24-05-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Trump enablers buy a fool's lies, just like Chinese ministers who swore a deer was a horse
For those of us outside the United States, just reading about President Donald Trump's careless disregard for facts is frustrating enough. I cannot imagine how surreal – and frightening – it must be for many who live in a country where the people in power do not even pretend that truth matters.
Whereas the US was once the 'city upon a hill' that many countries looked up to,
its global reputation is now in tatters , stained by the countless lies that the US president has fed Americans and the rest of the world. The Washington Post counted 30,573 falsehoods, and that was only during Trump's first presidential term from 2017 to 2021.
How does Trump get away with it? How is it possible that tens of millions of the Maga faithful continue to buy into his bellicose and cruel vision for the country and believe in his lies, some of which are so hilariously ludicrous that they would not fool anyone with the barest modicum of intelligence?
Part of this absurd state of affairs has to do with Trump's enablers. Unlike his first term, when at least some of his political appointees had expertise in their portfolios, Trump has surrounded himself with sycophants
whose only quality is their personal loyalty to him
Instead of calling out the blatant, at times bizarre, falsehoods spewed by their boss-patron, Trump's obsequious acolytes and the entire Republican Party apparatus choose to toe the line, however ridiculous that line often is.