Sam Waterston is a stage, film and television actor and serves on the board of Oceana and the emeritus board of Refugees International.
“[No man has the] right to mislead others, who have less access to history, and less leisure to study it. . . . Thus substituting falsehood and deception for truthful evidence and fair argument.”
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— Abraham Lincoln, “Cooper Union Address,” 1860
You may know me as an actor. I’m also a longtime supporter of election reform and opponent of partisanship. In 1999 I gave a talk at one of the last bipartisan congressional retreats, using what I had learned preparing to play Abraham Lincoln to warn against faction, partisanship’s original name. The founders knew partisanship to be one of the few things powerful enough to destroy the great American democratic experiment. I had some great quotes. John Hume, a Nobel laureate for his work to bring peace in Northern Ireland, spoke before me. His experience made searing testimony. We did our best. It seems it didn’t work.
Until 2008, when an effort called Unity08, led by Democrat Gerald Rafshoon and Republican Doug Bailey, to elect a bipartisan presidential ticket was defeated, I was a registered Independent. To vote for Barack Obama in the primary that year, I joined a party. Believing it to be the best use of what influence my career in show business might have, I’ve served, more or less quietly, for many years on the boards of Oceana and Refugees International. But working quietly doesn’t feel like an option now. This feels like an all-hands-on-deck moment.
The great issue of today is lying — constant lying in public. Lying is the ally of faction and, since President Trump’s rise to power, it is the greater danger. Yes, the word is lying — not negotiation, salesmanship, bluster, attention-getting, delusion, deception, braggadocio, exaggeration, bullying, alternative facts, or any other euphemism. Once, President John F. Kennedy could say that our national problems were no longer ideological but technical. Lying on a grand scale has reversed that.
And it’s hard to keep up. Trump has lied about climate change and the character and motives of refugees, about how asylum-seekers have been vetted in the past and how many have been able to enter the United States, about immigrants, and a long list of other matters. As with partisanship, the more lying there is, the worse it is. And Trump’s alternative facts have meant nasty real-world consequences.
As lying comes easily to Trump, it should come first in every report about his administration. Trump doesn’t lie about this and that, and he doesn’t lie sometimes. He is a liar, a person who lies. This news should be reported everywhere.
Politicians have lied before, but this is not an old problem getting worse. Indeed, past presidents have sometimes paid dearly for the mere appearance of a lie. A man of great good character and a lifetime of public service, President George H.W. Bush, said “Read my lips,” which was branded a lie, and he lost an election. Accusations of lying — “Lying Hillary” — tainted Hillary Clinton’s run for president. President Bill Clinton told a lie in public and under oath and the scandal got him impeached. The impeachment gained some weight from the sound legal principle that a liar in one thing is likely to lie about other things. That principle should be applied to Trump.
By the frequency of his lying, Trump has revealed a truth we have avoided confronting: Like partisanship, regular and habitual lying is an existential threat to us, to our institutions, our memories, our understanding of now and of the future, to the great American democratic experiment, and to the planet. It blurs the truth, subverts trust, interferes with thought, and destroys clarity. It drives us to distraction.
It’s impossible to overstate what is at stake. “I won,” says Trump truly, following it up with lies about landslides, voter fraud and crowd size. Every American should be alarmed. It ought to be the lead in every article about him and his administration, no matter the subject. Lying at this level is a threat to the Republic.
******************
So, is Sam right? Should Trump's lying be ignored? If so why? Should it be minimized? If so, why? Or should everyone focus in it like a laser beam? If so, why?
JOHN ROBERTS: From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly so that you will come to know the value of justice... I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either.
So here is my rub with what we have seen going on. Any White House administration will have to be selective in the information they give. They will have to be strategic in what is revealed and when. In order to craft their message and deliver it effectively, there needs to be a trust between the administration, the media, and the people. Right now there is animosity between the media and the administration that gives the people no reason to truly trust either one of them. The lies, the spin, it's hard to wade through.
