written 22 February, 2026
published 1 March, 2026
When our current president was elected the first time, it was documented that he lied over 30,000 times in those four years, one every 45 minutes he was awake. Lying is a form of cheating on reality. Chronic liars and cheaters believe everyone else lies and cheats as well, reflecting their poor view of humanity.
The president may know he is lying, or is just so disconnected from reality that he actually believes everything he says. In either case, anyone expecting constancy, or honesty, from the man will be disappointed sooner or later. This is difficult to bear in anyone, but a complete disaster when the leader of our country is a liar and a cheat. His small lies, such as being a stable genius, or being our only savior, can be ignored as simple bloated egotism. But his big lies have costly consequences.
The lie that the 2020 election was stolen rises from his egoic assumptions that he can never be a loser and everyone else cheats. This resonated with enough of his followers that they stormed the Capital to change the results of the election. A few people died, many were injured, and the global image of the US took a hit. This lie is still active today, even though 70 lawsuits, and multiple ballot recounts, have shown Biden won in fact.
The tariff issue is a collection of lies. The president lied that other countries rip off the US, yet we consume 6 time our share of global resources. Our trade imbalances, the supposed proof of the rip off, come from US companies investing overseas to maximize profits from cheaper labor, combined with our voracious consumer economy.
The president lied that other nations would pay the costs, yet tariffs are a tax paid by US consumers, a reality known to economists of all political orientation, and recently affirmed by a report from the New York Federal Reserve. But this administration is undeterred by reality, preferring "alternative facts" whenever the truth is too inconvenient. In his first administration, surrounded by a few competent people, the president was hindered in his freedom of action. This time loyalty is preferred over competence. Rather than discuss the facts, White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett quickly condemned the recent Fed report and called for the authors to be prosecuted.
The president lied that he could unilaterally apply tariffs anywhere he wanted, yet the Constitution gives Congress the power to make tariffs, not the president, a point recently affirmed by the Republican majority Supreme Court. In response, the president berated two Justices he appointed, and they immediately began receiving death threats.
The president's tariffs have cost Americans over $200B, disrupted global trade, alienated long term allies, and thrown uncertainty into the entire business community because tariffs change on presidential whim. The Supreme Court decision means all that money has to be refunded, a complicated process on its own, and there is no guarantee the president will even abide by the ruling.
While the tariff lie is expensive, the big lie, that the climate crisis is a hoax, risks killing us all, because we have no more time to waste. With the power of the president pushing this lie, the US has halted all efforts to address the issue, stopped all research on the issue, and even banned all mention of the issue. He has also pressured other nation to stop responding to the issue. Instead, hundreds of billions of dollars are being redirected to investments in obsolete, expensive, inefficient, and polluting energy sources. He wants the Pentagon to run on coal.
This abrupt change in direction costs the economy for all the investments now stalled, as well as all the investments needed to retool. The fact that his decisions are out of step with popular sentiment, and the direction of the rest of the world, confuses the business community. Does it make sense to manufacture internal combustion cars that the rest of the world is moving away from? Can any domestic company survive without export trade?
Just because the president believes a fantasy, are we all required to live within that fantasy as well? The Republican party leadership has deferred to the almost all the president's whims, and don't seem to be willing to address the truth: the president is not fit to lead. But Americans seem to be waking up from the dream being sold to them.
