Courting disaster

To the editor:

Does it matter that our president, the most powerful man on earth, is a pathological and malignant liar? To the Republicans in Congress and over 40 percent of the Republican voters, it really doesn't matter — yet!  

Mark Twain said, “Never tell a lie and you don’t have to remember anything.”

Donald Trump rarely tells the truth, and it doesn’t matter because he obviously enjoys lying, and he doesn’t remember (or care) today what he said yesterday.  

The Washington Post Fact Checker recorded 30,573 false or misleading statements during Trump’s first presidential term, which comes out to an average of 21 a day.  

While there is no single database for the most recent year, extrapolating from his patterns of lying; that is, maintaining 30 to 40 deceptions per day, he probably has stated at least 10,000 deceptive statements in the past 12 months.  

I’m sure that Donald Trump could not give a definition of “relativism,” but relativism holds that truth is subjective and varies depending on individual perspectives or cultural contexts. But Trump couldn’t use this as a defense for his lies since he has no respect for any truth that doesn’t benefit or flatter him.

Can we survive as a great nation with a malignant liar as our leader?  I don’t believe we can.  When more voters and members of Congress realize the damage Trump is doing to our nation,  I think (and hope) they will turn against him, and he will be stopped, possibly by impeachment or by overwhelming public rejection.  His cult will diminish and ultimately collapse.

One more prediction:  There will be a “civil war” within the U.S. Supreme Court with three or even four women justices speaking out publicly against four male justices, with Chief Justice Roberts caught in the middle.  

Michael J. Gorman