Vice President JD Vance then dutifully proclaimed that “the gaslighting is off the charts,” dismissing all criticism as lies. The liar, he argued, is paradoxically oriented toward truth: to lie successfully, one must know what is true and deliberately say the opposite. There is no motive for regurgitating an obvious lie except to demonstrate fealty. The administration’s response is something else: a demonstration that, in Trump’s America, regurgitating obvious lies is how high officials prove their worth. Survival in Trump’s orbit requires a robotic renunciation of conscience and a performative lobotomization of the self.

Source: Irish Examiner January 12, 2026 22:00 UTC