PLEASE NOTE: The purpose of this assignment is for you take information from the first two articles and apply it to the third reading, not to necessarily express a political view one way or another.

Even though I assigned this article about Trump’s lies, I do not mean to offend anyone who has different political beliefs than me. I value all viewpoints, and a range of different ideas is part of what makes a college class interesting. I am always open-minded when  reading somone else’s opninion that is different from mine, so don’t hesitate to be honest about whatever political beliefs you have.

Assignment:

Find one point from the article “Why We Lie” to explain and argue either for or against something Chris Cillizza writes about in “3 theories on why Donald Trump’s lies don’t seem to faze him….”

Then, find one point from the article “What’s Good About Lying” to explain and argue either for or against something Chris Cillizza writes about in “3 theories.”

For example: Chris Cillizza begins his article with the example of Donald Trump lying to the NATO General Secretary about his father being born in Germany. This is an obvious lie because the fact is that Trump’s father was born in New York, while his grandfather was born in Germany. Why would Trump make such a blatant lie?  Jeremy Adam Smith explains that one reason people lie is to make others feel better. Smith calls these lies ‘proso cial lies’falsehoods told for someone elses benefit.” In this case, maybe Trump was trying to establish a connection with the Secretary General by pointing out something they had in common. So, who really cares? The reason this small lie is important is that it shows Trump’s pattern of lying, As Alix Lickerman explains, this kind of lie “unmasks a character defect we then have the opportunity to change.” The character defect here is that Trump lies about big and small things, and many of these lies are damaging to other people, as can be seen with the large number of deaths due to COVID 19.