i'm thinking we should stop calling donnie a "liar"

[unblock]

it's not as if there's any doubt -- he certainly is a liar. bigly. so much of a liar, and so bad at it, that the slimiest lying bastard you've ever met looks like honest abe by comparison.

it's just that i don't think calling him a "liar" is particularly effective. or at least, i think maybe we can do better.

i think donnie himself has the potential to become a "wedge issue" for us to use on the republican party if we play it right, so let's push and see what happens. i'm thinking these might actually have more of an impact:


he's untrustworthy.
he doesn't keep his promises.
he can't keep his promises.
he betrays his own supporters.
he betrays the people who voted for him.
he's let down his party.
he's all smoke and mirrors.
"there's no there there".


i think these might cut through the foxnews filter and have an impact on republicans. they're not bothered by lying, but things like betrayal and trust are very important to them.

[Me.]

1. I Will Disagree With You

Too many people believe his lies for them not to be pointed out. Not calling him a liar is how we got here in the first place. The truth is he is the most bigly liar we've ever seen in the WH.

[unblock]

3. that's true, but my suggested word choice doesn't dispute that.

calling him "untrustworthy" and "doesn't keep his promises" pretty much means he's a liar as well, doesn't it?

except that when republicans hear democrats calling their politician a "liar" is just doesn't have any real impact. they take it (a) as a partisan attack and (b) dismiss it as "all politicians lie anyway".

but "untrustworthy"? they get that you need a certain amount of trustworthiness to be able to make deals.
"doesn't keep his promises"? they get that there's no point in voting for someone who won't keep his word.


i'm not at all suggesting we call him "honest", just trying to find the words that will have a real impact.

i think we've done what damage we can calling him a liar.

[Me.]

6. Then Why Make Substitutions

Instead of the straight up brutal truth? Believe me, he wouldn't & hasn't shied away from such. He was a liar when he said PBO wasn't born in this country and when he said PBO was a bad/sick man.

"calling him "untrustworthy" and "doesn't keep his promises" pretty much means he's a liar as well, doesn't it" soft-pedals the fact that he is LIAR. And I don't assume we've over-used the term. It's just now that the media are starting to call him a liar and that title needs to be repeated until it sticks to him like toupee tape.

[spanone]

2. ok....

he's untrustworthy because he lies.
he doesn't keep his promises because he's a liar.
he can't keep his promises because they're based on lies.
he betrays his own supporters and lies to them.
he betrays the people who voted for him with lies.
he's let down his party due to lies.
he's all smoke and mirrors and lies.
"there's no there there", another lie.

[unblock]

4. fair enough, there's room for both approaches, i suppose

[spanone]

5. 😎

[malaise]

7. Sorry

He's a fucking LIAR and a pathological one to boot

[dalton99a]

10. No truer words.

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15. i agree completely

but i think we've maxed out on reaching people who care about that.

i think we need to hit him from another angle now.

[malaise]

17. You'd be surprised

Even some of his loyal subjects are now fed up

[unblock]

20. i know plenty. they have the decency to hang their head low,

but they still vote for him and every other republican....

[WinkyDink]

8. Brevity is the soul of wit. "Liar" will do. More is our usual Casper Milquetoast approach.

[unblock]

11. what's milquetoast about saying he betrays his own voters??

[dalton99a]

9. One big reason he got this far is the press hesitated to call him a liar during the primaries

for fear of sounding shrill and losing access.

They all used a big therausus and bent over backward to avoid using the word "lie" - until the end when the NYT used it.

[unblock]

12. i'm not suggesting backpeddaling or sugar-coating.

yes, trying to say "liar" delicately like "should have known better" or "clearly didn't do the research" or even "might be bending the truth" would be a big step in the wrong direction.

i'm not advocating that. i'm suggesting other approaches that will also hit.


there are plenty of people out there who are not bothered by the fact that he lies, but are bothered by the fact that he betrays them.

[malaise]

13. We'd write off our own relatives if they lied like this scumbag

A LIAR must be called a LIAR

[Bengus81]

14. LOL...no he's a LIAR and a habitual one. n't

[unblock]

19. absolutely. but we're not going to convince anyone who's not already convinced by saying that.

i think it was important to get to the point where the media actually uses the word "liar".

but i think we've got to develop other lines of attack to finish him off.

[mopinko]

16. i agree. liar bounces right off and implies

that he even knows that he is lying. considering his inability to tell fact from fiction, it is sorta easy for them to say- oh, it isnt a lie, he just heard something different.
and cant tell the difference.

doesnt keep his promises is the one that i think should be pounded on.
THAT gets through to the unwashed.

[unblock]

18. thank you!

[Caliman73]

21. You can say all of those things about Trump AND call him a liar.

As another response indicated. He is untrustworthy because he is a liar. Everything that you listed stems from the fact that he lies.

Trump lies to purposely deceive other for his direct benefit. He does not appear to have remorse about lying despite the tangible evidence that his lies hurt other people. You can call him any one of those things that you have listed because he is ALL of them, but we have to remember that he is ALL of them because he is a liar.

He has a set of followers who are so invested that they will not be affected by anything we say. We are trying to reach those who can be swayed by reality. If we use accurate words to describe his actions, then it is better. If he is lying, then we call it lying. We can say he is untrustworthy because he has told so many lies that he is unable to be trusted. He cannot keep his promises because he doesn't remember them through all the lies, or he simply did not intend to fulfill them, which means he lied about them.

[unblock]

22. fair point.

though i disagree that we're still trying to reach people who can be swayed by reality. i think we've reached those.

we need to reach people who are not swayed by facts or logic, but by emotion. calling him a "liar" is a hit, but it's not enough.

we need to draw a distinction between his lying vs., say, shrub's lying. shrub lied plenty, most notoriously to get us into the iraq war. but republicans found him trustworthy because he kept promises to cut taxes, etc.

so when we call donnie a "liar", many republicans hear it like that, yeah, yeah, democrats called shrub a liar too, etc.

that's why we need these other lines of attack (even though, yes, they all involve lying) the fact that he betrays his own voters is something you couldn't say about shrub, for instance (well, he did through his incompetence and the usual republican policies, but that's another matter).