The Big Lie

"People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration—and a very effective form of promotion.”

- Donald Trump, The Art of the Deal

"It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying."

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X

They both believed in telling "the big lie", a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously":

• Trump lied about:

  • The size of his inauguration crowd by claiming on Jan 21, 2017, that "it looked like a million, million and half people". 

    • It was between 300,000 - 600,000 people (1.8 million attended the inauguration in 2009). 

  • The Coronavirus, when he said on February 11, 2020 "Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away". 

    • It didn't, with 4,493 people dying of Covid on Jan 12, 2021

  • The Coronavirus vaccine when he said on April 23, 2020 "We're very close to a vaccine". 

    • A vaccine was not approved by the FDA until Dec 11, 2021.  

  • The 2020 Election when he stated on Nov 4, 2020 "We already have won it", even though Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan were yet called. 

    • On Dec 14, 2020, the Electoral College confirmed Joe Biden as the nation's next president.  

  • "Dems want to shut your churches down, permanently. Hope you see what is happening." - Trump, Oct 7, 2020, Twitter

    • As I type this all churches are still open. 

  • "I never called John (McCain) a loser"  - Trump, Sep 3, 2020, Twitter

    • He did. - Snopes.com

  • "I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous . . . It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it." - Trump, Jun 19, 2020, WSJ.

    • • People had heard of it.

  • "Anybody that wants a test (for the coronavirus) can get a test." - Trump, Mar 6, 2020, Twitter

    • • They could not. 

  • "In fact, in many respects, you know they honor President Obama. ISIS is honoring President Obama. He is the founder of ISIS. He is the founder of ISIS. He’s the founder. He founded ISIS.  And I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton. Co-founder. Crooked Hillary Clinton." - Trump, Aug 11, 2016 

    • • ??????

  • He also told small lies for no reason at all:

    • "My father is German, right? Was German, and born in a very wonderful place in Germany." - Trump, Apr 2, 2019 

      • Trump's father was born in New York City.

        • Trump himself was supposedly born in New York City, though since he eats pizza with a knife and fork the issue is in doubt.

    • "if you go out and buy groceries, you need a picture on a card—you need ID." - Trump, Aug 31, 2018

      • You do not need a "picture on a card" to buy groceries. 

    • "I just wanna thank all of the men and women, who have done such a great job in helping with [Hurricane] Florence . . . one of the wettest we've ever seen from a standpoint of water." - Trump, Sep 19, 2018

      • Hurricane Florence is not on any top ten list for hurricane records. 

        • Though on the other hand Hurricane Dorian  . . .  

    • "I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn’t have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War . . . There’s no reason for this. People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War—if you think about it, why? People don’t ask that question, but why was there a Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?" - Trump, 2017

      • Andrew Jackson could not have prevented the Civil War as he died 15 years before it started. 

      • Donald Trump was not the first person ask "why was there a Civil War."

    • "No candidate has ever won both Florida and Ohio and lost. I won them both, by a lot!" - Trump, Dec 9 , 2020 (via twitter) 

      • In 1960 Republican Richard Nixon won both Florida and Ohio but lost the election to Democrat John F. Kennedy

    • "We don't have any chess grandmasters in the United States" - Trump, October 10, 2016

      • The correct term is not "grand chess masters", it is "grandmasters". Currently, the United States has 90 grandmasters, counting both men and women, which is enough to rank third-highest in the world.  

    • "At a recent round table meeting of business executives, and long after formally introducing Tim Cook of Apple, I quickly referred to Tim + Apple as Tim/Apple as an easy way to save time & words. The Fake News was disparagingly all over this, & it became yet another bad Trump story!" - Trump, Mar 11, 2019 (via twitter)

      • Not since the Middle Ages has somebody combined a man's first name with the company he works for. 

• Hitler lied: 

  • At the 1934 Berlin Auto Show: "National Socialist Germany wants peace because of its fundamental convictions. And it wants peace also owing to the realization of the simple primitive fact that no war would be likely essentially to alter the distress in Europe... The principal effect of every war is to destroy the flower of the nation... Germany needs peace and desires peace!"

  • At the 1936 Olympic Games: " The German people are not a warlike nation. It is a soldierly one, which means it does not want a war, but does not fear it. It loves peace but also loves its honor and freedom."

  • At the Reichstag in 1936 regarding Czechoslovakia: "It is the last territorial claim which I have to make in Europe, but it is the claim from which I will not recede and which, God-willing, I will make good."

    • He later claimed France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxemburg, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, Poland, the Baltic States, the Soviet Union, Austria, Egypt, parts of the United Kingdom, etc.

  • "When a friend remonstrated with him over the lies he was pumping out, reminding him that Weiss was a war hero who had won the Iron Cross, First Class, [Goebbels] was unfazed. 'Propaganda', he declared cynically, ' has absolutely nothing to do with truth." - Anthony Read, The Devil's Disciples, 2005, pg 166   

  • "Best wishes for your personal well-being as well as for the prosperous future of the peoples of the friendly Soviet Union." - Message wired to Stalin in relation to his 60th birthday (18 December), 21 December 1939

"A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth."

- Joseph Goebbels

"Our press secretary gave alternative facts to that."

- Kellyanne Conway