All politicians—and especially presidents—lie. Some do so subtly: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” Others are more brazen: “The election was rigged.”
All lie to preserve or increase their power, profits or privileges. And yet, we are told in Matthew 5:37 to “let your yay be yay and your nay be nay.”
While scripture condemns deception as a betrayal of God’s call for a covenant community, our current political system rewards falsehood. When truth becomes expendable, the moral fabric of society—designed to ensure our safety, economic well-being and democratic norms—also becomes expendable.
From the outset, this current administration has weaponized misinformation. The consequence of such deception erodes trust in science, undermines our institutions and distorts our democratic values. The lies the Trump Administration has told have been so preposterous, so outrageous that they have titillated simple minds and seduced those wishing to capitalize on such lies.
Lies are politically crucial for wannabe authoritarians because they delegitimize democratic principles, subverting and destabilizing legal authorities. The lie produces power by keeping the embers of hatred simmering while maintaining the father of the lie in the spotlight, gaslighting us into believing they are a truth-teller.
However, truth can never be reduced to a mere political option. “If a ruler listens to lies, all his officials become wicked” (Proverbs 29:12).
We find ourselves living under an administration that, due to its pronouncements, is wicked. After all, “what comes forth from their mouths is what is in their heart” (Matthew 15:18).
Pontius Pilate may have asked, “What is truth?” (John 18:38) to make reality relative to political whims. However, what he (and this administration) failed to realize is their lies constitute a frontal assault on the very foundations that hold society together.
Dismissing thousands of researchers from science-based federal agencies and terminating over $1.6 billion in public medical science funding goes beyond some crusade to eliminate bureaucratic waste and fraud. It is, instead, a moral crisis undermining public safety.
Mistrust in science and health agencies is amplified by the Health and Human Services Secretary, who has a history of anti-vaccination pronouncements. Acting on conspiracies, he fired all seventeen members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with fellow anti-vaxxers.
Creating doubt about science, defunding and dismantling health agencies, and skepticism about vaccines unequivocally endangers our collective health. People will die because of these lies.
The deceptions of this administration also threaten our economic well-being. They told us there is a $2 trillion trade deficit when it was $918 billion.
They said grocery prices have dropped when, in fact, they have risen. They claimed the “Great Beautiful Bill” would reduce the deficit, when, instead, it could add an additional $4 trillion.
These lies extend beyond political exaggerations to enhance the administration’s image. They are economic tactics employed to enact laws and policies that threaten the financial well-being of the average United Statesian so that the top one percent can become wealthier.
Europe’s top fifty economists forecast Trump’s economic policies, comprising harsh immigration policies, aggressive trade policies and a total disregard for financial norms, will shrink the U.S. economy. They will also devastate the agriculture and manufacturing sectors amid retaliatory tariffs and erode purchasing power. Meanwhile, the rich will get richer by having their tax cuts preserved at the expense of Medicaid recipients, many of whom will lose coverage.
Lies destabilize markets, disenfranchise workers, and dispossess those who are already in poverty.
Finally, lies lead to authoritarianism. Falsehoods about stolen elections undermine public confidence.
Weaponization of the Department of Justice, mass dismissal of inspectors general, and neutering independent agencies through executive orders dismantle the guardrails that ensure a healthy democracy.
An impotent Congress and Supreme Court unravels our system of checks and balances. This administration’s falsehoods and disinformation have created a parallel reality where inconvenient judicial rulings are ignored.
And targeting political opponents—including those in higher education, law firms, news agencies and Democrats—threatens fundamental rights to free speech.
Any journalist holding the administration accountable is deemed to be the enemy of the people. All immigrants are viewed as subhuman rapists and criminals unworthy of due process. And anyone who criticizes the Administration is a “radical left lunatic” who hates the United States.
This parallel universe in which the administration exists is rooted in raw, unadulterated power— not truth. We either accept the lie or be vilified. To be in the crosshairs of this administration is a threat to our livelihood, if not our lives.
White Christian nationalists have chosen the false reality of this administration because it is more profitable. They found it expedient to cash in on the administration’s currency: lies.
Truth has become an obstacle to theo-political power; hence, “evil is called good and good evil, where darkness replaces light and light darkness” (Isaiah 5:20).
For the rest of us who choose to live in the light, who know the difference between good and evil, who strive to have our “yea be yea and our nay be nay,” we refuse to live in a world adrift in disinformation.
We are often told to “speak truth to power.” However, I maintain that power already knows the truth about the lies it spews.
Let us instead speak truth to the powerless—those who have believed the lie and voted against their best interest. Those who support an administration that will place their health at risk, make them financially less secure, and chip away at their political freedom.
Let us shout from the mountaintops the good news this present administration wishes to silence, lifting our voices with strength and without fear. Let us refuse to keep the truth hidden under a bushel. Let the light of our truth-telling shine brightly into the world, despite those who love the darkness because their deeds are evil.
To remain silent in the face of deception may ensure personal safety from this administration and its false prophets, who are eager to bring down the full weight of the federal government upon dissenters. But silence is a denial of discipleship.
More importantly, it is a denial of God.
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Professor of Social Ethics and Latinx Studies at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, and a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.
