Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I have been out of politics for several years – mostly, other than reading about it – and I am very glad that is true.

There is one basic reason:

It used to be that, in politics, you tried to tell the truth.  Sometimes you might have failed, but then, you corrected the record or you paid a price for spreading falsehoods.

Today?

I have written about this before, but I cannot help myself to do so again.  There is just so much to write or report.

Lying often is the name of the game in national politics today, especially if you are Donald Trump or J.D. Vance as they try to win the U.S. presidential election.

Rarely does Trump pay an appropriate price for lying.  Same for Vance.

Lying is just what they do as a matter of course.  Second nature to them.  And, now, Vance is supporting a man he said only a couple years ago was ill-suited to be president or to run for the job.

The Washington Post Fact-Checker column reported that, as president, Trump told more than 35,000 lies.  Now, the same column reported these falsehoods spread by Vance during the vice-presidential debate:

• “We’re the cleanest economy in the entire world.” — (False, the United States ranked 17th.)
• “We have 320,000 children that the Department of Homeland Security has effectively lost.” — (False, this is a ginned-up number that includes the Trump years.)
• “Donald Trump could have destroyed Obamacare.  Instead, he worked in a bi-partisan way to ensure that Americans had access to affordable care.” — (False, Trump acted to kill it repeatedly in a partisan way.)
• “Remember Trump said that on January 6th, the protesters ought to protest peacefully and on January the 20th, what happened? Joe Biden became the president.” — (False, this is a whitewash of what happened.)

Then, this from Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post.

“Trump is a master liar.  There are his insulting lies (Vice President Kamala Harris is ‘mentally disabled’).

“Then there are his xenophobic (‘They are eating the dogs, the people that came in.  They’re eating the cats.’) and antisemitic (saying Jews will be responsible if he loses) lies.

“There are his economically ignorant falsehoods (e.g., foreign countries pay tariffs).  There are his lies to raise resentment and anger at the current administration (e.g., it is denying aid to hurricane victims, crime is rising, tens of thousands of migrant murderers are running loose).

“There are his lies to deflect blame (e.g., former House speaker Nancy Pelosi is responsible for the attack on January 6, 2021; sexual assault victim E. Jean Carroll, who successfully sued Trump for defamation twice, was lying).

“There are his lies about Democrats (e.g., they favor infanticide).

“Trump also recycles numerous lies about the American people (e.g., everyone wanted to repeal Roe v. Wade, women love him) and his own record (e.g., his economy was the ‘greatest’ ever, he had a perfect call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, troops under his command suffered only ‘headaches’ from an Iranian attack).

“He even lies about what he said (e.g., denying he ever signaled openness to restricting contraception).  His lies undermining democracy might be the most dangerous (e.g., he won in 2020, millions of illegal immigrants are registering to vote).

“We should not forget the ‘merely’ ludicrous assertions of his own powers. (e.g., Hamas would not have attacked Israel if he were president, he could ‘settle’ the Ukraine war) and dystopian predictions if he loses (e.g., we won’t have a country, there will be a bloodbath’).

“And his absurd conspiracy theories can never be disproven (e.g., the Deep State).  His exaggerations about his wealth, his physical health and his cognitive performance are among the most cringeworthy.

“His lies are so prolific, they prompt some to question whether he knows he is lying.  But like many authoritarian leaders, Trump uses his go-to tactic to bend reality and bamboozle the public.  He lies to conceal his own abject failures, criminality, incompetence, disloyalty and ignorance — and the lies are made more potent when the right-wing media echoes his lies and the mainstream media presents his distortions as he said-she said disputes.

“For him, it’s better to be called a liar (and rely on the public’s suspicion that ‘all politicians lie’) than acknowledge his manifest faults and failures.

There are psychological explanations for his lying.  There are historical and political explanations for his lying.  But the consequences of his lies — stoking fear, hatred and distrust of democratic elections — are disastrous for democracy, which depends on a shared understanding of reality.”

So, with Trump – as well as Vance — the best approach is to be skeptical about anything they say because it is not likely to be true.  More than skeptical.  Don’t believe them.

Hold to the truth standard and you’ll vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, as I will.