How can Americans trust Trump?
By Elizabeth Kolbert
NOVEMBER 3, 2016
... Trump’s relationship to the truth is on par with his relationships with women—opportunistic and abusive. Daniel Dale, a Washington correspondent for the Toronto Star, who since mid-September has been publishing a more or less daily tally of Trump’s false claims, recently called the Republican candidate’s campaign rhetoric a veritable “avalanche of wrongness.” The Washington Post/ABC News pollsters were out in the field for two days, October 30th and 31st. On those days, Dale counted twenty-seven and nineteen Trump falsehoods, respectively. These ranged from the offhand (a misstatement about Frank Sinatra) to the egregious (fabrications about Clinton’s tax plan, about her immigration policies, and about the history of isis). The most falsehoods Trump uttered in one day, according to Dale, is thirty-seven, a height he reached on October 20th and then again on October 24th ...
Donald Trump is the kind of jerk who authentically, genuinely, unabashedly inhabits his own jerkiness. The indifference to reality he’s displayed on the campaign trail is the same indifference he displayed as a businessman, a husband, a boss, and a taxpayer. His narcissism, petulance, and whatever other character flaw you care to choose aren’t under wraps; they’re on view for all to see and hear. In this sense, he truly is the real thing ...
On almost any matter of fact, Clinton is, without doubt, more “honest and trustworthy” than Trump. This is understood by virtually everyone whose job it is to inquire into such matters—journalists, political scientists, and historians. In its endorsement of Clinton, the San Diego Tribune, which had not previously backed a Democrat for President in its hundred and forty-eight years of existence, labelled Trump “dishonest and impulsive.” Even Republican politicians seem to get that their candidate has set a new standard for mendacity; though many have cravenly come around to supporting Trump, many have not. (On Tuesday, George P. Bush, the Texas land commissioner, who is a nephew of George W., suggested his uncle may vote for Clinton.) But what counts as honesty to the political class is apparently very different from what counts to many voters ...
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