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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nPhotograph Source: Matt Johnson \u2013\u00a0<\/em>CC BY 2.0<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bernie Sanders<\/a> has routinely called Trump a \u201cpathological liar.\u201d The term pathological liar<\/em>, a controversial one for psychiatrists<\/a>, in common usage coveys someone who is an extraordinarily unrestrained liar. And so, Bernie knows that it is in no way radical to use this term to describe the unrelentingly self-serving Trump who unhesitatingly lies if he judges it to be in his self-interest. While Bernie\u2019s diagnosis of Trump is a politically safe one, a more uncomfortable assessment for him would be: What type of liar is Joe Biden?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ll get to Biden\u2014whose lies, not his gaffes, are what the Blue Team should worry most about. But first, some of what makes Trump an exceptional and extraordinary liar, even for a US president. Trump is obviously not the first politician to have zero allegiance to the truth, but he remains extraordinary\u2014not merely in the sheer quantity of his lies but also in other ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most obvious area of Trump\u2019s extraordinariness as a liar is his staggering number of lies. \u201cPresident Trump Made 16,241 False or Misleading Claims in His First Three Years<\/a>\u201d was the headline of the Washington Post <\/em>in January 2020, which reports, \u201cHe averaged six such claims a day in 2017, nearly 16 a day in 2018 and more than 22 a day in 2019.\u201d This was before his 2020 epidemic of false and misleading claims around COVID-19<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to the sheer number of lies, what makes Trump extraordinary is his striking incapacity to gage how easily and quickly his lies will be detected. For some psychiatrists<\/a>, assertions that are \u201ceasily verifiable to be untrue\u201d indicate a pathological liar, but for me, it just means that Trump is a child-like liar. Trump is no different than the five-year old with chocolate cake smeared all over his face who, when confronted by his parents for eating his brother\u2019s last piece of birthday chocolate cake, tells his parents that he has never had chocolate cake in his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of many examples of this child-like lying occurred on March 7, 2020, when Trump stated about COVID-19 testing<\/a>, \u201cAnybody that wants a test can get a test. That\u2019s what the bottom line is.\u201d Even Trump supporters\u2014who believe that all news that Trump doesn\u2019t like is \u201cfake news\u201d \u2014had themselves experienced or had heard from family and friends that Trump\u2019s COVID-19 test availability assertion was false.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We can always count on Trump to have regard only for himself and to have no regard for the truth, but part of what makes him especially anxiety producing is that we can\u2019t count on him to be smart enough to know what falsehood will in fact be self-serving. The Trump combination of being both an unrelentingly self-serving liar and a poor judge of what in fact is self-serving creates a unique kind of uncertainty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What also distinguishes Trump as a liar compared to other liar US presidents is that Trump is unbothered by the consequences of being caught lying. Trump\u2019s arrogance has been, in a perverse sense, justified. Trump is not extraordinary in the sense that he believes he is above the law\u2014that\u2019s par for the course for most US presidents\u2014but he is extraordinary in his belief that there are no consequences for being caught lying. This makes Trump different than most of our well-known liar US presidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lyndon Johnson lied constantly to the American people about how the United States was winning the Vietnam War. But once the highly-trusted Walter Cronkite told the American people that the war was unwinnable, Johnson knew that his lying was obvious, and he knew that he had lost credibility and did not run for re-election. Even the consummate liar Richard Nixon sensed that being caught lying was not a good thing. Not Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This brings us to Joe Biden. Just what kind of liar is he? The following is a sampling of some\u2014certainly not all\u2014of Biden\u2019s lies in a variety of areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden\u2019s lies about his policy record are numerous and glaring. One of Biden\u2019s most often repeated lies, widely reported as a lie even by CNN,<\/a> is how he opposed the 2003 Iraq War from the very moment it began. Of course, not only was Biden instrumental to the launch of this war but supported it long after it began\u2014this all painfully depicted in the Danny Glover narrated short documentary \u201cWorth the Price?