Trump Machine Thrives on Lies but Can India Afford to Normalise Misinformation?

Recent controversy over USAID funding proves that India needs to watch out, writes Lt Gen Bhopinder Singh.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump in Washington on 13 February.

(Photo: PTI)

Former US Ambassador to India and New York Senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, worked in the administration of four successive US Presidents from both parties: John F Kennedy, Lyndon B Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford. The Democrat belonged to an era of classical statesmanship and honourable conduct that recognised bipartisanship as a patriotic necessity in presidential Americanness.

In 1993, he wrote Defining Deviancy Down, a thought-provoking piece that warned against losing that invested Americanness that valourised the politics and instincts of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and countless others who put the nation before partisanship—and certainly, themselves.

He believed that the rot at the top tier of governance structures could rapidly make this invested normalcy of Americanness a lot more uncivilised, toxic, and hateful.

Moynihan also understood the naturalness of opposing narrative building and varied positions. But his famous and sage conditionality was, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts”—that is, in a democracy, it is perfectly acceptable (necessary, even) to have differences of opinions amongst the ruling and Opposition leaderships; but not one that is “manufactured”, through deliberate falsehoods, insulting aspersions, and dangerously polarising angularities.

If Moynihan was alive today, he would be horrified at the degraded pits of the ensuing discourse, rhetoric, and sheer lies that make the new normal of the Oval Office under President Donald Trump.

Trump’s America

Perhaps the return of the turbo-charged Trump in his 1.0.2 avatar is the fruition of yet another sagely, decades-old observation by Moynihan: “If you have contempt for government, you will get contemptible government."

Undeniably, Trump is reaping the harvest of frustrations and tiredness with the politics of moderation and inclusivity, therefore ushering in a divisive, railing, and no-holds-barred aggression on the rebound.

The lazy (and unfounded) assumption is that with niceties, courtesies, and diplomatese out of the window, a “muscular” and “spade-calling-a-spade” sort of an angry incumbent in the White House will somehow work better for America and Americans. Trump did, after all, get nearly 2.5 million more popular votes than Kamala Harris.

It seems to be a seductive global trap that has ensnared and legitimised many strongmen into the capitals of Hungary, Italy, Istanbul, Poland, Israel, Argentina etc, besides the US.

The Weaponisation of Lies: A New Political Strategy

Today, normalised hate is the currency that helps citizens overlook obvious lies. America brought back Trump despite publicly available data of how his standard spiel is predicated heavily and deliberately on lies and disinformation.

The formula was perfected much earlier with his campaign CEO Steve Bannon brazenly stating that since independent press (read, truth) was Trump’s principal adversary, “The way to deal with them is to flood the zone with sh*t”.

As per The Washington Post, Trump is believed to have made 30,573 false or misleading statements in his first Presidential term—the trend got worse over time with an average of six lies per day in his first year, to an unbelievable 39 per day in the fourth year of his first term.

All this did not come in the way of 77.2 million American voters (importantly, over three million more than in 2020, a staggering 14.3 million more than in 2016) reposing trust in the only presidential candidate to have won, despite being convicted of 34 felonies.

Today, that patent Trump uncouthness and bombast is visible in the bullying of a beleaguered Volodymyr Zelenskyy, or through the daily barrage of lies with the surreal optics of Elon Musk sauntering casually in the Oval Office with his toddler on his shoulder.

This regressive but electorally gratifying culture thrives on the ability of the Trump administration to make the most outlandish accusations (obviously and knowingly false) to continue building typical Trump rhetoric which galvanises his cadres to such an extent, that subsequent reneging from the same makes no difference.

Once the genie of falsehood is out, the job of polarisation by lies, misinformation and othering, is complete.

Musk’s wrongly claimed federal plan to spend $50 million on condoms for the Gaza Strip was only worsened by Trump doubling the same claim to $100 million of condoms for Hamas. Later, when exposed to his lie, Musk incredulously and unabashedly said, “Some of the things that I say will be incorrect,” and added, “So, nobody’s going to bat a thousand. I mean, any—you know, we will make mistakes.”

There was obviously no sign of repentance for having fed a manufactured stereotype that is so demeaning and offensive to the proverbial others.

Misinformation as a Political Tool in India

Confused Indians who make a common cause with the hateful agenda of Trump towards certain ethnicities were similarly fed on the bogey of $21million USAID fund for “voter turnout in India”.

Many responsible functionaries from the ruling dispensation joined the Trump chorus (to score their own brownie points) about the “past surrender”, “allowed interference”, and worse, “trying to get someone else elected” rhetoric. 

Except that, by the time truth unfolded that the said money was actually not for India, but Bangladesh (yet again a peddled lie from the Trump administration), the damage had been done and the argumentative Indians had moved on to other issues. The truth be damned! 

The brouhaha even sank the Indian Finance Ministry’s annual report for 2023-24 which explicitly stated, “Currently, seven projects worth a total budget of USD 750 million (approx) are being implemented by USAID in partnership with the Government of India."

The fact was that USAID in India was involved in technical support to grassroots-level outreach on water, sanitation, hygiene, education, gender, climate change etc. Yet again, however, the truth in the end did not matter for the demonisation of the political rivals was successfully ensured, the subsequent unraveling of the truth was irrelevant, as it is in Washington DC.

Even the recent and infamous US Presidential meeting with Zelenskyy on the mat was littered with lies from the Trump side with statements like, “We gave you $350 billion” (most estimate the same at $175-185 billion), or that “Zelenskyy went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the Opposition in October” or that Zelenskyy ostensibly did not say “thank you” to the US for its support to Ukraine etc.

However, while many remain concerned about Zelenskyy’s approach to the war, they remain completely oblivious and even appreciative of Trump-Vance’s supposed “plain speak”—so what if it were to be based on lies.    

Perhaps as a realist but still a believer in the tenets of old-fashioned democracy, Daniel Patrick Moynihan knew that someday there could be a pushback, but his unheeded observation was to persist to the traditional ways.

“Am I embarrassed to speak for a less than perfect democracy? Not one bit. Find me a better one. Do I suppose there are societies which are free of sin? No, I don't. Do I think ours is, on balance, incomparably the most hopeful set of human relations the world has? Yes, I do”.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Sadly, Donald Trump and his ilk (the 77.2 million who voted for him) don’t think the past was the right approach and therefore they are charting a new course, which the prophetic likes of Moynihan feared would lead to a “contemptible government”.

But for us in India, the worry is less about Trump’s falsehood and lies, but about the dubious fact that it was India that topped the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Risk Report, for the risks emanating from misinformation and disinformation.

The world’s largest democracy can ill-afford normalising what is the new-normal in American politics and society.

(The author is a Former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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