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Donald Trump and the Politics of Lying

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Abstract

Donald Trump is probably the biggest liar in the history of the modern US presidency. He tells repeated Big Lies despite empirical evidence and well-documented media reports contracting his lies. When confronted with contrary evidence, Trump and his handlers dismiss any critical claims about Trump as “fake news” and “alternative facts”. Echoing Chairman Mao and Comrade Stalin, Trump calls the media “the enemy of the people” and rarely does a day go by without a barrage of attacks and rants on his Twitter account. Trump is also the biggest bullshitter to inhabit the modern presidency, constantly bragging about himself and his magnificent accomplishment, never failing to BS to the nth about his amazing achievement and fabulous presidency. Thus, the Trump Regime can be seen as “post-truth” and hyper-Orwellian in its use of blatant lies, propaganda, and pure bullshit.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Trump’s vision of Latin American immigrants pouring over the border into the USA is a fantasy, as studies have shown that more Mexicans are returning to Mexico after working in the USA than coming into the country, illegal or not; see Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, “More Mexicans Leaving Than Coming to the U.S. Net Loss of 140,000 from 2009 to 2014; Family Reunification Top Reason for Return” (Gonzalez-Barrera 2015).

  2. 2.

    For examples of Trump’s Daily Lies during the primary campaign, see Lippman et al. (2016) and Berrien (2016). For analysis of Trump’s lie-based and post-factual 2016 election campaign, see Kellner (2016a, b).

  3. 3.

    See Frankfurt (2005). Several commentators noted the relevance of Frankfurt’s concept of bullshit to Trump’s discursive habits. See Heer (2015) and Kuns (2016).

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Correspondence to Douglas Kellner .

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© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

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Kellner, D. (2018). Donald Trump and the Politics of Lying. In: Peters, M.A., Rider, S., Hyvönen, M., Besley, T. (eds) Post-Truth, Fake News. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8013-5_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8013-5_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-10-8012-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-10-8013-5

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