The thing is that when an administration lies about the little things, like Trump has been doing, then why should we trust them on the big things? When something big is going on, and there inevitably will be something big, and the administration has to stand in front of the people and tell us what is going on, why should we believe them? You have to build up a trust with the people so when those difficult times come, you can rely on that.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
Well being as the title of the link in the OP reads Trump's constant lying; I'm gonna go with him. I keep forgetting that you require reasonable accomidation. I'll strive to be more obvious in the future for your sake.
(02-01-2017, 03:53 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Well being as the title of the link in the OP reads Trump's constant lying; I'm gonna go with him. I keep forgetting that you require reasonable accomidation. I'll strive to be more obvious in the future for your sake.
Oh, ok. Thought maybe you meant the xxlt since you didn't expand on that. Thanks.
Your anger and ego will always reveal your true self.
(02-01-2017, 09:35 AM)xxlt Wrote: “[No man has the] right to mislead others, who have less access to history, and less leisure to study it. . . . Thus substituting falsehood and deception for truthful evidence and fair argument.”
— Abraham Lincoln, “Cooper Union Address,” 1860
So, is Sam right? Should Trump's lying be ignored? If so why? Should it be minimized? If so, why? Or should everyone focus in it like a laser beam? If so, why?
I don't think H.W's "read my lips" was a lie. I think he meant it when he said it. Then months later he saw the country would have bigger problems if he didn't raise taxes, so he did what he thought was best for the country. Angry fanatics of his own party will call that a lie, of course.
Clinton's lie about Monica was a lie. But I put it in a different category than lying about what special ops may actually be doing overseas or why voter ID laws are "necessary."
Trump's lies are very serious but altogether different from anything we have seen before in a president. He appears to be "gaslighting" much of the time.
As during the election, he now lies so frequently no one can keep up with him. Barely has one lie been vetted than another is out there sending Snopes and the NYT fact checkers into a frenzy.
This is tremendously damaging to US politics and national security (and eventually, the economy), but the critical focus should not be primarily upon Trump. The lies only work for a segment of the population, and especially for members of one party.
Remember that if you are even considering the question of Trump's lying, you are not in that segment. When Trump claimed thousands of New Jersey Muslims cheered as the twin towers went down, you didn't "remember" that along with him. When the P--grabbing video came out, you did not argue that Trump's actions were not sexual assault. When he claimed that over three million illegals voted in the last election, you did not buy in. When he calls the press "lying scum" who purvey "fake news," your attention is not deflected from the Fabricator-in-Chief.
For me, the real question is where did that segment of voters come from, those who can be counted on to "buy in" to Trump's narrative? What produced them? What sustains their attraction to authoritarianism? That is really the source of the problem. It is they who floated the Trump presidency and will defend him for at least a few more months. (People who are now covered by the ACA but voted for Trump to get rid of Obamacare will eventually catch on--but not right away.)
Well yeah it matters. It has helped countless number of politicians at all levels over the centuries to get into office and to screw over people to better themselves with money & power.
(02-01-2017, 10:20 AM)GMDino Wrote: Within the scope of Trump as an elected leader I feel the obvious lies are wrong.
Some will argue that spin and slant are to be expected. I can't say that isn't true.
But outright lies and exaggerations should be called out. And this was Trump's MO long before he ever thought about running for POTUS.
Slants and skews are still lying. The problem i the sheeple don't recognize rhetoric as lies. Just because Trumps lies are more obvious to the dumb, doesn't make it any less egregious. Politicians have been lying for the greater good and for their own benefit for 200+ years. But *SHOCK* and *AMAZEMENT* now we want to call out the president on it. Good luck on that front. Trump won't care. He's been lying for years, and been called out for it for years. He just shouts back all the louder with his big mouth, lying more or defaming his critics, and moves out by dismissing them.
Calling out a politician and a known liar on his lying. lol Good luck.
