Thread by @AriMelber

Trump’s project always required creating his “own reality” —

Trump U. is a ‘great business’ (until it goes bankrupt);

Trump Admin will ‘make’ Mexico fund the wall (until it won’t & the US gov shuts down over it);

Trump will give his supporters ‘the news’ instead of the news..

This approach can shape public opinion in the short run, but that “propaganda effect” feeds bubbles which can eventually pop. Some things are easier to lie about than others...

So even one argues Trump has “gotten away” with more lies than a typical POTUS — sanctioned less by the political system, paying less of a price with his base (while Bush was pummeled for 1 lie about new taxes) — consider the two areas where Trump is facing swift backlash...

In court — where *lying is a crime* — Trump has already had more former aides indicted and convicted than any other first term president in history.

And in the markets, where being wrong is *expensive,* there’s a swift backlash to his shutdown and economic policies:

It’s not exactly a ‘good thing’ that courts and markets provide faster backlash than other parts of our democratic system — any con man can see the other areas where lies work with more impunity and focus on exploiting those — but it’s telling that Trump is hurting in these areas

And as President, Trump has proven to be both canny and impulsive — it’s obviously against his political self-interest to be forcing a made-up shutdown during this market drop, apparently from impulse; while he continues to try to beat back legal accountability with his AG picks.

The big Q is whether enough bubbles pop to inoculate people against Trump’s lies *going forward*

Trump U. is the classic example. It not only failed, but left some of Trump’s biggest fans — paying Trump U. customers — angrily demanding their money back from him

And they got it.

And note that example combines these *two areas of accountability* — lies impacting people’s money and lies getting busted in court — to force a man who lied about “never settling cases” to settle, and give the customers he’d conned their money back.