“Here in the U.S. we do have a problem with a president Donald Trump who uses language in two distinctly destructive ways. One is to lie, and to use words to mean their opposite. Like, when he calls the Russian investigation a "witch hunt." He can't call it a "witch hunt" because a witch hunt is something that a powerful person does against a powerless person. The most powerful man in the world cannot be the object of a witch hunt.” MenWorldMeanProblemLyingLanguagePresidentPowerfulMost PowerfulWitchPowerless Author:Masha Gessen
“Donald Trump clearly doesn't have the intellectual capacity to have a concept of what he's doing. I think he has a very strong instinct for using lying to assert power, and that's what he does. Every time he lies, he's saying "I can say whatever I want, whenever I want to, and there's nothing you can do about it." I think he understands that instinctively. He has a finely honed sense for power and manipulation. Bullying is another way to put it. He's a highly skilled bully, but bullying is not a very sophisticated strategy.” ThinkingLyingStrongIntellectualStrategyInstinctManipulationBullyingVery StrongSophisticatedBully Author:Masha Gessen
“Fact-checking is a terrible way to report on Donald Trump's lying . It's like we enter into a dialogue with him. It's as though, he says "A," and we check "A," and it gives it no context. Saying that he's "misstating" is an even worse way of covering it. That's NPR's ridiculous policy of not calling his lies "lies." It's really destructive.” GivingLyingPolicyTerribleRidiculousDialogue Author:Masha Gessen
“There's this American pretense, which is the pretense of the journalist with the view from nowhere - which has somehow morphed into the journalist who was born this morning. So, he doesn't know that Donald Trump lied yesterday, and the day before. So, he concludes that he doesn't know whether Trump lied accidentally or on purpose. You can only pretend not to know that if you don't know that he lied yesterday, and the day before. So, to my mind when NPR says they don't know if he's intentionally lying, they're lying. We have to be smarter about it.” MindLyingPurposeMorningJournalistLiedPretenseHe Lied Author:Masha Gessen
“... fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there-because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don't think it should exist.” ThinkingShouldLyingFightingGayInstitutionsGay MarriageMarriage Equality Author:Masha Gessen
