A key to understanding Trump is to understand that he's not a liar. He’s a bullshitter.
In his book, “On Bullshit,” recently-deceased Princeton Philosophy prof Harry Frankfurt explains the difference:
“It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false.
“For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”
Of course, Trump doesn't just spew bullshit. He weaponizes it. This may, in fact, turn out to be his most lasting legacy: to ratchet up bullshit to an entirely new level, and to make himself the standard by which all other bullshitters will forever be measured.
As much as this is true, trump is also a master liar. He knows damn well that he lost the election. He was told by staff, lawyers and even family and he lost 60 court cases. And he is still pushing the Big Lie.
I think you're misreading Frankfurt's point, which is that is that liars have to respect the truth if only to know how to lie about it. Bill Clinton is a good example. He knew the truth was that he had smoked dope and that he had gotten blowjobs in the White House. So he lied by artful evasion. "Yes, I smoked weed, but I never inhaled." "No, I did not have sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky—because I define 'sexual relations' as copulation, sod oral sex doesn't count." It's not that Trump wasn't told the truth about the election; it's that he doesn't give a flying fuck about it one way or another. If Trump could get what he wanted by stating a fact (however unlikely that would be), he'd do it—because for him, telling the truth would just be another form of bullshit. To paraphrase Mary McCarthy, every word that he comes out of his mouth is bullshit—including "a" and "the."
It’s not just the stupid. Educated, seemingly intelligent and aware people are accepting him and admiring his ‘policies’ and ‘all the good he has done’. What policies? What good? There is more happening than what appears on the surface.
I’m either incapable of understanding or have a huge blind spot but whatever it is behind the curtain terrifies me.
In plain sight but do we really see the long view? You know the fable of the blind men and the elephant? I’m not convinced we have more than a trunk and an ear yet.
You know that scene in The Fly (original) when the scientist really fucked up? I'd really like to see that kind of shit happen to Sporkfoot. It would be hilarious to see her tiny head whining about incoherent jibber-jabber while connected to a tiny fly body. Hilarious.
And yet every week they still manage to get dumber. Watching hundreds of brains deteriorate in real time is depressing. These idiots are supposed to be role models, not Rolls-Royce models.
And they have the temerity to refer to Biden as senile. FFS.
So let me get this straight. FBI agents slow-walked the news story about Hunter Biden’s laptop and helped cover it up for 2 years, especially during the 2020 election season because they were told to by higher-ups, who included Trump appointees AG Bill Barr, Christopher Wray was head of the FBI, but Barr and Wray were both secretly working for the Deep State to scuttle Trump’s chances for re-election. Really? When Barr did everything for Trump from redact the Mueller report to clear the way for the Trump photo-op at Lafayette Square to sow doubt about the 2020 election whenever he was interviewed. But no, it's all Joe Biden and Merrick Garland’s fault, and somehow Hunter Biden’s porn pictures are very, very, very important. But, of course, Melania Trump’s soft-core porn photos, including the lesbian ones, are totally irrelevant, and she is the classiest First Lady we’ve ever had. Right?
More people should've vote for the email lady. Idiot orange mammoth always have plan,the bestest plan ever and he will reveal this plan in two weeks or right after election....
How about sicko and porn obsessed, MTG showing private photos of Hunter Biden to Congress for no reason AND emailing those photos to her constituents without a warning to minors.
She sent dick pics to CHILDREN! Both are against the law. She should be prosecuted for sending porn to minors and showing Revenge Porn in Washington DC.
Also, Hunter Biden’s lawyer sent a condemnation letter to the Ethics Committee and hinted that Hunter will sue MTG. Go Hunter!
I was looking at my daily Smirking Chimp newsletter awhile ago and wondering how you decide which of the myriad insanities to write about. So much material, so little time (for them to remain in power, I hope).
