Trump isn't lying, he's bullshitting - and it's far more dangerous

[DonViejo]

THE CONVERSATION
27 JAN 2017 AT 10:55 ET

If you’ve been paying attention to the news over the past week or so, you know that over the weekend America was introduced to the concept of “alternative facts.” After Trump administration Press Secretary Sean Spicer rebuked the media for accurately reporting the relatively small crowds at President Donald Trump’s inauguration, senior White House aide Kellyanne Conway told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Spicer wasn’t lying; he was simply using “alternative facts.”

News outlets are still working through the process of figuring out what to call these mischaracterizations of reality. (“Alternative facts” seems to have been swiftly rejected.) Many outlets have upped their fact-checking game. The Washington Post, for instance, released a browser extension that fact-checks tweets by the president in near real-time.

Other outlets have resisted labeling Trump’s misstatements as lies. Earlier this year, for instance, the Wall Street Journal’s editor-in-chief Gerard Baker insisted that the Wall Street Journal wouldn’t label Trump’s false statements “lies.”

Baker argued that lying requires a “deliberate intention to mislead,” which couldn’t be proven in the case of Trump. Baker’s critics pushed back, raising valid and important points about the duty of the press to report what is true.

As important as discussions about the role of the press as fact-checkers are, in this case Baker’s critics are missing the point. Baker is right. Trump isn’t lying. He’s bullshitting. And that’s an important distinction to make.

Bullshitter-in-chief?

more
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/trump-isnt-lying-hes-bullshitting-and-its-far-more-dangerous/

[TreasonousBastard]

1. New Yorkers have known this for years...

He made his daily press calls for everything that crossed what passes for his mind. On a slow news day they used his musings and braggings for filler, but everyone knew he was full of shit and just talking for the sake of talking.

I was hoping that as it became more apparent on the campaign trail that everyone would pick up one it, but damn, he's good at it. Talk fast enough and you just can't keep up with the bullshit.

Yes, a lie has a purpose, and that purpose isn't always a bad one, since most lies simply try to smooth over embarrassing situations.

Bullshit, though is scary stuff. It has no point except to grease the ego of the bullshitter. While believing a lie might at least benefit the liar, believing bullshit benefits no one and can cause infinite damage.