Some people buy a new home and immediately gut it. They do so, because they have a vision of what they prefer in its place. This might be especially true when the house is in disrepair and dilapidated. Almost any overhaul is an improvement. Almost. But can you imagine gutting a house, tearing it down to its studs and foundation, and then leaving it that way? Why would anyone do that? Why would anyone purchase a house, only to dismantle it and leave it?
Imagine a particular house, a multi-story dwelling, occupied by renters and co-op owners alike. A developer has come in and offered some ideas on how to refurbish and restore the building, which has stood for 235 years and has, as they say, “good bones.” The developer has put forward some plans to make the building “one of the best in the whole city. No one will have ever seen a building as great as this one.”
Many residents are delighted, even after they hear the developer, during a residents’ meeting, say that some improvements may require drastic renovations. But, he assures residents, rents and property taxes won’t go up. Still, he said, “once we get in there, we might even tear most of it down.” “Oh, he’s just joking,” many residents say to the alarmed and skeptical. “He knows how to make this building great again.”
Most neighbors near the building, on the other hand, were wary, having heard or seen what this particular developer had done before to smaller buildings. They were not shocked, then, when some residents found blueprints left behind by the contractors that the developer often uses showing a drastic tear-down. Confronted by the residents and some neighbors, the developer said, “These aren’t my blueprints. I’ve never seen them before. Some of the plans are just ridiculous.” Many remained skeptical, despite assurances from his resident allies that all would be well.
The developer won the bid to buy the building, despite some grumblings that there were bribes involved in the decision-making. Nevertheless, trucks and crews pulled up to the building to begin work. Within days, most of the building had been gutted. Long-term residents, whether renters or owners, had their apartments ripped apart. They threatened to sue. “Go ahead,” they were told by the developer’s team. “This is what most of you wanted. Besides, we own the building.” Residents complained: “You’re not making the place better. You’re just destroying it and selling off the parts.” The contractors and builders told the residents to shut up, or they’d call their buddy the sheriff. The most optimistic residents counseled waiting to see what the renovations would bring. But as yet there were no renovations. Meanwhile, through most of this, the developer was off playing golf.
The metaphor here is an obvious connection to the actions of President Trump. He didn’t exactly buy the government, though many people commented that Musk’s $290 million “donations” bought him the election. Regardless, he took the reins of power over this government and has set out to tear it down to its studs and foundation. Trump does not seem bent on totally flattening the dwelling to return it to an empty lot. He seems to just want it smaller. Yet, what that smaller version will look like isn’t clear to him or to us.
Just as the developer did, Trump lied. He has lied repeatedly and often over the past nine years. During his first term as president, Trump lied over 30,000 times. Of course, presidents, as with most politicians, lie. Though nothing matches Trumps scale of lies, some recent presidents, however, have approached his lie-magnitude.
Lyndon Johnson lied us into deeper involvement in Vietnam by fabricating the second attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. Richard Nixon lied that he had a plan to end the war in Vietnam and then, after expanding the war into Cambodia, took five years to end it. George W. Bush lied, first, that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attack and then lied us into a war in Iraq, claiming that Saddam had developed and hidden weapons of mass destruction. These lies cost us over 60,000 dead Americans and many, many thousands more injured in and damaged by these wars.
Neither political party is exempt, then, from lies. But Republicans have not only used lies, as Trump has, repeatedly and often, but they have also built a media network based on creating and telling falsehoods, distortions, and misinformation.
They have feasted politically on lies. Here are two examples of their zombie lies:
First, beginning with Reagan, they have used for over 40 years the lie that trickle-down economics—that is, tax cuts for the rich—creates jobs and increases revenue to the federal government. There is no evidence for either claim. Indeed, Reagan himself raised taxes, mostly on the middle class, 11 times over his eight years in office to try to offset the deficits his tax cuts created.
That lie created the pattern familiar to those who follow politics today: Republicans adhere to supply-side, or trickle-down, economics; they cut taxes, especially benefiting the rich; and by doing so explode the deficit and national debt. Democrats come into office and lower the deficit and, in the process, create millions of jobs. Then as the pattern continues, a Republican like Trump comes back into office, seeks to cut taxes, which explodes the deficit again. Why do they cut taxes? To grow the economy. And yet, since 1989, Democrats have created 50 million jobs to Republicans creating one million. It is now an indisputable fact that the economy does better under Democrats than under Republicans.
Another Republican lie is that school choice/vouchers help low-income students and protect religious liberty. This lie might seem like a newcomer to the Republican repertoire, but it has been around since Martin Friedman floated the idea of vouchers in the mid-1970s as a way to introduce market competition in education. A glance at the statistics shows that vouchers have failed in every context and in states as varied as Louisiana, Ohio, Indiana, and Washington.
Since 1967 no state referendum favoring vouchers has passed, not even in states that are Republican strongholds. In 2024, while Kentucky and Nebraska were voting overwhelmingly for Trump, both states defeated voucher referenda. Despite this, Republican-held state legislatures continue to push public funding for private, especially religious, schools.
The explanation is often the same: Republicans argue that they are out to save low-income kids trapped in failing schools. As funds earmarked for public education go to vouchers to pay for tuition at private schools, the public schools find themselves with less money to pay teachers, to provide adequate lab equipment and textbooks, to upgrade facilities, or to offer a full curriculum. The result? Parental satisfaction with their children’s schools declines, as does the performance of the students, now crowded into classrooms with 40 or more students. “See,” argue Republicans. “We told you these public schools are bad. Give us more public money to finance private education.”
Put simply, vouchers are a scam, a kind of “snake-oil” packaged around the idea of offering parents greater freedom through more choices. When low-income, especially Black, students returned to public schools from their voucher schools, however, their academic performance in reading and math improved.
Although these two lies are essential elements of the Republican playbook, they pale when compared with the Trump essential lie that he won the 2020 election, but was denied victory by the fraud committed by Democrats. This idea that the election was stolen, a fabrication that fed the riot at the Capitol on January 6th, that led to Trump’s defeat in 61 of 62 court cases, but that galvanized Trump’s base and the Republican Party, is a total lie without any evidence. Nevertheless, this lie has captured and now controls the entire Party, as Republican Senators and Congressional representatives fall in line to support the falsehood.
And this returns us to Trump’s current dismantling of the federal government. Republicans, having bought into or at least playing along with the lie and fearful of Trump and Elon supporting primary candidates to run against them, now supplicate themselves. They go along with, if they don’t actively help, the destruction of governmental departments and agencies. They watch like frightened neighbors as the developer tears the multi-storied building down.
But the American people want something built. They want something functional and stable. I’m not sure we care what it looks like as much as we want it to help us live better lives; to help all of us, not just the rich and well-connected, live better lives. Perhaps something better can be built from the destruction that Trump is causing. But that won’t be built by Trump and his collection of inept and unqualified contractors called a Cabinet. We can try to delay and minimize the destruction wherever and as best we can. But that is weak consolation as we watch a magnificent 235-year-old building torn down.
Now developer Trump has his sights set on some new properties in the neighborhood. What fresh lies will he and his cronies generate to justify seizing the commercial property at the corner of Canada Boulevard and Greenland Avenue or seizing the waterfront land at the intersection of Panama Street and Mexico Way? Whatever lies he tells, preliminary evidence shows that Trump’s new contractors and construction workers all speak with heavy Russian accents.
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