Nine days before Election Day, Donald Trump delivered his closing argument at a Madison Square Garden rally that drew comparisons to a 1939 pro-Nazi rally in the same arena and characterized by similar anti-democratic themes: demonization of immigrants and political enemies, invocation of strongman leadership, threats of violent retribution, denunciations of the press.
Responding to criticism of this self-evident hate-fest, Trump characterized it as “a lovefest.” He wasn’t just lying. That’s too simple an explanation of how Trump behaves in general, and what he’s doing here. Lying is deceiving people about the state of the world, and Trump routinely does that too. But simply tallying up the lies gives no insight into their purpose. Bulls***ting is deceiving people about one’s motives — using true or false claims indiscriminately — and is a more accurate description of his routine behavior. But calling that rally calls a “lovefest,” is doing something more: That's gaslighting, an effort to undermine people’s entire sense of reality and impose an invented reality in its place
