Simon Tisdall, The Guardian; What unites Greenland, Venezuela and Ukraine? Trump’s immoral lies and Europe’s chronic weakness
"Donald Trump made 30,573 “false or misleading” claims during his first term, according to calculations published in 2021 by the Washington Post. That’s roughly 21 fibs a day. Second time around, he’s still hard at it, lying to Americans and the world on a daily basis. Trump’s disregard for truth and honesty in public life – seen again in his despicable response to the fatal shooting in Minneapolis – is dangerously immoral.
Trump declared last week that the only constraint on his power is “my own morality, my own mind”. That explains a lot. His idea of right and wrong is wholly subjective. He is his own ethical and legal adviser, his own priest and confessor. He is a church of one. Trump lies to himself as well as everyone else. And the resulting damage is pernicious. It costs lives, harms democracy and destroys trust between nations...
Disrespect for international law, the flouting of sovereign rights and territorial independence, and the ongoing replacement of the UN-backed rules-based order with neo-imperial spheres of influence are evident in all three crises. So, too, is a failure to defend the democratic rights of ordinary people. The US has presumptuously, illegally ruled out elections in Venezuela. Russia is trying to kill Ukraine’s democracy. Greenlanders say they alone must decide their future. But who’s listening to them?
Many of these broader trends were already well established. Yet Trump’s destabilising, unprincipled, lawless, chaotic and fundamentally immoral carrying-on in 2025 has undoubtedly acted as catalyst and accelerant. Of all these ills, his moral turpitude is the greatest. It corrupts, bedevils, darkens and poisons the humanity of the world. It is toxic to all it touches. Trumpism is a corrosive disease. Its latest victims are in Minneapolis and Portland. In truth, they are everywhere.
To mangle Mark Twain: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and Donald Trump.” Americans and their too-diffident friends in Britain and Europe must be more forceful in speaking truth to power – before, like the much-reviled George III, Trump does something really crazy."
