“I cannot tell a lie”— George Washington
Mark Twain once famously wrote: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” (Okay, maybe it was actually Benjamin Disraeli who wrote that). Being a writer of fiction, Mr. Twain (which was not even his real name) was no stranger to making stuff up. But I imagine even he would be impressed with the sheer number and variety of lies which we accept in our post-truth world.
To update Twain’s list, let us suggest that there are, these days, for simplicity’s sake, three kinds of lies: lies that give the liar some advantage, tall tales and lies for the simple, pathological joy of it.
I don’t mean to pick on Donald Trump (okay, that was a lie), but he is the poster boy of lying. He told us he had the biggest inaugural crowd in history—when news cameras clearly showed the event was sparsely attended with many empty bleachers. This was a purposeful lie meant to give the impression that he was popular and important. He also tried to tell us that it hadn’t rained that day—although rain was pouring down, soaking everybody including poor George W. Bush, photographed struggling in vain to cover himself with a sheet of plastic. This was a lie with no particular purpose—like lying about your favorite color.
Then there was Trump’s bizarre NFT trading cards, cartoonishly depicting him as an astronaut, a cowboy, a superhero with the letter “T” emblazoned on his bodybuilder physique and a fist-pumping golfer, presumably celebrating a great victory (and definitely not cheating). These fanciful images, he explained in his sales pitch, exemplified highlights of his illustrious career. Really? Trump was an astronaut? Of course not. Trump was participating in the time-honored American folk tradition of spinning tall tales. He was trying to mythologize himself to stand alongside other folk heroes like Paul Bunyan, the gigantic lumberjack and Jim Bowie who took on the entire Mexican army at the Alamo with his big knife and Johnny Appleseed who walked across the entire United States planting apple trees. Actually, Mr. Appleseed planted trees for small, unpleasant-tasting cider apples and only made it as far west as Iowa.
According to the Washington Post, during the four years Trump was president, he racked up a whopping 30,573 whoppers, averaging over 20 lies a day, assuming, as he claimed, he worked every day—which, of course, he didn’t.
Now newly-elected congressman George Santos (or whatever his name really is) is getting all the attention for his incessant lies. He lied about his education, his work history, his charity work, his true name and where his money came from. He falsely claimed he was Jewish—now he says he is Jew-ish. He claimed his mother died in the 9/11 attack when she was actually alive and well in Brazil at the time. He tried to say he appeared on the TV show Hannah Montana, that he used to be a journalist, that he was targeted for assassination, that somebody mugged him in broad daylight in New York’s Central Park and stole his shoes—all proven false.
Santos lies so automatically, it must be a kind of biological compulsion. We should be outraged by his lies. But we’re not.
Our faith in the truth is being eroded by people like Santos who go around planting lies like Johnny Appleseed planting his nasty little apples. We’ll never get rid of them all, but we don’t have to swallow them.
Living in Iowa: Trudging through all of the lies
February 2, 2023