Gordon L. Weil
“Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but nobody is
entitled to their own facts.”
This quote is attributed to many people and liberally advanced
as an obvious truth. But it is not; it
is not a fact.
President Trump asserts that he is entitled to his own
facts. He can make a verifiably false
assertion as fact, while a contrary, evidenced-based statement is “fake
news.”
Many people in the U.S. and elsewhere defer to him, because
he is the powerful president of the most powerful country. Opposition to his version of truth is overcome
by intimidation and the accompanying appeasement. Trump gains an aura of invincibility when
others must accept his version of the truth.
The Washington Post fact checker found 30,573 times
when Trump advanced his untruth as a truth during his first term. He seems not to have slowed down. In fact, his opinion-as-fact has been working
even better than it did the first time around.
Trump backers have taken over the Republican Party. Politicians in office before Trump arrived
are given the choice between aligning themselves with his policies, facing
defeat by one his backers in a party primary or retiring. Loyal Trump backers can expect to keep their
seats and hope for appointment by him to higher office.
In his first administration, Trump named competent people to
top positions. But he found they were
not sufficiently loyal, relying on their own expertise and experience. When they refused to follow orders that contradicted
practice and sound policy, he fired them.
There was much turnover in that term.
For his second term, he sought loyalty above
competence. It is obvious that he did
not want any more frequent turnover. He
has found people whose ambition led them to abandon their own past versions of
the truth in favor of his. The most
obvious examples are Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
At the same time, he found cheerleaders, grateful for high
office and pleased to support whatever his version of the truth might be, even
embellishing it. Homeland Security
Secretary Kristi Noam would blatantly lie about the killings of American
citizens to justify the actions of personnel of her agency enforcing Trump’s
immigration sweeps.
Attorney General Pam Bondi obediently seeks dubious
prosecutions of Trump’s opponents and critics, mostly pursuing Democrats.
Dealing with other countries, Trump could easily exploit
America’s superior military and economic power.
Many nations depend on the U.S. for their defense or their export market
and appease the president. They fall in
line behind his actions based on his version of the facts, though he often abruptly
shifts course.
He has claimed that Greenland’s waters are being patrolled
by Russian and Chinese vessels, though there is no evidence of their
presence. He asserts that only U.S.
ownership of the island would offer adequate Arctic protection, although over
10,000 American troops had been withdrawn from Greenland without his sending any
replacements.
Trump’s peace policy also included invading Venezuela, bombing
Iran and sinking boats on the high seas.
He imposed arbitrary and excessive tariffs on world trade for political,
not economic, purposes. Because he went
largely unopposed, he deemed his actions acceptable and appropriate.
Finally, he began to face pushback. Bystander videos of the Minneapolis shootings
of immigration enforcement opponents showed that Noam had manufactured false
charges about them. Resistance grew to
the killing of people who posed no lethal threat. He then promised to “de-escalate a little bit.”
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney forcefully declared his
country’s dissent from Trump trade and invasion policies. Carney’s Davos speech galvanized world
opinion. Trump warned the Prime Minister
that Canada is a U.S. dependent. Then he
phoned Carney to hold a civil discussion of mutual concerns.
Still, his sycophants’ lying remained unrelenting. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent promptly
bragged that Carney had backed off his Davos positions. He attempted to transform Trump’s call into a
political win, not expecting a Carney response. But the Prime Minister immediately
confirmed that he had stood his ground with Trump. Bessent had lied.
Trump’s popularity with American voters, to say nothing of foreign
leaders, is declining. While polls are
not entirely accurate and they do not forecast future sentiment, they indicate
a trend away from Trump. Republicans
remain strongly loyal, yet some are beginning to put daylight between
themselves and the president.
His high opinion of himself may lead Trump to create his own
truth. Much of his political power
depends on other people’s willingness to accept his truth. In Minneapolis, irrefutable evidence overcame
self-serving falsehood. In Davos, his
potential retaliation became less menacing than his existing international
behavior.
Trump’s truth is failing. Evidence and nerve are beginning to emerge. What
are the consequences for him and the U.S. if his mystique melts?
