The Bully Lie

In this episode of This American Life from a few weeks ago, Masha Gessen read an excerpt from their book Surviving Autocracy about the particular kind of lie used by autocrats like Putin and Trump.

Lies can serve a number of functions. People lie to deflect, to avoid embarrassment or evade punishment by creating doubt, to escape confrontation or lighten the blow, to make themselves appear better, to get others to do or give something, and even to entertain.

However unskilled a person may be at lying, they usually hope that the lie will be convincing. Executives want shareholders to think that they have devised a foolproof path to profits. Defendants want juries to believe that there is a chance that someone else committed the crime.

People in relationships want their partners to think that they have never even considered cheating. Guests want the host to think that they like their fish overcooked. These lies can be annoying or amusing, but they are surmountable. They collapse in the face of facts.

The Trumpian lie is different. It is the power lie or the bully lie. It is the lie of the bigger kid who took your hat and is wearing it while denying that he took it. There is no defense against this lie because the point of the lie is to assert power, to show I can say what I want, when I want to.

The power lie conjures a different reality that demands that you choose between your experience and the bully’s demands. Are you going to insist that you’re wet from the rain or give in and say that the sun is shining?

I believe the bully lie fits into the same general category as fascists seeing hypocrisy as a virtue — it only really makes sense when you think about it in terms of domination or power. (thx, caroline)

• Donald Trump
• language
• Masha Gessen
• politics
• Vladimir Putin