

There was a time, not all that long ago, when just one provable and substantial lie was presumed to be the equivalent of kryptonite for a president and their administration. The presumption was that most voters viewed this issue much like law enforcement sees that of speeding on the highways, or most spouses perceive infidelity; it’s appropriate to severely punish any obvious infraction because there is an extremely high likelihood that the perpetrator has done the same thing many other times when they haven’t been caught in the act.

While it may seem like the dark ages now, it was as recently as 1992 when President George H.W. Bush, who had just overwhelmingly won the first Iraq War, was denied reelection largely because he had famously said, “Read my lips… no…new…taxes” before then breaking that pledge. The seemingly honest Bush, like a child without their vaccination shots, was greatly weakened by just this one lie because he lacked any immunity to the virus of perceived dishonesty.

Today, President Donald Trump is benefiting from a vastly different cultural landscape when it comes to lying. Ironically, the husband of the woman he defeated in 2016, Bill Clinton, paved a path for this deceitful new world to develop after he got away with probably the greatest whopper in presidential history when he absurdly claimed, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

But as much of a deceiver as Clinton was, let’s face it, Donald Trump is in a whole other class of liar. Trump is not only a well-documented pathological liar, his fabrications are — unlike Clinton’s which were so slippery they earned him the nickname “Slick Willie” — usually so unhinged from reality as to appear to be drifting in outer space, no longer even within the gravitational pull of rationality.

For me, this has always been the most objectionable part of conservatives making this grand bargain to sell their souls to Trump. In my view, Trump could be incredibly effective at instituting conservative polices (he is not), but by single-handedly destroying the value and perception of truth in our society he renders everything else irrelevant, or at least not worth that kind of substantial price.

Adding insult to injury, there are two particularly galling aspects of Trump’s propensity to lie profusely which have come as a bit of shock, even to a cynic like me. The first is that he has revealed that a huge portion of the Republican Party doesn’t really give a damn about lying, and the second is that Trump actually gains a tremendous advantage due to the sheer magnitude of his deceitfulness.

It is this second point which came into further focus yesterday with the airing of yet another in a series of bizarre interviews, to which we have all become dangerously desensitized. This one with Chris Wallace of Fox News, provided the final evidence of a lie that would have effectively ended any previous presidency.

In the interview, Trump made it clear to Wallace that he is never going to do a legitimate interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller for the Russia investigation. This is in direct contradiction of his promise, made on live television, at the beginning of the probe, to “100%” willingly testify for Mueller.

Because of the unambiguous nature of the lie, the substantive nature of the subject, and the reality that the only logical reason for the lie is that he is guilty of something very serious, this falsehood should be a mortal threat to Trump’s ability to remain in real power. However, largely because of Trump’s voluminous record of constantly lying, this particular lie has received shockingly little media coverage.

By lying multiple times a day, Trump has made it impossible for the media to either keep track, or hold him accountable. There is simply not enough time/space to do so, and because it is no longer “news” when Trump lies, he has literally sucked the power out of the accusation, essentially providing himself with an inoculation from this sin causing any negative impact.

Most people in the media legitimately get tired of trying to call out all of Trump’s lies and simply stop doing so, presuming that it no longer matters to the public because it is all baked into his political cake. This is exactly what Trump wants, and it is probably the only way that he ultimately wins.

Let’s be very clear what Trump did here. He knowingly lied back at the start of the probe to show his fans that he has absolutely nothing of which to be afraid. This then bought him and his state-run media sycophants enough time to bash life-long Republican war hero Robert Mueller so that his standing within the conservative ranks would diminish enough to where he wouldn’t actually have to fulfill his false promise.

Even now he is smartly hedging his unwillingness to testify as to make sure that the media never does get their smoking gun that he clearly lied about this until it is already too late. The media, stupidly, is once again playing right into his hands.

It is one thing for his “Cult 45” fan base to not care that Trump is lying in a way that they never would have allowed Barack Obama or either of the Clintons to get away with. But is far worse when the news media, seemingly out of pure exhaustion, decides to not even confront him because they unilaterally decide that it is now pointless to make a Trump lie, even one of this magnitude, a major topic of public conversation.

John Ziegler hosts a weekly podcast focusing on news media issues and is documentary filmmaker. You can follow him on Twitter at @ZigManFreud or email him at [email protected]

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.