Donald Trump does not fashion himself as a businessman or politician.  He is an entertainer and a masterful storyteller.  He managed his campaign and now directs his administration as a reality television show.  Each week, each day provides his viewing audience, the American public and the entire world, with a brand-new episode.  He is determined to ensure his second term in office remains a compelling drama or “must see” TV.  

Yes, Trump rambles and lapses into bewildering incoherence.  Yes, his stories are filled with half-truths and outright lies.  Yes, many of his speeches are like maladroit jazz improvisations or vulgar stand-up comedy routines.  But Trump tells his underlying story simply, concisely, and repeatedly until his lies and made-up nonsense establish a narrative many accept as truth.  

Here is the central and disturbing challenge we face:  how do we deal with a political leader who knowingly lies every time he speaks, who uses deceit as a central political strategy?  How do we resist a modern-day Caligula?  Fortunately, the answer is clear and simple.  Opponents push back proclaiming the truth.  And by repeating the truth simply, clearly, and repeatedly, until people recognize the big lie as a big lie.  Until the Trump narrative is dislodged and debunked.  This is the most important public service anyone can offer. 

In the 2024 presidential campaign, Democrats had over a billion dollars to spend.  But no one thought to implore someone like Jeffrey Katzenberg to hire a world-class storyteller to create a series of very short films highlighting the triumphs of the Biden administration.  The most progressive president of our lifetime, who passed important bipartisan legislation during a period of profound political polarization that will impact the lives of middle- and working-class Americans for years to come, ended his term with a dismal whimper.   Biden and his administration were atrocious storytellers.  

A YouGov poll published last October asked eight thousand voters to rank policies by the two presidential candidates without identifying who proposed them.  Guess what they found?  The most popular policy positions were associated with Harris, while the least popular were associated with Trump.  One quick takeaway?  A series of very short films promoted on social media laying out clearly and concisely what Harris stood for may have altered the outcome of the election.  

So how does Trump control the political narrative?  The heart of his strategic playbook is rather simple.  There are two main elements.  The first is adapted from Trump’s infamous mentor Roy Cohn:  admit nothing, then attack, attack, attack.  This is what enabled him to survive repeated humiliating revelations that would have destroyed the career of any other politician.  

The other feature of Trump’s strategic playbook is more sinister.  It runs like a red thread connecting his assertion Obama was not a US citizen to his rant about the 2020 election.  And it is a ploy used by all authoritarian leaders:  proclaim a big lie and repeat it until the big lie is adopted as truth. During his 2024 campaign, Trump repeated many big lies.  Here are three salient falsehoods that remain alive and well:  1) Trump won the 2020 election; 2) The election was stolen by Joe Biden via widespread election fraud; 3) While in office, Joe Biden “weaponized” the FBI and the Justice Department to persecute him.   These big lies form the heart of Trump’s false narrative that must be debunked by his opponents.  

The recent confirmation hearings of Pam Bondi and Kash Patel represented golden opportunities to expose Trump’s big lies.  Unfortunately, Democrats muffed their chance.  For example, it was astonishing how Bondi and Patel refused to say Biden won the 2020 election.  Pam Bondi asserted she had been in Pennsylvania and saw disturbing things.  Yet no one thought to ask her exactly what she saw?  And no one saw fit to remind her that she and other election deniers were accorded their day in court.  In fact, they had many days in court.  No one thought to ask Bondi how many lawsuits were initiated to challenge the results of the 2020 election.

So here is a pop quiz.  Can you tell me how many lawsuits there were?  The number may surprise you.  There were sixty-four lawsuits initiated across several battleground states to support Trump’s claim of a rigged election.  That’s right, sixty-four.  Of those sixty-four cases, twenty were dismissed before a hearing, another fourteen were voluntarily withdrawn by Trump’s supporters.  Out of the remaining cases, Trump prevailed in only one, a Pennsylvania case involving very few votes that did not affect the election outcome.  In 2022, a blue-ribbon panel of conservative jurists and politicians reviewed the purported evidence of fraud.  That panel included the likes of John Danforth, J. Michael Luttig and Ted Olsen.  They concluded with 100% certainty there was no evidence of electoral fraud.  In other words, the 2020 election was fair.  Donald Trump lost the election.  

Of course, Trump’s opponents know and accept this.  But no one thought to tell Bondi and Patel during their confirmation that they had four years to present any meaningful evidence of electoral fraud.  And that it was time to either put up or shut up.  This exchange would have provided a compelling TV drama and an opening salvo to restore faith in our electoral system.  

Another central tenet of Trump’s false narrative involves the audacious assertion Biden “weaponized” the FBI and the Justice Department to persecute him.  This big lie is now being used to hollow out the FBI and to undermine the independence of the Justice Department.   We should be clear about what this means:  we will become more vulnerable to terrorist plots of all kinds, and the rule of law at the heart of our democratic experiment will be undermined. 

Trump’s opponents must begin to systematically challenge and debunk his big lie about the FBI and the Justice Department.  Here again, the Bondi and Patel hearings represented a golden opportunity.  But no one thought to ask Bondi if she believed criminal suspects should be investigated.  Surely, she would have agreed.  And no one thought to ask her if a criminal suspect should go to trial in the face of compelling evidence.  Surely, she would have concurred again. 

After Bondi agreed, Democratic senators could have reached for the jugular.  Trump was investigated and prosecuted for one important reason and for one reason alone:  because he was suspected of breaking the law.  When the evidence marshaled against him was presented in Florida, Georgia, the District of Columbia, and New York, four separate grand juries found the evidence compelling enough to warrant a trial.  Donald Trump was not investigated and then prosecuted because of corrupt FBI agents or overzealous Justice Department lawyers bent on destroying him.  There was no witch hunt organized against Donald Trump.  There was no weaponization of the FBI and the Justice Department. That is a big lie. 

Here is the breathtaking truth that needs to be asserted clearly, concisely, and repeatedly.  The investigation and prosecution of Donald Trump did not signal our justice system was partisan and corrupt.  Just the opposite.  It proved that our system of justice functioned the way it was designed to work.  It proved our justice system worked brilliantly.  The prosecution of Donald Trump affirmed we are a nation of laws, not of men.  It proved that no one, not even an ex-president, is above the law.  

Donald Trump became furious because our criminal justice system held him accountable for his alleged criminal behavior.   His accusation about the “weaponization” of the FBI and the Justice Department are mere expressions of his familiar playbook:   admit nothing, attack, attack, attack.  Currently, he alleges that any judge who opposes him is “weaponizing” our judicial system.  Let us be clear about this. Anyone who resists Trump’s unconstitutional and illegal behavior will be accused of being corrupt.  He will attribute to his opponents what he engages in himself, namely, the weaponization of our justice system to go after political enemies.  

How sinister that Trump rebranded criminals, who violently attacked police officers and invaded the Capital Building to undermine the peaceful transfer of power, as political prisoners and then pardoned them.  Now he wants to prosecute all those who worked to bring those criminals to justice.  FBI agents and Justice Department officials were not simply doing their jobs.  Their work signaled our justice system was alive and well, that no one, including an ex-president, was above the law.   

We cannot afford to equivocate. Trump’s current vendetta is not merely against FBI agents and Justice Department officials. It is a frontal assault on the rule of law at the heart of our democracy. Therefore, it is imperative Trump’s opponents in political life and civil society expose Trump’s big lies as big lies. It is time to debunk his false narrative. The political stakes could not be higher.

Neal Aponte, Ph.D.

Editor of Delano