DAY 156: The New York Times publishes catalog of Donald Trump's lies

The New York Times published today a catalog of Donald Trump's lies since he took office. Titled Trump's Lies, the catalog starts on January 21 and it continues to the present. Here's the introduction to the catalog:

Many Americans have become accustomed to President Trump’s lies. But as regular as they have become, the country should not allow itself to become numb to them. So we have catalogued nearly every outright lie he has told publicly since taking the oath of office.

The first two lies of the Trump presidency, on January 21, are:

Jan. 21 “I wasn't a fan of Iraq. I didn't want to go into Iraq.” (He was for an invasion before he was against it.)

Jan. 21 “A reporter for Time magazine — and I have been on their cover 14 or 15 times. I think we have the all-time record in the history of Time magazine.” (Trump was on the cover 11 times and Nixon appeared 55 times.)

Not only that; the NYT points out that Trump's rise to power was built on a lie: claiming that Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

Why is his a problem? The NYT explains:

There is simply no precedent for an American president to spend so much time telling untruths. Every president has shaded the truth or told occasional whoppers. No other president — of either party — has behaved as Trump is behaving. He is trying to create an atmosphere in which reality is irrelevant.

The Republicans have actually done this for years, claiming that "feelings" and opinions are the same as facts. But Trump took it to a whole new level by not even bothering to disguise his lies as feelings or opinions, but just plain lying and then pretending to turn those lies into truths.

It should be noted, however, that for Republican voters it isn't a problem if a Republican president lies. Republican voters, after all, did nothing about the fact that George W. Bush took the United States into war in Irak based on a lie (the ficticious presence of weapons of mass destruction) and, in fact, increased their vote for Bush in 2004.

It was only until the economic crisis of 2008 left millions of Americans in dire financial situations that they finally voted for a Democrat.

The only silver lining in this is the fact that Trump's lies is not helping the Republicans to get more votes. In fact, in all of the special elections so far the Republicans have lost more votes than the Democrats. If this trend repeats in 2018 and 2020, Trump's lies will cost the Republicans the White House and Congress much in the way it cost them the White House and Congress in 2008.