All presidential administrations manipulate the news. All have an angle. Some put out falsehoods, most try to hang onto something they can claim as the truth because a president’s credibility throughout the world is essential. It can become a weapon used for the benefit of Americans or to our detriment. When a president speaks, the words mean something.

We have never had a president like Trump, who used words for two reasons. He talked to lift himself up, or to hurt someone else. He hurt a lot of people. He hurt them with truths and he hurt them with lies. To Trump, words were knives, used by a man who saw himself as a “killer” and his words resulted in some grievous wounds. Some killed. “It will disappear …”

Now in the last week of the Trump administration, some White House staffers are surveying the landscape and assessing the damage. Yes, Trump brought in a lot of unqualified people. Yes, facts got buried or overlooked because no one wanted to tell Trump things he didn’t want to hear. No, Trump never had the desire nor the ability to grasp all that the job entailed. But it was the lies that brought this administration down and brought the country to its knees. There is no getting around it, not even for those advisers closest to Trump.

According to Jim Acosta:

“But Anderson, even his own advisers know that he’s going down in history books as a villain, as a scoundrel, as an outcast and a pariah,” Acosta said. “I talked to one advisor earlier today who said ‘Donald Trump is going to be known as somebody who destroyed everything because of his lies.’”

He added that the adviser also told him that “when people tell their children about the importance of telling the truth, as we’ve all been wondering how do we explain to our kids what’s happening right now, one of the president’s own advisers was saying ‘This is what you’re going to tell your children. You don’t want to lie all the time because you might end up like Donald Trump.’”

Yes, most healthy parents and citizens believe this and will absorb the lesson, but not all.

We worry about the MAGAs and their children. What lessons did they learn? It certainly was not “Be Best.” They might have learned a couple of lessons. First, liberals will hurt you. Ghat’s all liberals want to do, they want to bring you down. Second, the MAGAs might learn that only people who fight and tear others down will ever succeed. Only the traditional Christian white alpha men win in this country.

So while there are a lot of lessons to be taken away from the Trump presidency, it won’t just be the lies that are remembered. We fear those people who believe Trump taught them how to be great and how to create a world that bends to them.

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Peace, y’all
Jaosn
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak