President Donald Trump is constantly lying, but according to a prominent political philosopher, it is not because he intends to deceive. He is actually doing something far worse — and it is starting to impact even his own supporters.
“For much of his political career, dishonesty has been without cost for Donald Trump,” wrote Vanderbilt University political philosopher Robert B. Talisse for the Emporia Gazette on Sunday. “He entered into national politics with the birther lie, claiming that Barack Obama was not born in the U.S., and that did not prevent Trump from winning the 2016 GOP nomination. His persistent false statements about crowd sizes, electoral outcomes and the birthplace of his father barely garner press coverage today.”
Talisse noted that Trump’s lies not only seem to not hurt him politically, but sometimes are even embraced by his own backers, such as his debunked claim that Haitian immigrants ate pets in Ohio. There are even studies which suggest Trump’s supporters admire his dishonesty.
“More recently, however, things have changed,” Talisse said. “Data now indicates mounting regret and disappointment among his base. The administration’s failure to sustain convincing messaging about the Iran war, the Epstein files, the tariffs and inflation have left some supporters feeling duped and abandoned by Trump. The president’s recent approval numbers are registering this shift.”
The difference between those lies and his earlier ones, Talisse notes, is that the new lies are about issues that ordinary voters — including millions of Trump supporters — sincerely care about. Just as notably, Talisse argued that Trump’s reason for lying is not to intentionally deceive but to show his contempt for the people he is lying to.
“It seems to me that his purpose is not to convince anyone, but rather to declare to the press, and perhaps also to his opposition, ‘You cannot stop me,’” Talisse wrote. “For a political movement rooted in the idea that U.S. politics is a swamp in need of draining, Trump’s defiant style has been successful.”
He added, “But here’s the catch. It appears that Trump’s supporters are now beginning to feel that they, too, are on the receiving end of his contempt.” From claiming grocery prices are going down and the economy is flourishing to describing the Iran war as a successful “little excursion,” Trump’s new lies show contempt not only for the press and his opponent, but also for his suffering supporters.
“In asserting them, Trump belittles those who must bear the effects of a struggling economy and an ill-conceived war,” Talisse wrote. “From this perspective, the shift among his base is not due to their realization that Trump lies. It’s that he has betrayed them.”
The key question in terms of Trump’s future success is whether enough of his supporters will abandon him to force his approval rating down to politically unsustainable levels. Ashley St. Clair, a former Trump influencer who has since turned on the president, described this potential process as analogous to deprogramming people from a cult.
"[O]nce ... you're with this very controversial crowd online, you cannot just change your political views,” St. Clair recently told journalist Wajahat Ali. “Changing your political views means you're blowing up your whole life — your social community, the way you provide for your family, the roof over your head. It's not just like, ‘Oh, now I believe in less fiscal conservatism.’ It is really going against people who do not take kindly to people leaving their gang.”
St. Clair added, “You're on the receiving end of a lot of smear campaigns, attacks, and harassment — things that frankly put your family in danger — to speak out and go against the grain. And not that it's an excuse — I don't want anyone to think that the things I'm saying right now are an excuse for the rhetoric I was involved in — but rather I'm trying to understand the pathology of how people get stuck in this, and feel like they don't have a way out.”
Similarly Rich Logis, the founder of Leaving MAGA, told the anti-Trump Republican group The Lincoln Project how Trump supporters can become disillusioned.
"And let me just open with my usual customary apology," Logis told Wilson. "I would like to say that I'm sorry for my past support of Trump and MAGA. When I was in MAGA, the Lincoln Project was the devil — loathed and despised. And if I had met you when I was in MAGA, I would have said that you were an existential threat to our country."
Logis added, "My journey really started in 2015. I was very politically disillusioned. I believed that the two parties had been the same — that they failed to represent most of the country, except for the wealthy and the powerful. I was unapologetically all in. I spoke to Trump groups. I donated to them. I was a sponsor. There was probably no one who was as devout a supporter of Trump and MAGA as I was.And born from that apology and recounting of my story was our organization, Leaving MAGA, which we founded as a new community — a new destination for people who are leaving MAGA, who are having doubts."