The irony is that Trump can go into total dementia and none of his supporters would know the difference. I remember when my father-in-law had dementia already at 70, my mother-in-law at around 80, and my aunt was like this at least at 82. One of the things is the five sentence conversation where they ask you 5 questions and by the time you have answered them they cycle back because they have forgotten what they said and you said. A pattern I noticed with the two women. My father-in-law was not that lucid earlier than that. So, this description of Trump talking is that a sign that he is losing his faculties. Unlike the two women I mentioned, it does not sound like Trump does a lot of reading. I wonder how much he even read the stolen documents. That may be why he had to keep them, because he was going to get around to reading them. Of course, given that his former father-in-law according to Prevail by Greg Olear, was involved in Czech Secret Police during Soviet Union, as well as Trumps US and Russian mob connections, we can wonder whether he was not just their pawn in getting the papers.
Some years ago, I watched a video of Trump giving a deposition. One of the lawyers handed him a document (I think it was a contract) to review, and then asked him questions about it. It was crystal clear even the that trump couldn’t read it. He turned the pages over as though he was scanning them, but couldn’t find a piece of text even when it’s location was explicitly described to him (“top of page 10, second line in first paragraph”.) I’ve worked with people who are functionally illiterate, and can recognize when someone is bluffing.
Another piece of the pie. I agree that I can see this bluffing with reading too. Might explain some of his personality defects. He is practicing overcompensation. That would be consistent with what we know. Another reason to protest legacy entrance to Universities if you ask me. I don't really care how he got like he got. He is making everyone else suffer, even those who don't realize it. Some of his children seem delusional about daddy too.
It's almost laughable that Jason Aldean is singing a song about how people who live in a small town would react to violent protests should they somehow come to a small town. I mean, give he was born and raised in a city of over 100K, and now lives in a city of over 700K. He's never lived in a small town.
Also, apparently most of the violent protest shots in the video are from protests in Germany and France (I believe). But yeah, it's a stupid song about stupid people.
Re Jason Aldean. I grew up in a severely racist county in the Deep South, so I am bi-lingual, meaning I am able to understand and translate the language of redneck racists. Aldean does not only talk using the usual dog whistles, he sings with loud rabid dog barking howls, so even the dumbest of his doting fans can know what he means and cheer him on.
Quick story as a resident of AZ and MAGA. I golf with a group of about 12-16 players all older than myself (71). One member told me at a party that he is unable to be friends with me or my wife anymore since we do not share his MAGA values or political viewpoints. When someone says that, you know they are in the RW information silo 24/7.
as amusing as this is to pick apart, it is still beyond sad that these people have been elected, are serving in our government and have as much influence as they do over the third of our neighbors, friends and family who take this bs as gospel. I don't know what, if anything, it will take to drag these cretins back to reality, but the continuation of our democracy depends on, at the minimum, retiring them from government, media and business.
Is it like by far the biggest, most far reaching cult ever? I know a lot of them are just flat out greedy but the seemingly educated ones going all in for a flim flam man? Like WTF?
Re Trump and bullshit.
A key to understanding Trump is to understand that he's not a liar. He’s a bullshitter.
In his book, “On Bullshit,” recently-deceased Princeton Philosophy prof Harry Frankfurt explains the difference:
“It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false.
“For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”
Of course, Trump doesn't just spew bullshit. He weaponizes it. This may, in fact, turn out to be his most lasting legacy: to ratchet up bullshit to an entirely new level, and to make himself the standard by which all other bullshitters will forever be measured.
As much as this is true, trump is also a master liar. He knows damn well that he lost the election. He was told by staff, lawyers and even family and he lost 60 court cases. And he is still pushing the Big Lie.
Trump is a flagrant liar AND a bullshit artist. A grifter. A con man. A thief.
His name is Conald Dump.
Bingo Randy....you nailed it!!
I think you're misreading Frankfurt's point, which is that is that liars have to respect the truth if only to know how to lie about it. Bill Clinton is a good example. He knew the truth was that he had smoked dope and that he had gotten blowjobs in the White House. So he lied by artful evasion. "Yes, I smoked weed, but I never inhaled." "No, I did not have sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky—because I define 'sexual relations' as copulation, sod oral sex doesn't count." It's not that Trump wasn't told the truth about the election; it's that he doesn't give a flying fuck about it one way or another. If Trump could get what he wanted by stating a fact (however unlikely that would be), he'd do it—because for him, telling the truth would just be another form of bullshit. To paraphrase Mary McCarthy, every word that he comes out of his mouth is bullshit—including "a" and "the."
