‘Lies are the new truth’

Recently, I looked at the instructions on a skirt I was about to launder and noticed the small print on the tag: “Dirty is the new clean. Wear more, wash less. Wear it out or pass it on.”

Love the sentiment; I’m a recycler from way back. But what struck me was the similarity to the new presidency where we have someone whose “alternative facts” are passed off as truth. The words coming from the mouth of the most powerful man in the world are not to be taken lightly. If we cannot trust him to tell the truth, what kind of a democracy do we have?

Thomas Friedman wrote that a friend from Zimbabwe scolded him about our fragile democracy: Here in America, she said, we treat democracy as if we could “kick it around like a football, but in fact it is very fragile, like a Faberge egg. You can break it.”

With Trump, we have someone whose sense of history, inquisitiveness, appreciation for the arts and even everyday common decency are sorely missing. The tagline for Mr. Trump’s administration should be: “Lies are the new truth.”