Trump and the Art of the Bullshitter (From the Honestly Archives)

Breaking History

The Free Press

History

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

*This episode originally ran on November 2, 2024 on Honestly with Bari Weiss* Bullshit is an American tradition. Think the theatrics of P.T. Barnum, miracle products sold ad nauseam on television in the 1980s and, of course, politicians. Who can forget President Bill Clinton saying “It depends upon what the meaning of the word is is” during his grand jury testimony in the Monica Lewinsky scandal? And then there’s Donald Trump. He presents as a man with no fact-checking filter, someone happily buying his own convenient bullshit. That’s not quite the same thing as lying. That isn’t to say Trump doesn’t lie. He’s a politician, after all. But he exists outside the binary of truth and lies. It’s the netherworld of flimflam, hyperbole, sales pitches, and ad copy delivered with all the quiet dignity of a wet T-shirt contest. Donald Trump is a very modern artist, weaving a barrage of anecdotes, fake and real statistics, gossip, and memes into a nebulous and suggestive species of patter. Democrats have tried to paint Trump as an American Hitler, a Russian agent, a man consumed with evil and hatred. But what they fail to understand is that Trump’s casual relationship to the truth is an echo of past politicians. He is hardly the first bullshitter to ascend to the White House; he’s just the best ever to do it. He paints a picture of a reality he would like us to see, not as it really is. In this respect, Trump is the crack cocaine variant of many of his predecessors. Ronald Reagan was a folksy, sentimental bullshitter, a president as a Hallmark greeting card. Bill Clinton was a slick bullshitter, perfect for spinning stories at the dawn of the cable news era. Eli Lake explores the soft spot that Americans have for bullshitters like Trump, and their disdain for liars like Richard Nixon. He argues that if you want to understand why Trump may be on the verge of winning the White House again, you have to reckon with our country’s relationship to the pungent brown stuff. It pervades everything from our economy to our culture. Bullshit is dangerous when it comes to science. But in politics, bullshit is sadly essential. Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. CREDITSProducer Greg CollardExecutive Producer Alex Miller Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	When the Western artist George Catlin journeyed to the Southern Plains in 1834, the animal that caught his attention there was the wild horse, which covered the country in immense herds.
0:12.8	Little known to Catlin or to Thomas Jefferson who longed to know more about horses in their natural state.
0:19.3	Horses were so successful in the Western wilds because they
0:22.8	were original natives of North America. Eventually, a trade in wild horses dominated the southern
0:29.5	west. It became an unexpected success and mustangers, a working class phenomenon of the West.
0:38.0	Learn more on episode 11 of the American West with Dan Flores, the latest show from the
0:44.1	Meat Eater podcast network hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you
0:51.0	by Velvet Buck, Wine with a Backbone.
0:54.7	By focusing on deep time, wild animals, and the West's unique environments,
1:00.5	this podcast is a look at a West available nowhere else.
1:05.1	Tune in now to the American West on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:16.6	This.
1:17.4	Hi, it's Vince with Sham Wow.
1:19.1	You'll be saying, wow, every time you use this towel.
1:21.4	It's bullshit.
1:21.8	It's like a shamy.
1:23.0	It's like a towel.
1:23.9	It's like a sponge.
1:25.1	I am the cream here.
1:28.5	This is also bullshit.
1:30.2	And there is no one that does it better than the macho man Randy Savage.
1:36.1	And this is bullshit.
	...

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