I’ve noticed this before, and I’m sure you have too. Certainly, Glenn Kessler, the indefatigable Washington Post fact-checker, is all too familiar with the phenomenon.
Donald Trump doesn’t just lie — often. He repeats the same lies over and over and over again, long after being caught tiny-orange-handed.
Way back in the long-ago before-times, when I was still just a naif who believed our country would never elect someone as clownish and dishonest as Donald Trump, I sent one of his claims to PolitiFact, and they looked into it. It was during a debate, I believe, when I first heard him claim that the U.S. was the highest-taxed nation in the world.
Now, unlike Trump’s followers, when I read Juggs magazine* I don’t have to sound out the words. So I’m a little more plugged in to things like universal truth and consensus reality, and I knew this claim was bullshit. But three years ago I foolishly thought people just needed to see Trump brazenly lying about issues that affected them and they’d bail on him instantly.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
I was so much younger then; I’m older than that now.
PolitiFact looked into the claim back then and has rechecked it numerous times since — because Trump keeps making it. And, of course, they rated it “false.” Like that was ever going to make a difference.
Anyway, The Washington Post has finally caught on to Trump’s new truth paradigm, and they’re creating a new award just for him.
It’s called the Bottomless Pinocchio, and it goes to pathological liars who can’t stop telling the same lies over and over again:
Trump’s willingness to constantly repeat false claims has posed a unique challenge to fact-checkers. Most politicians quickly drop a Four-Pinocchio claim, either out of a duty to be accurate or concern that spreading false information could be politically damaging.
Not Trump. The president keeps going long after the facts are clear, in what appears to be a deliberate effort to replace the truth with his own, far more favorable, version of it. He is not merely making gaffes or misstating things, he is purposely injecting false information into the national conversation.
To accurately reflect this phenomenon, The Washington Post Fact Checker is introducing a new category — the Bottomless Pinocchio. That dubious distinction will be awarded to politicians who repeat a false claim so many times that they are, in effect, engaging in campaigns of disinformation.
So there you have it. Our pr*sident is officially an award-winning liar. And he’s such a giant in the sport the media have had to create a special category just for him.
Maybe after he’s in prison (let’s hope), The Post can redub it The Donald J. Trump Bottomless Pinocchio Award.
*I don’t really read Juggs magazine, but it sounds funnier than Vanity Fair.
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