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Bye, Bye Miss American Pie [1]
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Date: 2025-02-20
Trump’s inability to accept his election loss in November 2020 generated the Big Lie, but it seems fueled by a break with reality. While it has been reported that he could admit early on in this or that moment the loss, Trump seemed incapable of being defined as a loser. As recently as February 18, 2025, in a joint interview with Elon Musk, his co-president, Trump restated his belief that the 2020 election was fraudulent.
In his first term, the Washington Post determined that Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims, i.e., lies. According to their Fact Checker database, the frequency increased from an average of six per day in his first year to 39 per day in his final year.
Have we become so inured to his lying that we no longer call it out as a moral failing? The Washington Post is no longer tracking Trump’s lies. Is it because their owner, Jeff Bezos, needs to placate Trump? Who can say?
A pattern of constantly lying, i.e., pathological lying, involves frequent falsehoods that do not appear to have a clear reason or benefit. This is often associated with psychological conditions like antisocial personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder. Habitual lying may be a response to increased anxiety. Lying can momentarily reduce anxiety, but it can lead to an ongoing cycle of deceit.
In politics, as an example, a person may slowly create a narrative constructed of lies about themself or reality that reinforces their self-image, ambition, or need for control. One lie leads to another such that it is unclear where reality begins and ends. As Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1808, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!
Now, in Trump 2.0, we recall the voice yelling, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” We hear snippets of hearings of cabinet nominees that bear no relationship to what those people have asserted for years. Which is true, now or before? And senators ignore the lies and vote for people who are clearly incompetent.
Along with Greenland, Panama, and Canada, Ukraine rejected Trump’s imperial overreach. He is seeking 50% of Ukraine’s rare earth mineral deposits, payment for uncertain protection, or repayment for America’s defense of democracy under Biden. So now we have these statements from Trump.
1 Ukraine started the war. Russia, clearly the aggressor, invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022
2 Zelenskyy is a dictator. Zelenskyy was democratically elected in 2019, but a new election is not permitted while at war.
3 Zelenskyy’s approval rating is 4%. A recent poll reported an approval rating of 57%, while Trump’s rating is at 45%.
4 Millions have died in the war. The best estimate is over 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians—far too many, but not millions.
None of these statements are true. Each seems to be a Putin talking point. And of the “negotiations” in Riyadh, Putin said, “There were completely different people on the American side, who were open to the negotiation process without any bias, without any condemnation of what had been done in the past.” There is no condemnation because, according to Trump, “Ukraine started the war.”
The question emerges, “What are these lies doing to America?” The lies suggest that America has no enduring core, no commitments that others can depend on, and no guiding principles that can withstand the shifting whims of power. This is what Trump accomplished in four weeks and what the Republican party accomplished in 30 years: a devolution started by Newt Gingrich in 1995 as Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Have we been lied to for generations? To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, was there ever a “there” there? Or, as Don McLean foretold in his 1971 song, American Pie, was it ever to be “Bye, bye, Miss American Pie?”
Why is Trump doing what he is doing? None of it will end well for America. Why did so many die in World War II to arrive here? The American “Century,” once a symbol of strength and stability, is ending just 80 years after it began— “not with a bang, but a whimper.” An imposed reality by Trump on America from which we will never recover. America? Beware! Unreliable ally!
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