R-E-S-P… what comes after P? Donald Trump may not be able to spell respect, but that’s okay. Because he can’t define it either.
During a Tuesday night rally in Pennsylvania—a rally that demonstrated once again Trump’s ability to be even worse than anyone anticipated—Trump made a claim he’s used in the past, but it was particularly hilarious on this occasion. “This country is so respected,” said Trump. “And we were not respected four years ago. We were laughed at."
It would be one thing to believe this represents simple denial on Trump’s part. That either he doesn’t remember being laughed out of NATO last week, or he thinks all that snickering was because he was just so cool the other kids were jealous. And while he’s forgetting about all of our allies, he’s also forgetting about his close friend Kim Jong Un, who also got into the act last week by saying that Trump’s renewed calls for North Korea to do as he says "must really be diagnosed as the relapse of the dotage of a dotard." For those whose use of the term dotard has fallen to … never, the BBC provides a nice definition: "a person whose mental faculties are impaired, specifically, a person whose intellect or understanding is impaired in old age".
But that’s not the case. He’s not saying this because his dotage simply caused him to forget.
He’s certainly not saying this because of what a Pew poll shows about America’s standing over the last three years. Like the response to the “confidence in U.S. leadership” question, which shows a 58% decline in Canada, a 51% fall in the U.K., and similarly large declines around the world. Except for Germany, where it’s down by 76%. That same poll shows an overall global view of the U.S. moving from favorable to unfavorable, and an enormous drop in how the U.S. is viewed with regard to human rights and personal freedoms. Trump isn’t even saying this because that same poll shows one country where support for the U.S. really has increased: It’s up by 8% in Russia. However, even that’s not his point.
Trump is saying this because it’s a lie. Not even though it’s a lie, but because it’s a lie. Because completely detaching his followers from reality is the goal—one that’s he’s achieving.
For anyone looking on with even a toehold left in objective reality, the Hershey, Pennsylvania, rally is utterly ridiculous start to back. Trump makes claims about the causes of his impeachment, the impeachment proceedings, the articles of impeachment, and about everyone involved that aren’t just untrue, but are the opposite of what occurred.
His claims about the inspector general report are even worse. The actual report, showing no political bias in the FBI and adequate reasons for the opening of the Russia investigation, bears absolutely no resemblance to the document Trump described from his POTUS-sealed podium. Trump’s version of that report confirmed every conspiracy theory the right has dreamed up, and then some. It laid bare the “deep state” coup that attempted to illegally remove Trump from office simply because of the political leanings of Clinton-loving conspirators.
Everything Trump had to say, about the impeachment, about Russia, about the economy, about the world, wasn’t just untrue—it was obviously untrue. Patently untrue. Clearly, directly, and deliberately untrue. Because Trump understands that if he can make his followers stand behind a deliberate lie—behind something that they know is a lie—that coming back from that is infinitely harder.
Trump doesn’t make those who attend his rallies just observers. He makes them co-conspirators. With every clap, they’re more his … and less of this world.
That may not generate respect. But it certainly generates horror.