In Shakespeare tragic play, King Lear, after most of the characters to include King Lear are dead and scattered all over the stage, the king’s fool stammers an apt ending to the play.

So must I. As the chair of the Anderson County Democratic Party, I am duty bound to speak the truth as I understand it. Honor demands a factual accounting of what is going on in the county, the state, and the nation. It may be very difficult, at times, to know exactly what the facts are on any given situation. But a strong free press, good trusted people, and research-based academia tends to point me in the right direction. For instance…

Trump lies. In itself, that is hardly surprising. He does all the time and on virtually every topic. There is little truth and even less facts to support many of his proclamations. For example, in 2018 and again recently, Trump stood before members of the Armed Forces and declared they haven’t received a raise in ten years and he will remedy this oversight with a Trump raise. To those unfamiliar with the military, that sounds totally unfair and hence Trump is a hero. But, every single servicemember in that audience knew he was lying. Every year, year in and year out, those who serve in the military received a raise. They know this from the lowest rank to the highest rank and Donald Trump must know this as well.

But he lied. Again and again. Why would he lie? Because his egocentric worldview demands he must be the savior to all he meets, to include the military, and if reality does not show that, then he will recreate reality in his image. This is not, however, the main reason why I label this as “sad times”. Trump is a pathological liar - just who he is and what he does. The sadness I feel is due to the Republican Party who enables this lying and does not stop him. From Mitch McConnell in the U.S. Senate to the Anderson County Republican Party in Tennessee; they all just shrug it off with a “Let Trump be Trump”.

I could pretend like it does not matter or ignore the lying on the hopes of not alienating moderate Republicans. Perhaps a good party chair would do this. But, as the good fool said, I must speak what I feel and not what I ought to say. Trump’s lies corrode Americans’ trust in each other and their government. When he denies that his administration abuses migrants at the border or claims the tariffs are not taxes on Americans or pretends the Russian government did not help get his elected; these corrosive lies just increase the mistrust voters have for the other political party. Trumps lies for his personal gain. This is the simple, factual truth.