The featured image comes from the classic 1963 British film, Billy Liar. It previously adorned The Liar Song Dozen, which is a fitting soundtrack for this post.
Billy Liar is about a young man who has difficulty coping with reality, so he lives in a fantasy world worthy of Walter Mitty. Incredibly, that’s where we are as a nation: We’re governed by fantasists and liars firing off a relentless barrage of bluster and bullshit.
In his first term, President Pennywise made 30573 false or misleading claims. He’s on track to smash that total with a parade of whoppers that are amplified exponentially by his staff and supporters. We’re awash in lies and liars.
During LBJ’s presidency, a phrase was added to the political lexicon: the credibility gap. Trump makes Lyndon look like a piker, his credibility is nonexistent, it’s more of a credibility gulf than gap. Perhaps that’s why he claims to have renamed a certain body of water, the Gulf Of America. The only gulf is between his ears.
In the first Trump term, his staff and cabinet occasionally fucked up and were truthful. In the second term, his minions have joined in on the march of mendacity. They blow so much smoke that it’s difficult to discern truth from lies or facts from fantasies. The terms the fog of war and fog of scandal have never been more meaningful.
Here’s the deal, everyone on the planet has lied. Anyone who tells you they’ve never lied is lying. There is, however, a distinction between casual lies and the sort of destructive whoppers spewed by Trump and his sycophants. Initially, I avoided news about the DC National Guard shooting because I knew it would be accompanied by what Churchill called “a bodyguard of lies.” It’s more like a brigade of lies from the brigands running the federal government.
Repeat after me: All Trumpers are liars.
It’s not just men, Nick. All Trumpers are liars. See: Noem, Kristi, Leavitt, Karoline, and Bondi, Pam.
The Insult Comedian is, of course, the biggest liar on Team MAGA but Bobby Junior runs a close second. His lies are equally destructive as those of his boss: they affect the health of ordinary people. An article in The Atlantic posed this question: Why Is Robert Kennedy Jr. So Convinced He’s Right? My answer: because he’s a Kennedy and has his father’s face. Brain rot from decades of heroin addiction is also a factor.
A distinction that is lost on many is that between lies and liars. As I said earlier, we’ve all lied. We’re not all liars. My favorite definition of liar comes from Webster’s 1828 Dictionary of the English Language:
A person who knowingly utters falsehood; one who declares to another as a fact what he knows to be not true, and with an intention to deceive him. The uttering of falsehood by mistake, and without an intention to deceive, does not constitute one a liar.”
Repeat after me: All Trumpers are liars.
I’m not providing chapter and verse on MAGA mendacity. I don’t want to write a 5000+ word post. Suffice it to say that Speaker Yellowbelly, Pete Kegsbreath, and the Hillbilly Elegist are among the biggest liars on Team MAGA. I’m not sure if they believe their lies but the Kaiser of Chaos shows signs of being a pathological liar. One thing is for sure; the truth is not his middle name:
How do we combat the march of mendacity? By telling the truth with as little embellishment as possible. That’s hard for many social media lefties who believe the sun revolves around them but it’s essential in resisting Trumpism. Things built on a foundation of lies have a way of collapsing from the weight of their own mendacity.
The post title is inspired by one of my favorite history tomes, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam by Barbara Tuchman. It’s about delusional thinking that cost countries much blood and treasure as they pursued delusional goals and lied to themselves. That’s where we are in 2025: On a march of folly fueled by mendacity.
Let’s close on a positive note. The last word goes to Derek & The Dominos followed by Tedeschi-Trucks Band with Trey Anastasio of Phish fame: