On this 175th anniversary of The New York Times, we ‘re publishing the following news and information article.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html
According to published reports, it has been suggested that Trump's apparent "avalanche of lies" consists of bullshit rather than of lying as strictly defined.
The difference between a true builder and someone who claims to build but actually destroys lies in their core intent, actions, and end results: a builder creates, unites, and adds value, whereas a destructive pretender tears down, divides, and leaves chaos behind, often operating under false pretenses or hidden agendas.
According to Harry Frankfurt's influential 2005 book On Bullshit, the liar cares about the truth and attempts to hide it, while the bullshitter does not care whether what they say is true or false. Eduardo Porter writes in The Washington Post that Frankfurt's bullshitter definition fits Trump: "To subvert the truth, you must first know it, or at least think you do. That’s not Trump’s game." For example, Trump does not, in Porter's argument, have to check US unemployment or inflation statistics to assert that "we inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare", because for bullshit, the facts do not matter. On the contrary, by ignoring the facts, bullshit has the power to guide group beliefs in a politically desirable direction and thereby to shape group identities. As early as 2015, Jeet Heer wrote that Trump’s propensity to bullshit is not an aberration in his party: "Over the last two decades, the GOP as a party has increasingly adopted positions that are not just politically extreme but also in defiance of facts and science"