Much has been written about President Donald Trump’s tendency to fudge the truth, with The Washington Post having tracked more than 30,000 individual false or misleading claims made by the president during his first term – but nearly 16 months into his second term, Americans by the millions are largely disregarding Trump’s words entirely, one columnist argued on Sunday.
“Trump’s credibility gap endangers our national security,” wrote attorney, columnist and former television host Alan Scott Bolden in an op-ed published Sunday in The Hill.
“His hyperbolic rants are so absurd – and his policy flip-flops so extreme – that our foreign allies and adversaries don’t believe much of what he says and no longer take him seriously. It’s as if the proverbial boy who cried wolf moved into the Oval Office."
Trump’s “absurd claims” have become viewed by “growing numbers of people” as “calculated lies at best – or the delusions of a 79-year-old man with declining mental health at worst,” Bolden asserted, a claim supported by a recent poll that found nearly 60% of Americans didn’t believe Trump possessed the mental sharpness to serve as president.
Beyond working-class Americans, Trump’s “lies and frequent policy changes” have also made it difficult for business executives to “plan for the future,” Bolden argued, and they’ve also permanently damaged his credibility on the world stage, undermining the United States’ ability to engage in diplomacy while also creating a threat to U.S. “national security.”
The president’s “credibility gap,” Bolden argued, could have a silver lining: a political weapon that Democrats could use to their advantage in the upcoming midterm elections.
“They can pick up votes by promising to act as a check on his misconduct and lies if they win control of one or both chambers of Congress,” Bolden wrote. “America deserves an honest president.”