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Iraq War lie is certainly not Biden\u2019s only policy record lie. Regarding Social Security, Biden repeatedly lied in recent debates saying, \u201cI didn\u2019t propose a freeze,\u201d when he had repeatedly argued for not only freezes but cuts in Social Security<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond his lies about his policy record, Biden has repeatedly lied with the intent of making himself appear to be honorable. He has often lied about how \u201che got involved in the Civil Rights movement\u201d and how \u201che marched in the Civil Rights movement,\u201d despite videos<\/a> of him admitting this to be untrue. Also to court African American voters, he has repeatedly lied about getting arrested in South Africa attempting to visit Nelson Mandela in prison, an assertion that he has now admitted is untrue<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Attempting to make himself appear intelligent, Biden has lied about his academic record and his grades, lying about graduating in the top half of his law school class when in fact he graduated 76th<\/sup> in a class of 85<\/a>. Then there is his infamous plagiarism<\/a> that derailed his campaign to win the Democratic nomination for president in 1988. His plagiarizing of then British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock brought attention to Biden\u2019s previous plagiarism at Syracuse University College of Law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the lesser-known Biden lies may not be as significant a lie for some journalists, but it is a lie that speaks loudly about Biden\u2019s character\u2014or lack thereof. Perhaps it is just me, but I find it especially pathetic when someone exploits family tragedy for political purposes with a lie that creates personal tragedy for someone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Specifically, it is Biden\u2019s lie about the horrific traffic accident in 1972<\/a> that resulted in the tragic death of his first wife and his baby daughter, as well as resulting in severe injuries to his sons. The truth is that Biden\u2019s then wife was hit by a truck after she drove into an intersection in which the truck had the right of way<\/a>, and the police investigation cleared the truck\u2019s driver from any blame. To gain greater sympathy for himself, Biden repeatedly lied to the public saying that the truck driver, Curtis Dunn, was a man who \u201cdrank his lunch instead of eating his lunch.\u201d This falsehood of course deeply hurt Dunn. His family made many attempts to get Biden to correct it, and finally in 2009, after Curtis Dunn was dead, Biden called Dunn\u2019s daughter to apologize<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I began researching this piece, I knew that Joe Biden told lies, but my expectation was that I would be able to make a clear distinction between Biden and Trump with respect to the type of liar each is. With the exceptions of the staggering amount of Trump falsehoods, and the fact that Biden has admitted to some of his lies, I can\u2019t find much difference between them. Sorry, Blue Team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden\u2019s well-publicized record of lying should be well-known to those who pull the strings of the Democratic National Committee (DNC)\u2014those who have been orchestrating Biden\u2019s nomination. This compels several questions: Is the DNC so stupid so as to not realize what a gift a Biden candidacy is to Trump, who can easily use the facts of Biden\u2019s lying to suppress the Blue Team vote? Is it not obvious that many Blue Team voters will stay home rather than vote to replace one liar with another? Or is the DNC and its masters so evil that they really don\u2019t mind having Trump win again? So evil that opting for an alternative to Biden who could beat Trump but who is slightly less oligarchy-friendly than Biden was out of the question for them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Considering these questions makes me think about George Orwell\u2019s examination of the actions of the British ruling class with respect to the Spanish Civil War. In Orwell\u2019s essay, \u201cLooking Back on the Spanish War,\u201d he observed that at the time of that war, \u201cone did not need to be a clairvoyant to foresee that war between Britain and Germany was coming\u201d yet the \u201cthe British ruling class did all they could to hand Spain over to Franco and the Nazis.\u201d Orwell then tried to figure out why the British ruling class acted in such a manner: \u201cBecause they were pro-Fascist, was the obvious answer. Undoubtedly they were, and yet when it came to the final showdown they chose to stand up to Germany. . . .Whether the British ruling class are wicked or merely stupid is one of the most difficult questions of our time, and at certain moments a very important question.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wicked or merely stupid? It is not only the British ruling class that provokes that question.Join the debate on Facebook<\/a>More articles by:BRUCE E. LEVINE<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bruce E. Levine<\/a>, a practicing clinical psychologist often at odds with the mainstream of his profession, writes and speaks about how society, culture, politics and psychology intersect. His most recent book is Resisting Illegitimate Authority: A Thinking Person\u2019s Guide to Being an Anti-Authoritarian\u2015Strategies, Tools, and Models <\/a>(AK Press, September, 2018). <\/em>His Web site is brucelevine.net<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MAY 1, 2020 by\u00a0BRUCE E. LEVINE (counterpunch.org) Photograph Source: Matt Johnson \u2013\u00a0CC BY 2.0 Bernie Sanders has routinely called Trump a \u201cpathological liar.\u201d The term pathological liar, a controversial one for psychiatrists, in common usage coveys someone who is an extraordinarily unrestrained liar. And so, Bernie knows that it is in no way… Continue reading