The Lyin’ King
The more he lied the more they loved him. It was a give and take relationship with his worshipful followers. He gave them lies of every sort — farfetched, bizarre, unnecessary, boastful, brash, easily corroborated — and they returned complete devotion. They lived for his lies, and the colorful imagination with which he devised them.
Nobody could lie like him, with such ease and lack of conscience. Who would dare? His lies were what fueled them. When confronted with the truth, their eyes glazed over, as they talked about lies that were told by others, or they simply refused to believe that, in spite of proof otherwise, his copious lies were not the truth. What was the truth? The truth was that he was who he was, and they liked who he was, regardless of the fact that, due to his continuous and remorseless river of lies, he was a lie himself: deceptive, misleading, false accusatory, slandering, effortlessly controlling his fawning fans with every deceit in the book, and they were crazy about that, and couldn’t get enough.
Lies were his bread and butter, the jam on their toast. They were the foundation of his character. Admirers traveled in throngs from miles around to hear his fantastic lies; these made up stories about his detractors, about his own wonderful qualities and achievements, the bigger the better. They were giddy over them. And these lies, these carefully contrived untruths, were what made them happy to be alive. Finally they’d found a leader who said what they wanted to hear, who “could tell it like it was.” They’d never heard anyone make up things so artfully, so irreverently, and then just spew them out like noxious fumes into the universe, and what gave them a special appeal, what was the irresistible spice in the sauce, was the toxic nastiness of them, the way he made others look so stupid and him so smart.
He never told a lie that didn’t benefit him in some way. He was the master of making himself out to be the best person there was. In fact, he said exactly that: He was the best person in the world. There was no better person anywhere than him, and he wanted everyone to know it. They had never come across another human being that, in every area of life and accomplishment, was so great and just told you so. He swore he was the best person in the world, so of course it was true. They just believed him when he said it, because he said it so well, so many times, every time he spoke. And everyone and anyone who disagreed with him, including the press, or didn’t like him, or criticized him, was not only wrong, they were pathetic losers and nutjobs.
His people were comforted by his lies. Lies about statistics, phony numbers he made up himself that no one else knew about. He just knew them. Lies about history, although recorded history was much different than “his story.” He spoke of living historical figures who had been dead for a hundred years and the great work they were doing today, and when confronted with the facts, he simply said he didn’t say that. Any time proven, documented, hard facts contradicted what he did say, he simply lied, saying he never said that, or “that wasn’t what he meant.”
Or he blamed the information on others, saying they’d given him false information. It was never his fault, how could it be? At times he said he was “joking,” of course, “And you knew that,” he said, and his people loved it, because he was making fun of the people who were not being nice to him, who weren’t respecting his lies, which meant they were out to get him, which meant they were his enemies. They loved his lies about his enemies, how he ridiculed them by calling them names and making up things that weren’t true or verifiable. Because his enemies, which his followers hated, “were not giving him a chance.”
Especially the press. Every time the press reported on his contradictions, his made up “facts,” his bizarre, fabricated stories, his bald faced lies, he called the press “dishonest” for doing it. They were the most dishonest people in the world, he said, despite that they reported the same facts separately from hundreds of media outlets all over the world. They were “the enemy of the people,” he said. No other leader had ever said that before, so it must be true. And since The Lyin’ King never, on any occasion, spoke without lying, and was always being called out for his glaring lies by hundreds of media outlets, the press were all being dishonest all the time, he said, at the same time. Except when they said something nice about him. Thousands of reporters who somehow reached the same conclusion that he was lying were “dishonest”and “the enemy of the people.”
So he lied, and when confronted with his lies, he lied again, and his people were glad to hear the new lies, the explanation lies, they were contented. There were worse things than complete liars, they said. There were people who were honest, rarely lied, but that they didn’t like because they weren’t brash and boastful like him. He bragged about how humble he was. “I don’t think you’d understand how humble I am,” he said.
He lied that he was going to “fix things fast, so fast your head would spin,” he said, and that he was the only one who could fix them. And then when he didn’t fix them, when he just made them worse, and showed that he didn’t know what he was talking about, he lied that this was the fault of others, not himself. He knew more about any problem than anyone else, he said. He knew more about war than the generals. He knew more about racial problems than the people suffering racial abuse. He knew more about climate change than the scientists. He knew more about law and order than the police. He knew more about health care than health care professionals and lawmakers, and especially the people who needed health care. He was going to give them much better health care, at a fraction of the cost.
He was going to make “great deals,” he said, because that’s what he did. Nobody made better deals than he did. So when he didn’t make any deals, or fix any problems he promised he would, when everything he touched was a failure, he attacked anyone working with him or for him, or all those people who never liked him, especially the press, and lied that it was all their fault, not his. He was the best person in the world, so it couldn’t be him. That was impossible. And they were pathetic, sad, stupid, inexcusable, a disgrace, and frankly, should be ashamed of themselves. In his lies he often used the word “frankly.”