(02-02-2017, 08:45 AM)Stewy Wrote: Slants and skews are still lying. The problem i the sheeple don't recognize rhetoric as lies. Just because Trumps lies are more obvious to the dumb, doesn't make it any less egregious. Politicians have been lying for the greater good and for their own benefit for 200+ years. But *SHOCK* and *AMAZEMENT* now we want to call out the president on it. Good luck on that front. Trump won't care. He's been lying for years, and been called out for it for years. He just shouts back all the louder with his big mouth, lying more or defaming his critics, and moves out by dismissing them.
Calling out a politician and a known liar on his lying. lol Good luck.
I think we always want to call the President out on it. That is the GOOD thing about the "party system". One side will always call out the other's lies.
The issue becomes when it is or isn't a lie.
Your anger and ego will always reveal your true self.
MILWAUKEE — If President Trump’s first tumultuous weeks have done nothing else, at least they have again made us a nation of readers.
As Americans grapple with the unreality of the new administration, George Orwell’s “1984” has enjoyed a resurgence of interest, becoming a surprise best seller and an invaluable guide to our post-factual world.
On his first full day in office Mr. Trump insisted that his inaugural crowd was the largest ever, a baseless boast that will likely set a pattern for his relationship both to the media and to the truth.
At an event marking Black History Month last week, the president took a detour from a discussion of Frederick Douglass — he described the abolitionist as “an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more” — to talk about the press. “A lot of the media is actually the opposition party — they’re so biased,” he said. “So much of the media is the opposition party and knowingly saying incorrect things.”
Mr. Trump understands that attacking the media is the reddest of meat for his base, which has been conditioned to reject reporting from news sites outside of the conservative media ecosystem.
For years, as a conservative radio talk show host, I played a role in that conditioning by hammering the mainstream media for its bias and double standards. But the price turned out to be far higher than I imagined. The cumulative effect of the attacks was to delegitimize those outlets and essentially destroy much of the right’s immunity to false information. We thought we were creating a savvier, more skeptical audience. Instead, we opened the door for President Trump, who found an audience that could be easily misled.
The news media’s spectacular failure to get the election right has made it only easier for many conservatives to ignore anything that happens outside the right’s bubble and for the Trump White House to fabricate facts with little fear of alienating its base.
Unfortunately, that also means that the more the fact-based media tries to debunk the president’s falsehoods, the further it will entrench the battle lines.
During his first week in office, Mr. Trump reiterated the unfounded charge that millions of people had voted illegally. When challenged on the evident falsehood, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, seemed to argue that Mr. Trump’s belief that something was true qualified as evidence. The press secretary also declined to answer a straightforward question about the unemployment rate, suggesting that the number will henceforth be whatever the Trump administration wants it to be.
He can do this because members of the Trump administration feel confident that the alternative-reality media will provide air cover, even if they are caught fabricating facts or twisting words (like claiming that the “ban” on Muslim immigrants wasn’t really a “ban”). Indeed, they believe they have shifted the paradigm of media coverage, replacing the traditional media with their own.
In a stunning demonstration of the power and resiliency of our new post-factual political culture, Mr. Trump and his allies in the right media have already turned the term “fake news” against its critics, essentially draining it of any meaning. During the campaign, actual “fake news” — deliberate hoaxes — polluted political discourse and clogged social media timelines.
Some outlets opened the door, by helping spread conspiracy theories and indulging the paranoia of the fever swamps. For years, the widely read Drudge Report has linked to the bizarre conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who believes that both the attacks of Sept. 11 and the Sandy Hook shootings were government-inspired “false flag” operations.
For conservatives, this should have made it clear that something was badly amiss in their media ecosystem. But now any news deemed to be biased, annoying or negative can be labeled “fake news.” Erroneous reports that the bust of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been removed from the Oval Office or misleading reports that sanctions against Russia had been lifted will be seized on by Mr. Trump’s White House to reinforce his indictment.
Even as he continues to attack the “dishonest media,” Mr. Trump and his allies are empowering this alt-reality media, providing White House access to Breitbart and other post-factual outlets that are already morphing into fierce defenders of the administration.
The relationship appears to be symbiotic, as Mr. Trump often seems to pick up on talking points from Fox News and has tweeted out links from websites notorious for their casual relationship to the truth, including sites like Gateway Pundit, a hoax-peddling site that announced, shortly after the inauguration, that it would have a White House correspondent.