Sadly, his base falls for his bullshit every time with the twisted far right media amplifying it to his benefit.
The church of bullshit and it's attendees.
I don’t know that you can fall for something you already believed. Isn’t he just confirming them
Definitely to an extent but it's hard to believe he got 74 million votes without the help of the media.
We'll soon enough have to replace the BS meter with a Trump-o-meter.
There's a BOOK on Bullshit!?! Omg, I knew about the one on Assholes (and an excellent movie, fyi
Assholes a theory) but I now must
read this book!
The difference between the 2 explains a lot. Thank you.
Perhaps Trump created a new level of lies and bullshit: Lieshitting.
Excellent
I don’t know how much more Stupid I can take.
It’s not just the stupid. Educated, seemingly intelligent and aware people are accepting him and admiring his ‘policies’ and ‘all the good he has done’. What policies? What good? There is more happening than what appears on the surface.
I’m either incapable of understanding or have a huge blind spot but whatever it is behind the curtain terrifies me.
Dancing, It is all the Emperor’s New Clothes. It’s all in plain sight. There is no curtain. That is what terrifies ME. OMG.
In plain sight but do we really see the long view? You know the fable of the blind men and the elephant? I’m not convinced we have more than a trunk and an ear yet.
racism
all of us feel that way, but that's what they want, for us to give up.
Acknowledging danger is not giving up.
not what i said
Peace
You know that scene in The Fly (original) when the scientist really fucked up? I'd really like to see that kind of shit happen to Sporkfoot. It would be hilarious to see her tiny head whining about incoherent jibber-jabber while connected to a tiny fly body. Hilarious.
Oh i do like you!!
Wow!!!
What an image! But you are correct. And now for that fly scattered, whack!
Dang auto-correct swatter... what, did I need a hyphen?
And yet every week they still manage to get dumber. Watching hundreds of brains deteriorate in real time is depressing. These idiots are supposed to be role models, not Rolls-Royce models.
And they have the temerity to refer to Biden as senile. FFS.
Meanwhile, dick pics on the floor of the House!
So let me get this straight. FBI agents slow-walked the news story about Hunter Biden’s laptop and helped cover it up for 2 years, especially during the 2020 election season because they were told to by higher-ups, who included Trump appointees AG Bill Barr, Christopher Wray was head of the FBI, but Barr and Wray were both secretly working for the Deep State to scuttle Trump’s chances for re-election. Really? When Barr did everything for Trump from redact the Mueller report to clear the way for the Trump photo-op at Lafayette Square to sow doubt about the 2020 election whenever he was interviewed. But no, it's all Joe Biden and Merrick Garland’s fault, and somehow Hunter Biden’s porn pictures are very, very, very important. But, of course, Melania Trump’s soft-core porn photos, including the lesbian ones, are totally irrelevant, and she is the classiest First Lady we’ve ever had. Right?
Better watch out the Trump campaign will be knocking on your door!
Bring it!!!
🤭😂😜🤣
More people should've vote for the email lady. Idiot orange mammoth always have plan,the bestest plan ever and he will reveal this plan in two weeks or right after election....
Right after that new healthcare plan and another infrastructure week, right?
Exactly
Yep. That farmer in Iowa is waiting no doubt!
How about sicko and porn obsessed, MTG showing private photos of Hunter Biden to Congress for no reason AND emailing those photos to her constituents without a warning to minors.
She sent dick pics to CHILDREN! Both are against the law. She should be prosecuted for sending porn to minors and showing Revenge Porn in Washington DC.
Also, Hunter Biden’s lawyer sent a condemnation letter to the Ethics Committee and hinted that Hunter will sue MTG. Go Hunter!