His followers loved the way he never took responsibility, and how he blamed everyone else. How he was never, under any circumstances, mistaken. If he was failing, he blamed others; if he was succeeding, he credited himself. And since he was never succeeding, he made up many successes he was having, that he wasn’t actually having, and tried to take credit for things others had already done. They believed him, essentially, especially when he was lying. Because he lied so convincingly, it made it the truth. He was so convinced of his lies, of his made up world, of his other set of things, that these things took over and became the truth to them. Who had a right to say what the truth was anyway? The one who was most convinced of his truth, and didn’t like your silly, bland, boring other truth that didn’t serve him.
His truth was much more exciting and made people feel strong and tough, gave them the power of aggressive lies, and that they didn’t have to care about anyone but themselves, or what the facts were. They didn’t have to be kind or generous or fair, they could be as rude and hateful and abrasive as they liked. They could beat up people who didn’t agree with them. Beating up other people who didn’t like him, were disrespectful of him, spoke out against him, was just fine. If they didn’t like him, and the way he said and did things, they were fair game. If they didn’t like his lies, they were losers and weaklings. After all, he was the only one who really knew the truth.
He created “truth,” and when he wanted to change it, he changed it. He said things on camera, then said on camera he didn’t say them, and then said the first things again. He told lies, lied saying that he hadn’t told lies, then told the original lies again. And when confronted with all the lying, he called the people calling him on his lies new names, like weak, crooked, goofy, sleazy, slow, stupid, disgusting, pitiful, and his people went wild with adulation for him, laughing and cheering, motivated by the mocking tenor of his lies.
He was talking tough. He was putting nonbelieving losers in their place. It didn’t matter what he was talking about, and most of the time he was not talking about anything of substance at all, he was just ridiculing his opponents. He was just attacking people. That’s all that mattered, and what he spent most of his time doing. He could lie to his followers all he wanted, but just keep making fun of anyone who disagreed with him, keep putting them down and making them look stupid, and they’d do anything for him. They didn’t care that he wasn’t accomplishing anything, it was his hateful, daily lies that sustained them. Everyone else was an idiot but him. His lies were great, believable and strange, and his people worshiped him for them.
He held great rallies to tell his lies. Massive gatherings like pep rallies where he could tell people how great he was and celebrate himself and spread ridiculing lies about the people who didn’t like him. The only reason for these rallies was to bathe himself in cheering praise and adulation. In every category of life he was the greatest, he said. There was no one who could match his great qualities on earth. He was the smartest, wisest, he had the best temperament, he was in the greatest health, he was the best leader, and everything he did was great. Nothing he did was not great. If he did it, whatever it was, it was greater than anyone had done it before in the history of mankind, “The likes of which history has never seen,” he liked to say repeatedly when bragging about and adoring himself.
He had a great brain, and great thoughts in it, and didn’t need advisers. He had it all covered. And in time he would make things so great people would get tired of all the greatness. They wouldn’t be able to stand so much greatness and would beg him to make things less great, because things were so unbearably great, and they couldn’t take any more greatness.
And the people loved these lies the most. They loved to hear him tell how stunningly great he was, and celebrate his greatness, gloating with the satisfaction only he and his lies and his unbelievable greatness could give them. They wore greatness hats, raised greatness banners, shook their fists at the unbelievers, begging for more and bigger and wilder extravagant lies,which to them were actually the truth, the real truth that no other soul on earth knew but him.
The Lyin’ King had transformed truth with lies and made it great again. They repeated and celebrated his lies wherever they went. He was the undisputed greatest liar in history, and they were proud of it. Everything he was, and everything he was going to do, was greater than any man had done before. Just listen to him and believe it. And, frankly, he wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t the truth. He would bring hope and honor with lies. For as long as they believed his lies, and never doubted them, he would bless the land with his lies and make It great again, “The likes of which history had never seen.”
A lie was better than the truth as long as they believed in the person telling the lies. And now actual lies were anything that contradicted The Lyin’ King, because every leader but him was “fake,” he said. All the people that questioned his lies, that disputed his made up facts, that showed him contradicting himself on tape, that showed him repeatedly doing and saying the opposite of what he’d done and said before, that caught him telling lie after lie after lie, were all “fake news.” And he stood on the shoulders of his blind, reveling worshipers as they carried him, chanting his name and his lies through every street and town, emboldened by the great deception of his bloated words, of being misled by the world’s greatest liar.
And they celebrated his miraculous falseness, the self-worshiping lies of the Lyin’ King. And they were deliriously happy in their never knowing or speaking or believing or caring about or admitting one iota of the truth.
Because by believing in The Lyin’ King, they themselves had become a lie, and everything they were and would become, from that time on, was a lie.
Ron Clinton Smith is a film actor, seen on “True Detective,” “Hidden Figures,” “Just Mercy,” and a writer of stories, songs, poetry, screenplays, and the novel Creature Storms.
