Donald Trump is such a liar that his fake news had to be counted, the result is appalling

Donald Trump has distinguished himself as a peddler of fake news during his various presidential campaigns. A habit that has proven to be one of the most effective techniques for the Republican to achieve his goals.

Donald Trump is not the last to denounce “fake news” in the remarks of his political rivals or the media. But the new president, re-elected to the outcome of the counts without possible dispute this Wednesday, is itself a well of “fake news” as several American newspapers have shown keeping track of the lies relayed by the billionaire.

The election campaign was a new playground for the Republican billionaire: for example, the man put forward 33 false information in just 1h30 of debate against Kamala Harris on September 10, according to CNN's count. But he did even better during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, mid-August with over 160 lies told in just one hour according to NPR radio, or three false stories per minute.

And that's without counting the many rallies during which the Republican candidate affirmed and repeated fake news concerning the career of his rival Kamala Harris, but also his own record as former president of the United States and that of the Democratic camp after Joe Biden's term. Even his speech announcing his victory on November 6 was peppered with assertions about cookie-cutter, strange and crude observations about the United States.

Nothing surprising, however, since Donald Trump's propensity to lie and spread, voluntarily, erroneous information is no longer to be proven. This habit, which consists of a real political strategy of the Republican, has been documented for years, well before his first election to the White House in 2016.

However, it was his arrival at the head of the United States that shed light on the phenomenon of “fake news”. During his term, from January 2017 to January 2021, Donald Trump made 30,573 false or misleading statements according to the fact-checking service of the Washington Post, the main American daily newspaper. This is equivalent to more than 20 lies per day for four years. But the tendency for the former White House tenant to alter the truth has worsened over the years, according to fact-checker Glenn Keesler of the Washington Post : “Trump averaged six false statements per day in his first year as president, 16 statements per day in his second year, 22 statements per day in his third year, and 39 statements per day in his final year.” A world record for a head of state.

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A report on the false information that Donald Trump has maintained since leaving the White House, particularly when announcing his candidacy for the 2024 election. During his speech, the Republican “repeated many familiar exaggerations about his own achievements, reiterated misleading attacks on political opponents and made “disastrous assessments that were at odds with reality” in about twenty statements according to the New York Times Fact Check. It is therefore no surprise that Donald Trump has returned to this habit for the 2024 election campaign.

A well-established technique with proven effectiveness

This is a well-thought-out strategy through which the Republican seeks to impose his truth, which often serves his interests, even if it is in total contradiction with the reality of the facts. And to make his erroneous statements stick in the minds of his supporters, he has his methods: repeating his version of the facts as much as possible even after verifications and denials and repeating theories already existing truths rather than inventing alternative truths.

Donald Trump does indeed tend to repeat his false statements, whether to promote himself or to denigrate his opponents. A process that allows him to benefit from the effect of the illusory truth among his supporters, that is, the tendency to believing false information to be true because it is often repeated. A Vanderbilt University study published in Public Opinion Quarterlyconfirmed a correlation between the repetition of Donald Trump's “fake news” and their erroneous perception of reality by the public.

As for the alternative versions of the facts supported by Donald Trump, they rarely come out of nowhere, as Elisa Chelle, professor of political science at the University of Paris Nanterre and specialist in American political life, explains to Le Figaro: “Very often, Trump doesn't invent anything. He takes conspiracy theories spread on social media and amplifies them, to appeal to the electorate he is targeting. This was confirmed at the end of the 2020 presidential election when he refused to acknowledge Joe Biden's victory and accused the Democratic camp of stealing the election through fraud. Donald Trump can also rely on very free and erroneous interpretations of various reports, documents or court decisions. He did so during the Covid-19 crisis when he relied on studies to reassure about the imminent end of the epidemic and the control of the situation only a few weeks after the start of the crisis. Same thing in the handling of his legal affairs which he described as "hunting à the man.