I was looking at my daily Smirking Chimp newsletter awhile ago and wondering how you decide which of the myriad insanities to write about. So much material, so little time (for them to remain in power, I hope).
The irony is that Trump can go into total dementia and none of his supporters would know the difference. I remember when my father-in-law had dementia already at 70, my mother-in-law at around 80, and my aunt was like this at least at 82. One of the things is the five sentence conversation where they ask you 5 questions and by the time you have answered them they cycle back because they have forgotten what they said and you said. A pattern I noticed with the two women. My father-in-law was not that lucid earlier than that. So, this description of Trump talking is that a sign that he is losing his faculties. Unlike the two women I mentioned, it does not sound like Trump does a lot of reading. I wonder how much he even read the stolen documents. That may be why he had to keep them, because he was going to get around to reading them. Of course, given that his former father-in-law according to Prevail by Greg Olear, was involved in Czech Secret Police during Soviet Union, as well as Trumps US and Russian mob connections, we can wonder whether he was not just their pawn in getting the papers.
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/tinker-tailor-mobster-trump
All possibilities are horrible given that he appears to be the Republican frontrunner.
Some years ago, I watched a video of Trump giving a deposition. One of the lawyers handed him a document (I think it was a contract) to review, and then asked him questions about it. It was crystal clear even the that trump couldn’t read it. He turned the pages over as though he was scanning them, but couldn’t find a piece of text even when it’s location was explicitly described to him (“top of page 10, second line in first paragraph”.) I’ve worked with people who are functionally illiterate, and can recognize when someone is bluffing.
Another piece of the pie. I agree that I can see this bluffing with reading too. Might explain some of his personality defects. He is practicing overcompensation. That would be consistent with what we know. Another reason to protest legacy entrance to Universities if you ask me. I don't really care how he got like he got. He is making everyone else suffer, even those who don't realize it. Some of his children seem delusional about daddy too.
Amen
You need to read Craig Unger book. Trump has more Russian pals than you might think.
That $99M teardown in FL was just one "gift".
Thanks for the book recommendation.
RE: the country song.
It's almost laughable that Jason Aldean is singing a song about how people who live in a small town would react to violent protests should they somehow come to a small town. I mean, give he was born and raised in a city of over 100K, and now lives in a city of over 700K. He's never lived in a small town.
Also, apparently most of the violent protest shots in the video are from protests in Germany and France (I believe). But yeah, it's a stupid song about stupid people.
Re Jason Aldean. I grew up in a severely racist county in the Deep South, so I am bi-lingual, meaning I am able to understand and translate the language of redneck racists. Aldean does not only talk using the usual dog whistles, he sings with loud rabid dog barking howls, so even the dumbest of his doting fans can know what he means and cheer him on.
Quick story as a resident of AZ and MAGA. I golf with a group of about 12-16 players all older than myself (71). One member told me at a party that he is unable to be friends with me or my wife anymore since we do not share his MAGA values or political viewpoints. When someone says that, you know they are in the RW information silo 24/7.
I'm sorry.
Honestly better off without them.
I've lost my friends & family members to the cult, troubles me to this day but I refuse to hang with people that choose a politician over friendship.
AND how they got there
Thinking of the movie FOX brainwashed my dad.
Aldean was on stage in Las Vegas when a gunman killed 59 people right in front of him. But he's against any type of gun control.
So like Scalise who demonstrates you don’t learn from experience if you’re ass hammered stupid as a rock?
Just sad.
as amusing as this is to pick apart, it is still beyond sad that these people have been elected, are serving in our government and have as much influence as they do over the third of our neighbors, friends and family who take this bs as gospel. I don't know what, if anything, it will take to drag these cretins back to reality, but the continuation of our democracy depends on, at the minimum, retiring them from government, media and business.
Is it like by far the biggest, most far reaching cult ever? I know a lot of them are just flat out greedy but the seemingly educated ones going all in for a flim flam man? Like WTF?
And MTG has an ethics complaint now
You probably won’t have to wait long for the “ dipshit wingnut...”!
You have earned every penny I committed to this substack & then some. Keep our brains unfogged!