I’m more interested in the goals of the people who believe these obvious lies than in the goals of the people who tell them, but Trump seems to have slipped from the category of teller to that of believer — he seems to think that there is some sort of evidence that the Crowdstrike conspiracy theory was real. I don’t think he was encouraging Zelensky to fabricate evidence, though my take is that if he had to choose between fabricated non-facts that the DNC hid a server in Ukraine and a complete lack of real facts that they did so (you can’t prove a negative, so there are no facts that show there was no DNC server in Ukraine), then he would opt for faux facts that supported him politically, as opposed to verifiable facts that didn’t support him.
Why in this particular case is Trump so invested in finding “proof” of Ukrainian collusion (and by extension Russian innocence)? I think it’s because he can’t (meaning “doesn’t want to”) believe that he lost the popular vote. He’d also like to find evidence that he didn’t win the electoral college vote because of interference by V. Putin, hence the goal of proving no Russian collusion, but more importantly he can’t accept the fact that a majority of voters rejected him. You’ll probably remember that immediately after the results were in, Trump hatched a conspiracy theory that illegal voting was responsible for Clinton’s majority.
Trump’s primary goal is to preserve his own notion that he is popular. It’s why he holds rallies — for the applause, not to convince attendees to follow a certain course of action. As greedy as he is, he’s not even doing it for the money.
Now why do Trump’s followers cling to the shaky and sometimes obviously fallacious theories that the White House shoots out like self-serve imitation chocolate ice cream that’s already started to melt in the machine at the All You Can Eat Buffet?
Their goal is not to maintain the notion that Trump is infallible but the illusion that their goals express the “will of the nation” — that they think and speak for everyone, and that everyone except a small group of malcontents agrees with their vision of how things should be. People select leaders on the basis of affiliation, not honesty or incorruptibility, and Trump’s supporters have decided that he is one of them, to the extent that his most rabid fans (including ministers) have hinted at civil war if he is removed from office (and no doubt they think they would win such a war). A threat to Trump’s hegemony is a threat to the survival of their identity.
This self-protection phenomenon is not exclusive to one particular ideology or bias. During the 2016 primary, a bug on Facebook temporarily took down a number of Facebook groups, including several pro-Sanders groups. Sanders supporters concocted the explanation (and they probably believed it was valid) that pro-Clinton groups had arranged the closings). I watched the theories develop in real time. Everything snowballed from one Clinton supporter’s claim (unsubstantiated) that he had taken down a Sanders group. The theories became increasingly elaborate, citing Clinton staff whom the theorists believed were behind the attacks. Paste Magazine supported them with no journalistic concern for investigation, let alone balance. (A Snopes article on the closures)
Our myths may help us make sense of the larger world and become better navigators of its complexities. But our lies are designed to protect us from any reality greater than our own egos. And we have given control of our country to a liar who doesn’t even know when he’s lying.
