99]

With Israel, who knows? Biden has been almost useless there.

Don't forget that Trump had a hand in starting the ball rolling for the current ME conflict when he unilaterally recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, despite warnings that this would not foster peace...

On the plus side, I do think there is some value in the argument that having an unpredictable nutter in the WH makes us all look to our own security. The EU needs to have a better army and pronto. So do we in the UK. We can't be letting a few thousand Pennsylvanian conspiracy theorists get another chance to decide whether NATO collapses each time Putin decides he wants to absorb another chunk of landmass....

[Nearholmer]

The old ways have been undermined, and it may take some new paradigm shift to effectively fight back.

That’s what concerns me, post-truth seems nigh-on impossible to combat at the moment, nobody seems to have the tools, and if you look at past experience then huge bodies of lies seem to build to orgies of violence, after which rationality takes hold again.

Bad as the internet is for facilitating the spreading of nonsense and outright lies, it does also offer the possibility of a rational, or at least sceptical, counter-offensive, f enough people are willing to engage in that, but that could only ever work until it gets captured by state lie machines, and walled-off into zones that they can control.

[djnotts]

Trump v Putin, "I can lie better than you!"

"The Kremlin has denied media reports that US President-elect Donald Trump held a call with Vladimir Putin, in which he is said to have warned the Russian president against escalating the war in Ukraine.

The call, which was first reported by the Washington Post on Sunday, is said to have happened on Thursday.

Trump is also reported to have mentioned America's extensive military presence in Europe to Putin.

A Kremlin spokesperson said the reports were "pure fiction", while Trump's team told the BBC that it would not comment on the president-elect's "private calls"." (BBC)

I know the US version is only "reported", but will be almost amusing as each tries to figure out what the other actually means or is threatening!

[UpWrong]

So, reading the runes, Trump is looking going to follow through on trying to end the war in Ukraine. What's his motivation? Is it:

a) saving lives
b) political kudos and self-agrandisement
c) saving the USA money
d) allowing the administration to focus on the Pacific empire
e) all of the above

Will he succeed? Putin will want a temporary peace to save the Russian economy and build a bigger and better war machine to have another go taking Ukraine a few years later.
Will Ukraine continue to fight on? Will the Europeans support them? Will the Russian economy break, followed by a coup against Putin?

All are future possibilities.

[roubaixtuesday]

Bad as the internet is for facilitating the spreading of nonsense and outright lies, it does also offer the possibility of a rational, or at least sceptical, counter-offensive, f enough people are willing to engage in that, but that could only ever work until it gets captured by state lie machines, and walled-off into zones that they can control.

I think one of the really fundamental drivers of our current politics is Internet economics.

The Internet is funded by advertising, which is based on how many times content is seen. More outrageous content is seen by more people, precisely because it generates a rational response - the posting of responses shares the original outrageous content. Algorithms then further amplify the effect; they deliberately push content which has already generated responses, in the expectation that more will then be generated. Thus the original outrage is further repeated.

A perfect machine for spreading false, malicious, pornographic and hateful content.

[roubaixtuesday]

So, reading the runes, Trump is looking going to follow through on trying to end the war in Ukraine. What's his motivation? Is it:

a) saving lives
b) political kudos and self-agrandisement
c) saving the USA money
d) allowing the administration to focus on the Pacific empire
e) all of the above

Will he succeed? Putin will want a temporary peace to save the Russian economy and build a bigger and better war machine to have another go taking Ukraine a few years later.
Will Ukraine continue to fight on? Will the Europeans support them? Will the Russian economy break, followed by a coup against Putin?

All are future possibilities.

I mean it's b, obviously.

You also missed off

f) personal revenge for zelensky refusing to frame Hunter Biden at his behest and
g) amassing personal wealth. There's always a grift in there somewhere.

[Pebble]

So, reading the runes, Trump is looking going to follow through on trying to end the war in Ukraine. What's his motivation? Is it:

a) saving lives
b) political kudos and self-agrandisement
c) saving the USA money
d) allowing the administration to focus on the Pacific empire
e) all of the above

Will he succeed? Putin will want a temporary peace to save the Russian economy and build a bigger and better war machine to have another go taking Ukraine a few years later.
Will Ukraine continue to fight on? Will the Europeans support them? Will the Russian economy break, followed by a coup against Putin?

All are future possibilities.

B - I think he wants the Nobel Peace prize

he just wants to go down as the greatest leader ever. he just wants to be loved.
I doubt he is in it for the money, he has plenty of that. He just wants Greatness,
Lincoln, Roosevelt, Wasington, Jefferson trump

same as Putin, forget peter we now have Putin the Great

[djnotts]

^"I doubt he is in it for the money, he has plenty of that."

I don't think his ilk can EVER have enough money.

[Bonefishblues]

^"I doubt he is in it for the money, he has plenty of that."

I don't think his ilk can EVER have enough money.

Trump's nothing like as wealthy as he'd prefer you to think

[Stradageek]

So, reading the runes, Trump is looking going to follow through on trying to end the war in Ukraine. What's his motivation? Is it:

a) saving lives
b) political kudos and self-agrandisement
c) saving the USA money
d) allowing the administration to focus on the Pacific empire
e) all of the above

Will he succeed? Putin will want a temporary peace to save the Russian economy and build a bigger and better war machine to have another go taking Ukraine a few years later.
Will Ukraine continue to fight on? Will the Europeans support them? Will the Russian economy break, followed by a coup against Putin?

All are future possibilities.

I mean it's b, obviously.

You also missed off

f) personal revenge for zelensky refusing to frame Hunter Biden at his behest and
g) amassing personal wealth. There's always a grift in there somewhere.

I'm afraid that f) is very likely but according to John Bolton the real reason is:

h) He's lazy and stupid and doesn't want to be involved in a war when he could be at home stealing money

[roubaixtuesday]

Grim, but IMO very cogent analysis of Trump's attempt to subvert democracy with his cabinet picks

https://snyder.substack.com/p/decapitation-strike

Imagine that you are a foreign leader who wishes to destroy the United States. How could you do so? The easiest way would be to get Americans to do the work themselves, to somehow induce Americans to undo their own health, law, administration, defense, and intelligence. From this perspective, Trump's proposed appointments -- Kennedy, Jr.; Gaetz; Musk; Ramaswamy; Hegseth; Gabbard -- are perfect instruments. They combine narcissism, incompetence, corruption, sexual incontinence, personal vulnerability, dangerous convictions, and foreign influence as no group before them has done. These proposed appointments look like a decapitation strike: destroying the American government from the top, leaving the body politic to rot, and the rest of us to suffer

[cycle tramp]

Having watched Trump pick his own government.. it would appear that most of them wear the tag 'does not play well with others'... which leaves me to wonder at what point does 'Trump USA' implode into infighting... its probably going to be about six months, when the honeymoon is over and the Amercan citizens feel that bad decision and policy making is about to drive them into a wall...

...it must be a worrying time for those Republican members who actually just want to do their job and serve the American public...

..if it goes very badly they might not get voted in again for a couple of terms...

Just got to love that phrase 'sexual incontinence'.

[Stradageek]

My favourite recent explanation of why Trump won comes from a Scaramucci comment about the general US population being so desperate for a solution to their increasing powerlessness that they've just voted for the "Orange wrecking ball" in the vain hope that an iconoclast will change everything. Which he won't of course because he's a major beneficiary of the status quo

The democrats had nothing to offer because they cannot control the plutocracy that rules America.

That's my precis of a great analysis by Nesrine Malik https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... b5d8np45g2