The German political philosopher Hannah Arendt spent a lifetime studying and writing about totalitarian systems after she fled from Nazi Germany.  (She also co-taught a course that I took in my college years a long time ago.)  Arendt wrote: "The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist but people for whom the distinction between fact
fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist."

Donald Trump has a unique status among American politicians as the most effective exemplar and propagator of the fateful failure to uphold the truth so as to open the way to totalitarianism. His public statements are filled with wild exaggerations, self-serving fantasies, and just plain lies.  His constant refrain "fake news" is an attempt to inoculate his listeners against facts.

Over time most of us have become unresponsive to the relentless bombardment of untruth from Trump. At tragic cost to basic integrity the media have accommodated to Trump just "being Trump."  What would have sunk any previous administration is
daily portrayed with hardly a murmur of protest. As Maureen Dowd has written, "Step by slimy step, President Trump has made us numb to his crudeness and cruelty."

Countless examples can be cited of Trump's daily false assertions that are largely accepted by his MAGA audience: the "stolen election" in 2020; claims of the "best polls ever" when the reverse is true; phony data to illustrate a "Golden Age" in our economy which defy every shoppers lived experiences; and Trump's unfounded assertions that the U.S. receives "hundreds of billions of dollars as a direct result of tariffs being charged to other countries" when all those payments are made by Americans.

The cumulative effect of Trump's flight from reality is to blur the distinction between fact and fiction as Arendt observed and to enhance his totalitarian aspirations.

James Matlack lives in Camden