By now, it ought to be evident that enemies are important to this administration, whether they are foreigners, refugees, international bankers or the press.
But discrediting independent sources of information also has two major advantages for Mr. Trump: It helps insulate him from criticism and it allows him to create his own narratives, metrics and “alternative facts.”
All administrations lie, but what we are seeing here is an attack on credibility itself.
The Russian dissident and chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov drew upon long familiarity with that process when he tweeted: “The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”
Mr. Kasparov grasps that the real threat is not merely that a large number of Americans have become accustomed to rejecting factual information, or even that they have become habituated to believing hoaxes. The real danger is that, inundated with “alternative facts,” many voters will simply shrug, asking, “What is truth?” — and not wait for an answer.
In that world, the leader becomes the only reliable source of truth; a familiar phenomenon in an authoritarian state, but a radical departure from the norms of a democratic society. The battle over truth is now central to our politics.
This may explain one of the more revealing moments from after the election, when one of Mr. Trump’s campaign surrogates, Scottie Nell Hughes, was asked to defend the clearly false statement by Mr. Trump that millions of votes had been cast illegally. She answered by explaining that everybody now had their own way of interpreting whether a fact was true or not.
“There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts,” she declared. Among “a large part of the population” what Mr. Trump said was the truth.
“When he says that millions of people illegally voted,” she said, his supporters believe him — and “people believe they have facts to back that up.”
Or as George Orwell said: “The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.” But Ms. Hughes’s comment was perhaps unintentionally insightful. Mr. Trump and company seem to be betting that much of the electorate will not care if the president tells demonstrable lies, and will pick and choose whatever “alternative facts” confirm their views.
The next few years will be a test of that thesis.
In the meantime, we must recognize the magnitude of the challenge. If we want to restore respect for facts and break through the intellectual ghettos on both the right and left, the mainstream media will have to be aggressive without being hysterical and adversarial without being unduly oppositional.
Perhaps just as important, it will be incumbent on conservative media outlets to push back as well. Conservatism should be a reality-based philosophy, and the movement will be better off if it recognizes that facts really do matter. There may be short-term advantages to running headlines about millions of illegal immigrants voting or secret United Nations plots to steal your guns, but the longer the right enables such fabrications, the weaker it will be in the long run. As uncomfortable as it may be, it will fall to the conservative media to police its worst actors.
The conservative media ecosystem — like the rest of us — has to recognize how critical, but also how fragile, credibility is in the Orwellian age of Donald Trump.
Charles J. Sykes (@SykesCharlie), a former talk-show host in Wisconsin, is the author of the forthcoming “How the Right Lost Its Mind.”
Your anger and ego will always reveal your true self.
(02-02-2017, 08:45 AM)Stewy Wrote: Slants and skews are still lying. The problem i the sheeple don't recognize rhetoric as lies. Just because Trumps lies are more obvious to the dumb, doesn't make it any less egregious. Politicians have been lying for the greater good and for their own benefit for 200+ years. But *SHOCK* and *AMAZEMENT* now we want to call out the president on it. Good luck on that front. Trump won't care. He's been lying for years, and been called out for it for years. He just shouts back all the louder with his big mouth, lying more or defaming his critics, and moves out by dismissing them.
Calling out a politician and a known liar on his lying. lol Good luck.
Calling politicians to account is necessary in a Democracy. Claiming slants and skews are "still lying" just erases the distinction between Hitler and Lincoln.
The press and people called out Nixon's lies and he resigned from office. That happened because people cared enough about truth, and because in this country presidents are not kings. But even Nixon knew the difference between rumor and vetted intel.
The press and people are calling out Trump's lies as well, but the difference now is that a large enough segment of the population believes his lies to confound the accountability necessary for sound governance.
So yes, we want to call every president on lying, and especially this one.
[i]“There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts,” she declared. Among “a large part of the population” what Mr. Trump said was the truth.
