When Lies are Dangerous

It is well established that President Trump lies frequently. He has averaged at least 12 lies a day since taking office and his statements have been completely or mostly false 70 percent of the time, according to PolitiFact. While all politicians spin things in their favor, many of those are hype, rhetoric, differences of opinion, or partisan points of view. Donald Trump lies about factual things that are blatantly and provably false, sometimes even completely illogical. Many of his lies are dangerous, especially about the current Covid-19 pandemic.

It is absolutely absurd to say that “If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any.” Testing does not create cases, it detects cases. The number of cases will not decrease by ending testing. We will just have hidden cases. A hidden danger is even more insidious than an open danger.

This lie about testing causing more cases follows numerous lies about the insignificance of the pandemic: February — “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle. It will disappear.” March — “Anybody that needs a test gets a test.” March — “a lot of equipment’s being asked for that I don’t think they’ll need.” May — The coronavirus is “going to go away without a vaccine.” These and numerous other lies have resulted in thousands of additional American deaths by minimizing and deterring an effective reaction to the pandemic.

Lying by a president is powerful and has serious consequences. What makes it even more serious is when the president lies brazenly and with complete disregard for the consequences. Trump’s cavalier attitude and impudent disregard for common moral standards make him especially dangerous. Most people would never allow such behavior in their child. We must not allow it in our president.