Author's note: This essay below was originally written in September 2018, first posted on TomDispatch.com and reposted the same month on Salon. Spurred by the wave of reminiscences and revelations surrounding the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot, I retrieved this piece from my files and read it again. When I did, I was stunned by how much truer and more troubling my words felt now than when I wrote them nearly three and a half years ago. Yes, Donald Trump has been out of office for nearly a year, but instead of fading into the past, his war on truth has only continued to gain ground. His enablers are more subservient and his challengers, to all appearances, less effective. And because his lies now are aimed directly at destroying public trust in U.S. elections — an issue that was not yet prominent in 2018 — they represent a much graver threat to our fundamental democratic process and values. Those realities lead me to think that my observations and analysis, and my recollections of some moments long before the Trump era that taught me significant lessons about the power of lies, may have something meaningful to offer now. It appears here in lightly edited form, to acknowledge the passage of time.
It's easy — and not wrong — to think that truth is in dire danger in the era of Donald Trump.
