What the liar won't say

 Donald Trump is a liar.  Among the many ways I refer to him is as follows:  the lying-est liar who ever lied a lie.  It may be difficult to remember now, but as recently as 2016, there was a taboo against calling a candidate or politician a "liar," unless one is just some worthless rando on the internet (hi!).  Even the ever-so-slightly more modest empirical observation that a statement is a "lie" rather than a "false statement" was akin to saying "damn."  Once a major taboo, and still enough to raise an eyebrow from stuffier types, hence enough to give some a bit of a thrill, and consequently shunned by major media outlets and commentators.  Yes, it took time before Trump told so many lies that we all just said fuck it, if we can say "fuck," we can call a lie "a lie," and a lying-ass piece of shit liar, "a liar."

I guess what I'm trying to say is that a) Trump lies a lot, and b) he lies so much that he is solely, personally responsible for the fact that the word, "lie," is no longer a taboo word in modern political discourse.  So there's that.

What lessons did we learn from this week's hearings?  When we generally think of "a liar," we think of a person who will simply say anything.  We occasionally parse the difference between a liar and a bullshitter, as per Harry Frankfurt.  A liar acknowledges truth and attempts to deceive, whereas a bullshitter is indifferent to truth.  Figuring out how to classify Trump was often a problem, even before adding in the observations that he is both stupid and crazy in addition to being alternately deceitful and indifferent to the notion of truth.

Yet there are things Trump won't say, even when self-interest demands it.  The back-and-forth over tweets and recording a statement showed what it took just to get Trump to make even the most basic, minimal statement, when he had 25th Amendment talk going on around him, and Cipollone talking about legal liability.

This is where I must remind the (entirely hypothetical) reader that it is not appropriate to discuss the concepts of "knowledge" or "belief" in conventional ways when dealing with Donald J. Trump.  He is delusional, narcissistic in the DSM sense rather than merely the colloquial sense, quite unintelligent, and essentially, he does not understand that there is such a thing as objective reality which exists regardless of his insecure needs.  Yes, everyone around him told him that he lost, his conspiracy theories were bullshit, grasping at straws, and it was over.  That does not mean either that he knew it or believed it.  He was not capable of knowing or believing because his narcissism required otherwise.

But Donald Trump says plenty of things he does not believe.  Plenty of things he disbelieves.  Plenty of things he knows to be untrue.  He is bullshitter, true, but he is also a liar.  Yet that does not mean he does not have lines.  The strangest of lines.  There are things the liar won't say.

In a strange (and disturbing) way, the information to come out of Thursday's hearings was actually quite fascinating as insight into the, sure, let's call it "mind" of a pathological liar, bullshitter and delusional fuckwit who has been elevated to the status of "living god" by your neighbors and mine, because people suck.

What the liar won't say.

In a fascinating novel that I am still recommending to people-- Golden State, by Ben Winters-- a vague, apocalyptic disaster occurs, and Southern California has established its own weirdo dystopian state in response to their perception of how it happened.  Something happened with an information breakdown, and the state made it the greatest crime to tell even a minor lie.  The villains are postmodernists, who organize first by getting together and telling each other lies, just for the subversive thrill of it, before eventually moving on to something more targeted.

Yet liars don't just lie for the subversive thrill of lying.  Mostly.  Some do, but those who truly embrace the ideology of liar-ism lie for a purpose, and Donald Trump is a utilitarian liar rather than a for-the-joy-of-the-act liar.  He never tells you the truth, but instead, what he thinks will benefit him if you believe, and even if you know it's a lie, he's fine just "triggering" you.  He's also an asshole, and yes, there's some Hannah Arendt here, but there is always something utilitarian to his lying.

Now let's turn this back to January 6.  What did Donald Trump believe about the 2020 election, and the January 6 insurrection?  Remember, Trump was incapable of knowing or believing that he lost the election, and incapable of knowing or believing that the insurrection was wrong and illegal.  His brain is diseased and defective.

But he's a liar!  He has no problem saying things he disbelieves, right?  Right?!

Enter Pat Cipollone and a bunch of other people telling him, hey, fuck-o.  Your Cabinet is talking 25th Amendment, and if you say the wrong thing, you could be criminally charged (he didn't know Merrick Garland would be the next AG!).  You lost, it's over, save your dumb, fat, fucking ass.  I don't care what you believe, here's your script, now act.  You lie all the time, now say this.

Liars say what they think they need to say, right?  Right?!

But Trump wouldn't read the script.

As it turns out, he had no need to read the script.  He will get away with everything, and in 2024, he will either win, or the GOP will steal the election for him.  Garland will fire anyone who even thinks about charging Trump, and if Trump faces state-level charges in Georgia, what, you're going to convince Republican jurors to convict?  No.  And when he's President again, he'll have them thrown in fucking super-max, or extraordinarily rended.  Trump will get away with everything, Garland is protecting him, and when he's President again dictator, watch out for his vengeance spree.

But he didn't know that at the time.  He still wouldn't read the fucking script.

So one of two things was true-- either he was strategically ahead of his advisors (not likely, dipshit that he is), or there was something else going on, psychologically.

Remember when he wouldn't renounce David Duke's endorsement?  When he hemmed and hawed and lied and said he didn't know who David Duke was?  After much blowback, Trump had to admit that yes, David Duke is bad, but he really didn't want to.  This is the same thing.  Trump has a rule.  Never bash his own base.

After January 6, that rule came into conflict with what his advisors were telling him about his strategic incentives.  And that meant that there were things he couldn't say.  Things that he, not exactly "believed," but couldn't bring himself to reject, and couldn't bring himself to contradict, not because of a commitment to honesty (as it might have been perceived in his diseased brain), but because it would have meant bashing his base.  This is a fascinating tension.  Just because Trump is a liar-- and he is most definitely that-- does not mean he will say anything.  He does have rules.  They just have nothing to do with truth, and they are based on a perception of his self-interest that diverged from his advisors.

Interestingly, and distressingly, his perception of his strategic self-interest was correct.  His base remains frothing-at-the-mouth, and that's what he wanted and needed.  He will face no criminal charges, and those rabid mobs will ensure that nobody in the GOP has any chance of defeating him in the primaries.  They will then scare the fuck out of every Republican in Congress, along with the state legislatures, thereby ensuring that they don't even consider the possibility of certifying a Democratic victory in 2024.  Trump will be re-installed.

Unless you think Kevin McCarthy will stand up to Trump in 2024.  Keeping in mind that it might not even be McCarthy, because someone else might out-Trump him in a contest for the Speakership after the 2022 elections.

So Kevin's gonna stand up to him?  Or the Trumpier alternative?  Really?  Really?

No, Trump refused to read the script.  He stuck with his base.  The liar had his own rule.  Distressingly, it is working.  It will work.

Ibrahim Maalouf, "All I Can't Say," performed live.  The studio version is on S3NS.