Truth gavel
“Our president is a liar, and we need to find out how serious his latest lies are.” ~David Leonhardt, NYT
I’m old enough to remember well when Richard Nixon went down. At that point, I thought all Democrats were of the devil and was sure God was on Nixon’s side and that Nixon would prove to be right.
I was wrong. He resigned, rightly, in deep disgrace.
I’m old enough to remember Bill Clinton’s lies about his sexual activities. I still thought all Democrats were of the devil (although I was starting to modify my stance by then), and hoped he would be forced out of office.
He survived and turned out to be a pretty darn good President.
I’m obviously old enough to remember “W’s” fumbling of the disastrously stupid invasion of Iraq, all based on lies told to him about the availability of WMD and Saddam Hussein’s penchant for using them. Lies led to the current destabilization of the entire Middle East.
The devil apparently was infecting the Republican party by then.
I’m old enough to know that everybody lies and that lies always imprison us. I wrote about this just a couple of weeks ago.
We knew from the outset that he is a liar
From the beginning, we’ve all known that our sitting president lies incessantly, but his supporters kept saying, “He’s going to grow into the job, and we need a change in Washington.”
Well, we may have changed leadership with the election of the Great Disrupter, but we haven’t changed the fact that lies ultimately are found out. Truth does set us free. And it’s time to find out what the truth is.
Why? Because the devil, the master of deception, has now taken over the GOP entirely.
Yes, the speaking of truth now, after the reality of a compromised 2016 election is confirmed, may very well take down this entire administration. Repercussions will reverberate across the world–and already are. But it’s time. No more lies.
The freedom of truth-telling
When my current husband and I met, our immediate mutual attraction was based on the shared ideology of telling the truth about ourselves to each other. We were old enough, wise enough, secure enough to dispense with all pretense, all superficial polishing, all the hiding that comes from speaking untruths.
We were uniquely free to love because we lost no energy by lying.
That’s the problem with lies–they suck the life out of us. We spend so much time covering up for them, lying even more to support the first lies, that ultimately we have no stamina for the real work of life–or of governing.
People who hold the public trust, such as elected Presidents of the United States, cannot function without accountability to the entire nation. They work for us, not the other way around. Same with our members of Congress. They are public servants, not unelected tyrants.
Clearly, some things must remain confidential, but we have every right to expect truth from spoken (or tweeted) words. Richard Nixon did lie about Watergate. Bill Clinton did have sex with that woman. George Bush was lied to and he made decisions based on those lies.
Donald Trump, despite his denials, has years of business ties to Russia. It is likely that a solid look at his tax returns would show that his private holdings owe massive amounts of money to Russian financial institutions. As a businessman, those may have been sound decisions. As POTUS, such decisions, particularly non-disclosed, leave us scarily vulnerable as a nation.
The POTUS is breaking trust with the people. Lies always destroy trust. Truth not only sets us free, but it also gives a foundational platform to rebuild relationships.
Is redemption possible?
Can this current administration be redeemed? Absolutely. There are many reasons why it might be best for the nation for that redemption to take place. But it cannot and will not happen when lies surround us.
Again, from David Leonhardt’s piece:
But the current president of the United States lies. He lies in ways that no American politician ever has before. He has lied about — among many other things — Obama’s birthplace, John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Sept. 11, the Iraq War, ISIS, NATO, military veterans, Mexican immigrants, Muslim immigrants, anti-Semitic attacks, the unemployment rate, the murder rate, the Electoral College, voter fraud and his groping of women.
He tells so many untruths that it’s time to leave behind the textual parsing over which are unwitting and which are deliberate — as well as the condescending notion that most of Trump’s supporters enjoy his lies.
No one enjoys being lied to . . . unless we are deliberately watching a con man do his job–and it is someone besides us who is the target. It’s time for truth–not just on the national stage, but also with one another.
Once more: truth sets us free. It’s time for truth before we completely crumble as a nation.
The Rev. Dr. Christy Thomas, AKA The Thoughtful Pastor, describes herself as "an opinionated Jesus-follower, a retired elder in the United Methodist church, a questioner of everything, and a lover of grace." An author and newspaper columnist, she blogs at The Thoughtful Pastor on Patheos.com, from which this post is republished with the author's permission.