The Cost of Deception

Well, it's been an interesting two weeks.  I've taken some time off from writing this blog because it was becoming all-consuming and I don't want it to be that way.  This is supposed to be a creative outlet for me and my expression of activism, not a daily obligation.  Anyway, back to the subject at hand...

As you probably know by now, Republicans withdrew their AHCA bill before it could come to a vote.  I think this is a good thing, but my fear is that they will try and accomplish the same objectives through a series of executive orders rather than through legislation.  We should keep an eye on this.  After the bill was withdrawn, Donald Trump immediately declared that it was withdrawn because of the Democrats and that Democrats are to blame for America's troubles.  

I was thinking about this earlier today and saw a post on Facebook with some video clips of Donald Trump during the presidential campaign where he kept saying over and over again how he would repeal and replace Obamacare if elected.  The final clip was from yesterday or today where he stated that he never said he would repeal and replace Obamacare.  

Seriously?  We all saw the videos where he said he would repeal and replace Obamacare and now we see a video clip where he claims that he never said any of that.  How stupid does Donald Trump really think we are?  We saw it with our own eyes and heard it with our own ears and now he's saying it never happened.  We can bring up the actual video on the internet whenever we want and replay it over and over, but he's saying it didn't happen.

So here's where the cost of deception comes in.  If you deceive people over and over, then eventually you lose all your credibility.  I've deceived people before and I've paid a huge price for it, but I've never tried to deceive a whole country.  So how does this relate to Donald Trump?  Simply put, we just don't believe anything that comes out of his mouth anymore.  If today is Tuesday and Donald Trump holds a press conference to tell everyone that today is Tuesday, we all suddenly wonder if it really is Tuesday.  We have been conditioned to think that anything he says is false.  And when I say that we have been conditioned, it hasn't been because of some "shadow government" or "deep state" or "political conspiracy."  It's simply because he lies a lot and we know it.

So what's the real cost of Donald Trump's deception?  Well, he has no credibility with most Americans.  We just don't trust him.  His approval rating among all Americans is only 38%.  That is the lowest approval rating of any president.  Ever.  The reason is that he repeatedly lies to us and we know it.  He shamelessly lies to us all the time.  If we can't trust our president, then who will lead us?  We need a leader, not a liar.

But there's another cost of Trump's deception.  The rest of the world has realized that our president is a liar and can't be trusted.  They can't rely on him to follow through with anything he says to them and they know he will just deny that he said it at all if he feels like it.  This is damaging to all of us, not just to Donald Trump.  Our allies are trying to put some distance between themselves and the United States.  They know that they can't rely on us anymore when they need some help.

Another cost of Trump's deception is that people throughout the world are wondering how we could have elected a president like this.  I regularly talk to people in several other countries and they just don't understand how we could ever have elected this president.  They don't have confidence in the American people anymore.  They are starting to wonder if, since we elected this man, we are all like him.  I don't know about you, but that scares the crap out of me.

So what do we do?  Well, I wish there was an easy answer to this problem but there just isn't.  Donald Trump will most likely be a one term president, but the big question is whether the United States can survive four years of this nonsense.  Can we simply wait for him to be indicted for using the presidency for personal gain?  It's bound to happen as he gets bolder and bolder every day.  It's just a matter of time before he crosses that line.  If he somehow evades impeachment and we manage to make it through the next four years, what will be left of us and who will we be?

I don't know the answer to that, but I know that my own answer is to keep fighting this president every time I get the chance.  I'm not powerful or influential, but I'm also not the only American who feels this way.  We just need to speak up and tell everyone what we think every time he spews out another Twitter rant full of lies or he does something that hurts our country.  That's what grass roots activism is all about.  Do what you can, but please do something.  It's the only way we're going to get through this.