Because of his near encounter with assassination, should Donald Trump be exempt from scrutiny about his words and deeds? Let’s say not.
If anyone had the notion that Trump had been chastened due to that experience, he quickly dismissed it with his proclamation that “I’m not going to be nice.” That’s a rare truth from him – quite opposite of the lying that is his currency and lifeblood.
So why do so many people love it when Trump lies to them? Amanda Carpenter, a one-time aide to Texas senator Ted Cruz, tackles that question in her 2018 book “Gaslighting America: Why we love it when Trump lies to us.” She offers remarkable insights to Trump’s methods.
Carpenter defines gaslighting as the use of superlatives which, although they aren’t true, are very effective because they stimulate curiosity, drive imagination, and convey a sense of success. We are drawn to people who chase dreams, however deluded they might be, she observes on page 202.
What Trump does best in his gaslighting is to take control of the narrative, Carpenter explains. “It’s enough to drive sane people mad if they don’t understand how it works and why he uses it” (page 16).
Gaslighting occurs when “a master manipulator such as Trump lies so brazenly that people start questioning reality as they know it” (page 14). “People love it when Trump lies because he gets stories about his prowess – sexual, business, political – in the press” (page 7).
The media love Trump’s lies because it earns them clicks, watchers, and readers, Carpenter notes. “His enemies love it because they keep thinking ‘this time will really, finally, truly be the time Trump does himself in with his jaw-dropping yarns” (page 7). “We’re all suckers,” Carpenter warns.
Trump’s history of gaslighting, lying, and deception dates to when, decades ago, he called media outlets, identifying himself as John Miller or John Baron, suggesting that attention be given to that successful young New York businessman Donald Trump.
During the New York trial in May, it was revealed that Trump was identified as “David Dennison” in the documents linked to payments to Stormy Daniels (identified as Peggy Peterson). Does such deception suggest that Trump knows that his actions are wrong?
By 2018, Trump had already gaslighted Cruz, Marco Rubio, George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, Barack Obama, Megyn Kelly, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, and Carpenter herself (falsely accused as one of five Cruz mistresses – in the National Enquirer).
What those being gaslighted (attacked) need to avoid, Carpenter advises, is becoming unhinged if and when they react to Trump’s false allegations. If they become unhinged, it makes Trump look less unhinged, she notes.
Of Trump’s many lies that even the most ardent Trumplicans in Wisconsin should be able to recognize is his often repeated claim, that in 2016, he was the first Republican to win the state’s presidential vote since 1952.
Trump is wrong by only a multiple of six on that claim. Other Republican presidential candidates who won in Wisconsin after 1952 were Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon three times, and Ronald Reagan twice.
How many of his other lies do his followers continue to believe?