Is it? It wouldn’t surprise me at all if it was true. Bullshit awards are commonplace. I would have thought it was quite likely that he has received awards from toadying officials for chopping down 200 trees instead of 250 or for donating a small sum to a local environmental cause to smooth over a property deal.
I worry that Trump’s strategy of dealing with the media, which was ultimately quite successful in getting him elected, will continue to be employed with the same deftness and aplomb as president. His rapid-fire succession of lie after shameless lie constantly keeps the story changing and the pages turning. He’s changing the school of thought in political communication right before our eyes. Whereas the time-honored playbook called for making sure that the president doesn’t become the story, Trump has turned that on its head. He has sought to be the story, and in doing so, he has also distracted journalists from focusing on the policies he’s set to enact for any extended period of time. People are offered a new outrage on a daily basis. Before long, we’ll have outrage fatigue and deafness.
Maybe that’s the case, but it’s also possible that in an age of fragmented media, it’s becoming more difficult to know (or even care) what the truth is. In the end, “truth” is what people perceive. So are “untruths”. If people stop listening and lies become “noise”, then there is no such thing as an untruth. He can lie with impunity until people find more personal reasons to protest his presidency, like a stock market crash or rising unemployment.
It would be somewhat comforting to think “Trump isn’t really this horrible; he believes what he’s saying.” But no, he is that horrible.
You have to bear in mind that he wasn’t living in an alley eating garbage in the cold until January 20. He was, for all his flim flam, a successful businessman - and yes, I know he’s declared bankruptcy and many of his ventures have failed, but HE is personally very comfortable and that’s all that matters to him, so he’s successful. He is self-evidently capable of living the life he chose to live, as a real estate huckster, and he’s been doing it for decades. If he was not capable of differentiating between reality and falsehood, he would not be able to function.
He knows damn well he’s lying. His manner of speaking and saying outrageous things is a part of his approach.
Here is a quote from his ABC interview last night in regards to his CIA speech:
PRESIDENT TRUMP: That location was given to me. Mike Pence went up before me, paid great homage to the wall. I then went up, paid great homage to the wall. I then spoke to the crowd. I got a standing ovation. In fact, they said it was the biggest standing ovation since Peyton Manning had won the Super Bowl and they said it was equal. I got a standing ovation. It lasted for a long period of time.