[/i]
“When he says that millions of people illegally voted,” she said, his supporters believe him — and “people believe they have facts to back that up.”
That is a good article. Thanks for posting it. It articulates the central problem of US politics at the moment.
Though I would say it is not that there is not such thing a "facts" anymore, just that now there are "alternative facts" to give people the illusion that truth is a personal choice, and no one's truth is better than anyone else's.
(02-05-2017, 05:33 PM)Dill Wrote: That is a good article. Thanks for posting it. It articulates the central problem of US politics at the moment.
Though I wouled it is not that there is not such thing a "facts" anymore, just that now there are "alternative facts" to give people the illusion that truth is a personal choice, and no one's truth is better than anyone else's.
My ignorance is as good as your intelligence, as Asimov put it.
JOHN ROBERTS: From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly so that you will come to know the value of justice... I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either.
I think I've seen this movie. Waterston re-unites with his old fried Trump but it ends terribly for Trump.
:p
But seriously, I think lying is an issue and we really should talk about who is credible and who isn't. I would love for kids to all have to take critical thinking classes while in school as understanding what makes for a credible source is very important. And I do think we should challenge people who are mendacious and spread lies. Assuming you are in an appropriate forum.
I understand the concern of giving them an even bigger voice but the fact is, ignoring a lie won't make it go away. You should challenge lies when they are told regarding issues of consequence, such as holocaust denial, or else people will begin to believe those lies even more and they will spread.
(02-07-2017, 09:48 PM)BoomerFan Wrote: I think I've seen this movie. Waterston re-unites with his old fried Trump but it ends terribly for Trump.
:p
But seriously, I think lying is an issue and we really should talk about who is credible and who isn't. I would love for kids to all have to take critical thinking classes while in school as understanding what makes for a credible source is very important. And I do think we should challenge people who are mendacious and spread lies. Assuming you are in an appropriate forum.
I understand the concern of giving them an even bigger voice but the fact is, ignoring a lie won't make it go away. You should challenge lies when they are told regarding issues of consequence, such as holocaust denial, or else people will begin to believe those lies even more and they will spread.
Heard a snippet of a nationally broadcast interview today where the host said, "Trump has repeatedly called Putin 'a good and strong leader." The Trump advocate/surrogate (not sure who the guy was, but clearly pro Tiger) said, "He never said that," about ten times. The host said, "I can play you 16 audio clips of Trump saying those exact words," and the response was, "Well, we will just have to agree to disagree." At this point, there should be someone who comes and puts you in a stockade and everyone throws vegetables at you.
So there ^ is a link from communist rag and suspect source "Business Insider," confirming on at least one occassion way back in September of last year Trump praised Putin as a strong leader, stronger than Obama.
This search: Trump calls Putin a good leader
returned over 20 million results, btw.
Now I will say that if the interviewer can't produce 16 audio clips of unique occasions of Trump saying Putin is a good leader or a strong leader or a good and strong leader he should go in the stockades too. If he said it once, say he said it once, or better yet, just play the audio (one clip or sixteen) and then say, "Now, let's talk about why that is a problem or how it is making America grrrrrreat! again.
I saw a lot of stuff about Trump explaining what he meant when he praised Putin on this (and/or other?) occasions. But the Trump supporter wasn't arguing what Trump meant. He denied that Trump ever called Putin a good leader or a strong leader or a good and strong leader. So, 100% he belongs in stockade.
Trump apparently, according to video I saw of Trump himself explaining what he meant, didn't mean Putin was a strong leader when he called him that. What he meant was he is a colossal *****, just not as big a ***** as Obama, and that if Trump ever got into a position of power he would show you what a real stroing man looks like.
And that is just grrrrrrreat!
JOHN ROBERTS: From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly so that you will come to know the value of justice... I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either.
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![[Image: bfine-guns2.png]](https://i.ibb.co/YBkDQJV/bfine-guns2.png)
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![[Image: 05sykes-jumbo.jpg]](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/02/05/opinion/sunday/05sykes/05sykes-jumbo.jpg)
