Donald Trump Is a Consistent, Brazen, Serial Liar

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Today Ron Fournier bids farewell to Washington with a column declaring Donald Trump unfit for the Oval Office:

There’s Simply No Equivalence
Hillary Clinton has her problems, but Donald Trump is unfit for the presidency.

….On one hand, Clinton. On the other hand, Trump. That’s the unfortunate choice facing voters in a system rigged heavily in favor of the two major parties. But there’s no equivalence.

On one hand, Benghazi and email and lies.

On the other hand, mendacity, bigotry, bullyism, narcissism, sexism, selfishness, sociopathology, and a lack of understanding or interest in public policy—all to extremes unseen in modern presidential politics.

I don’t mean to criticize Fournier for anything here, but he uses a formulation that I’ve seen all too often and it puzzles me. Critics of Hillary Clinton always mention that she “lies.” But Trump? It’s all bigotry, ignorance, and narcissism. Why? Trump lies practically every time he opens his mouth. Without getting into the question of how often or how seriously Hillary lies, there’s really no question that Trump outclasses her about a thousand to one on this score.

Fournier actually does better than some, since he at least mentions “mendacity” in his list. But why not just say Trump is a liar? And not just any liar. By a wide margin Trump is the most consistent, brazen, serial liar in presidential campaign history. He’s so far off the charts it’s hard to even describe what he does. This really deserves to be called out more often.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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