This is an incident that I can’t stop thinking about... even though in the grand scheme of things, it’s quite minor. In June 2018, Rep. Mark Sanford lost his primary, in part because he offered mild criticism of the President. cnn.com/2018/06/19/pol…
The President then attended a meeting of the House GOP, to address them about other issues, and mocked Sanford. The GOPers didn’t like it. How do we know that? Because they were mad enough about it to tell the press. Rep Paul Gosar talked to CNN about it. Paul Gosar!
The next day, the President tweeted this: “Had a great meeting with the House GOP last night at the Capitol. They applauded and laughed loudly when I mentioned my experience with Mark Sanford. I have never been a fan of his!"
The usual, unanswerable questions apply to this falsehood. Does he really believe it? Was it a conscious expression of dominance? Or just a reflexive defense in the face of criticism?
But what struck me at the time, and still does, is that this was the President lying about his allies. He was lying about them, what they had themselves seen and done. And, as far I know, not one of them objected to the lie, then or since.
Perhaps it had happened before. I’m sure it’s happened since. But to my knowledge this was the first time his congressional supporters were themselves the subject of a Presidential fiction. That they silently accepted it strikes me as an unheralded turning point.
