Trump's attacks on Biden are no accident

According to the Washington Post fact-checkers, Donald Trump told over 30,000 lies during his presidency. During Thursday's ninety-minute presidential debate, CNN documented that he told over 30 lies. 

During a speech at the United Nations in 2018, heads of state and delegates laughed at Trump.

Trump has been found liable for fraud and rape. He's also been convicted of 34 felonies.

Over and over again Trump has promised to weaponize the federal government against his political opponents.

During his presidential term, some members of Trump's cabinet discussed the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment. 

You might be wondering why I'm rehashing some of the sordid history of this country's 45th president. It's because this happened during/after Thursday's debate.

• Trump said this about Biden "I’ve never seen anybody lie like this guy...everything he does is a lie.”
• Trump said that around the world Biden isn't respected.
• Trump called Biden’s actions “absolutely criminal” and falsely alleged that Biden “gets paid by China” and is a “Manchurian candidate.”
• Trump launched a groundless claim that Biden is weaponizing American justice against him. He called it "a system that was rigged and disgusting." 
• Immediately after the debate, Republicans began calling on Biden's cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment.

Trump and his MAGA enablers chose those particular attacks for two reasons. First of all, as Karl Rove discovered years ago, the best way to defend your candidate against an attack is to accuse your opponent of the same thing. That way, when Trump's lies are documented, he simply accuses Biden of being a liar. The whole thing devolves into an argument of he said/he said.

Mike Lofgren explained how that works for Republicans by destroying public trust in government and its institutions.

There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that “they are all crooks,” and that “government is no good,” further leading them to think, “a plague on both your houses” and “the parties are like two kids in a school yard.” This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s – a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn.

Secondly, that kind of "he said/he said" leads to headlines like this one at The Hill: "Trump, Biden accuse each other of lying."Rather than fact-check which one was lying and which one was telling the truth, it's easier to just act as a stenographer and report that both candidates accused the other one of lying. In other words, projection lays the foundation for the media's obsession with bothsiderism. When one candidate has demonstrated that he's a serial liar, that's a win for him.

During a more sane time, you'd be reading this kind of analysis all over the media because Trump's projection of his own failures onto Biden is so obvious. But these are, indeed, crazy times. I'm hoping this helps shore up your sanity just a bit.