What Price a Lie?

What price a lie, or more to the point, lies?

 In today's disclosures, taped conversations with President Trump reveal that from the very beginning, following his being briefed in late January, Trump intentionally misled the American public on the nature and dangers around the covid-19 virus.

Despite clearly understanding the transmission aspects (air-born) and the mortality threat (five times the flu) Trump repeatedly projected that the threat wasn't real, wasn't severe or wasn't understood. His current excuses fall along the lines of wanting to avoid panic on the part of the country, wanting to suppress costs around the world for PPE, and a desire to keep a "positive attitude" in front of the nation.

I cannot imagine that this is much solace to the 190,000 families that have lost one or more members to the virus, particularly those who are followers of the president, and based life and death decisions on his messages. I find it hard to reconcile the lack of urgency in the administration when, regardless of the public pronouncements, delayed specific and necessary actions until after the virus had widely spread.

It is particularly egregious to consider the elected officials from Congress through state and local offices who based their own choices on the perceptions provided from the ultimate source of information, and whose constituencies paid a deadly price for their errors.

This is not a partisan witch hunt, not a democratic hoax. In this case, we have the President’s own words in his own voice, recorded for posterity. We have full sentences, in context, declaring his history and intent to downplay the facts, and to communicate a story that he knew was false. It is not subject to debate or discussion, not able to be spun. It is what it is, to reuse a quote. 

For those who have sworn by the president, complaining about the media and the opposition party overstating the dangers, protesting the responses, what are your reactions? Does the idea that you were deceived intentionally give you pause, make you wonder how many other presidential assertions you blindly parroted without question were also lies? Having vehemently accused your local politicians of an exaggerated hoax, only to now discover that they were correct and your hero knew it, are you planning your heartfelt apology?

The president lied. He meant to lie, he executed and strongly defended his lie, and he incited millions of others to lie on his behalf, to act in a way that threatened thousands of lives every day. Those who disbelieved Trump are not the issue here -- they acted without concern for his pronouncements. It is those who were led by him, who followed his lead and spread his lies for him, that must now reckon with the evidence. The tapes are unquestioned for their veracity; the source of disclosure is the president himself. 

What now, followers, now that you know who you have given your unquestioned allegiance to? What now, Trumpers, now that 190,000 are already dead, and a virus that the rest of the industrial world has controlled is anything but in our country, will you do to try and rein it back in? What will you say when you confront your opposites in political thinking tomorrow, and they maintain their position against your candidate? 

Given time, the administration will create a mythology that excuses the inexcusable, just as they are doing with every other documented revelation. The press secretary already has made herself into a joke by insisting as fact that the president never downplayed the pandemic, even as Trump's voice plays in the background stating precisely that he did. Will you make a mockery of your own integrity as she did, on behalf of someone who consistently exposes his apologists to such ridicule?

At the very least, the price of a lie of these proportions should be the removal of trust, the ending of unsupported faith in his words and pronouncements. It should include the end of authority, and the instigation of doubt about anything else that he has asserted, present, past or future. It should include the removal of the mantle of leadership once and for all, and the rendering of the November contest essentially a foregone conclusion… but for all the times that we have assumed that in the past, there remains a lingering doubt. 

There should not be. When the price of a lie is death by the tens of thousands, there should be no further opportunity by the liar to hurt America.

Let’s see what happens now.