Mr. Write's Page

You tell people a lie three times, they will believe anything. You tell people what they want to hear, play to their fantasies, and then you close the deal.

— Donald Trump in ‘The Art of the Deal’

————

Donald J. Trump, the Orange Vulgarian, was in the national spotlight for decades before he became President.

Over the years, Trump has been on regular display, making his name as a celebrity, a personality, an entertainer. The public had ample time to see him in action and observe how he thinks and operates.

Those years of exposure clearly revealed the man’s many unpleasant traits of personality and character. He was, and still is, coarse, tasteless, narcissistic, amoral, vindictive, and, underneath it all, needy and insecure. I make that diagnosis with full confidence that I’m right.

Trump being Trump makes him totally unfit for any position of public trust. Yet, great numbers of seemingly ordinary Americans voted for him.

Here was one of the most shallow, petty and unqualified persons ever on the national scene, and a huge chunk of the electorate, oblivious to reality, put him in office. To my eternal credit, I wasn’t one of them.

I still struggle to grasp the underlying psychology here. I don’t fully grok the motivation of the trumpophiles. I’ve had no eureka moment that allows me to understand fully why people voted for Trump and continue to support him.

Was he so convincing that he told his lies three times, played to people’s fantasies, and they believed him? Of course not.

Can his win be explained by anger in blue-collar America, hyper-polarization in society, and the Fox New bubble? Yes, to a degree.

The cloud over everything, of course, is the matter of Russian interference and influence — the meddling by Putin, the creepy web of connections/collusion between Russia and Trump’s inner circle. This is unprecedented stuff, with consequences yet unknown.

But, that aside, focusing on what was in the minds of the Trump voters, I’ve found a new piece of the puzzle that, for me, is very illuminating. It has to do with the art and science of telling lies.

Lying, the experts say, begins at about age three. That’s when children discover that adults can’t read their minds, and it’s possible to tell lies — self-serving black lies — to avoid getting into trouble. He hit me first. I didn’t do it.

By age seven or eight, kids learn the concept of white lies — tactful lies told to avoid unpleasantness or hurt feelings. Yes, ma’am, the meatloaf was great. That’s a pretty dress.

People lie, tactically and strategically, all their lives. Psychologists classify the lies we tell in various ways, usually something like this:

– Black lies — Told for selfish reasons.

– White lies — Told for selfless reasons.

– Gray lies — Told partly to benefit yourself, partly to benefit someone else.

– Red lies — Angry lies, told for spite or revenge, even at the risk of harming yourself.

And now, add to that list the concept of blue lies — lies told to benefit the group to which the liar pledges allegiance.

Think about how humans operate socially. By nature, we divide ourselves into groups, for protection as well as to share resources. For the most part, we are loyal and generous to others in the group. To our fellows, we are magnanimous and compassionate.

But, while we tend to be pro-social toward members of the group, we tend to be anti–social toward non-members.

Non-members are outsiders. Potential enemies, potential threats. They are easily dehumanized. They can become targets of suspicion, hate, and violence, usually in that order.

In that context, telling a blue lie can be positive and morally justified. It is seen as lying in the interest of the collective good, while simultaneously taking a shot at a perceived enemy.

Blue lies are told wherever people divide into groups — in politics, government, business, everywhere. We applaud our spies, who tell blue lies to defend the homeland. We accept lying as an appropriate weapon against enemy nations.

It follows, then, that lying to our political enemies is also acceptable.

Thus, when Trump tells a lie, the faithful don’t consider it a case of Donald making an outrageous, demonstrably false statement. They see it as a strike against their enemies. Their man is scoring one for the team.

Rational people can wig out all they want when Trump tells another obvious whopper. But the fact that he lied is of no concern to his supporters. Nor is the actual truth of the matter.

Trump’s conservative admirers rally behind a litany of familiar issues. Freeloaders on public assistance. Immigrants as a criminal threat, stealing our jobs. Climate change is a hoax. Government regulations hobble free enterprise. Hillary ran a sex ring out of a pizza parlor.

How much of that they believe, if any of it, is immaterial. More to the point, those issues amount to blue lies being used as weapons against enemy tribes.

The concept of using lies as a social force and a weapon explains a great deal. It helps me better understand the mentality and motivations of the Trump voters.

It also makes me thank God that I have a brain, a heart, and an empathy gene.