A liar will not be believed, even when telling the truth. In a nutshell, that is the lesson in “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” one of Aesop’s Fables. In the fable, a shepherd boy becomes bored as he guards his sheep and as a result seeks attention by crying, “Wolf, “wolf!” Naturally, the villagers come running to aid him but soon discover he was fibbing. After repeated such false alarms, help no longer arrives when the boy cries, “Wolf.” Depending on the version of the story one reads, when the wolf finally does appear, it eats either the sheep or the shepherd boy. Sure enough, we get it: honesty is the best policy, a precept time-tested over millennia.
So, Trump says, “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F****** Strait, you crazy b*******, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.” – (written in a Truth Social post). He’s yelling wolf. He’s a liar.
That said, Trump presented these haughty threats he and practically everyone else knew were bluster more than substance. Lately, Trump has been crying, “wolf” on a regular basis. He does so every day, every time he opens his mouth. No U.S. president has ever used more hyperbole and falsehoods than Trump (a claim which needs no footnote, no fact checking). He is our mentally unbalanced shepherd boy. "A whole civilization,” he said, “will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will."
This nincompoop’s use of hyperbole adds wings to falseness. “I’ve … settled eight wars in 10 months,” he lied, not once but repeatedly, as if repeating a falseness will make it truth. How many times did he proclaim he would end the war between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office? How often has he insisted his second run for president was stolen by fraudulent voting? How often, if ever, has he uttered truth rather than his firehouse stream of lies? Top to bottom, his words lack anything close to truth. When he says we won the war with Iran, 100% victory, everyone in the room knows he’s lying because, well, he’s a liar and the daily news proves the U.S. has won nothing in going to war against Iran.
Or when he says our country is the only one in the world to have birthright citizenship. “You know, we're the only country that has it," Trump said in an interview, a claim he has made repeatedly, falsely. Thirty-three countries have it. When he says ours is the only country to allow mail-in voting, he’s lying again. Thirty-four countries have it.
He’s a stone-cold liar. Yet, apparently, many of his followers find his lies amusing, even inspirational. They probably enjoy sharing his distorted reality, which aligns with theirs. Truth be damned. MAGA folks like controlling the narrative even though they all know their account is exaggerated or pure fable.
Because a vast majority of “We the People” have had enough of Trump’s antics, and because most of our friends, or former friends, in the international community consider Trump to be nothing more than a braggart, grifter, swindler, and a putz, and because Trump has trampled the seed beds of our democracy, it is time for him to resign, to admit he has failed as a leader and as an honorable human being. Though he likes to control the narrative, he must surely be aware of how much he resembles a jackass. Okay, now I’m doing it. He won’t resign. He doesn’t have the courage or quality of character. We’re stuck with him. But when he next cries wolf, we should ignore him and leave him to deal with what comes next.