{"id":4532,"date":"2026-08-07T14:43:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T14:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4532"},"modified":"2026-08-07T14:43:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T14:43:32","slug":"trumps-pathological-denial-explained-by-1-legal-concept-nobel-economist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4532","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s ‘pathological’ denial explained by 1 legal concept: Nobel economist"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Each day seems to bring a new example of President Donald Trump\u2019s lies and \u201cpresidential tantrums,\u201d and according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, one legal concept explains the damage his \u201cbad faith\u201d governance is doing to the United States. <\/p>\n

Read more \u2018MAGA paradox\u2019 unravels as White House leaks expose Trump\u2019s weakness<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cLately Donald Trump has been raging against several of his own appointees,\u201d writes Krugman<\/u>. \u201cHe has publicly raged against the attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro, for admitting that the failure of the Reflecting Pool was due to shoddy work by Trump\u2019s chosen contractors, and for dropping charges against David Hearn and supposed saboteurs. He has raged at RFK Jr. for not making a stronger case for the false link between vaccines and autism. And according to the Washington Post, Trump has privately raged at Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, for misleading him about the state of U.S. munitions, which have been critically depleted by his failed war on Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krugman asserts that while these incidents may seem to be a series of unrelated \u201cpresidential tantrums,\u201d they are in fact part of the same story: \u201cwhat happens when a government operates entirely in bad faith, never telling the truth about what it is doing or why. Inevitably, officials in such a government don\u2019t merely lie to the public: they lie to each other too. As a result, they can\u2019t govern effectively, even in the pursuit of evil.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Krugman, \u201cLegal scholars have a term of art, the \u2018presumption of regularity<\/u>,\u2019 which means that one assumes that the government is generally honest when undertaking legal proceedings.\u201d Therefore, if the Justice Department brings charges against someone, the historical presumption has been that there must be some basis for it. \u201cIn other words,\u201d writes Krugman, \u201cthat they aren\u2019t simply a vindictive prosecution of one of Trump\u2019s perceived enemies. When DOJ succeeds in securing an indictment from a grand jury, the historical presumption has been that government lawyers secured that indictment honestly, presenting the grand jury with complete and accurate information.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder Trump II,\u201d Krugman continues, \u201cthis presumption is no longer reasonable \u2014 and the courts have begun to acknowledge this reality. In a number of recent cases judges have demanded information about what the government told a grand jury or dismissed charges because the government was clearly engaged in vindictive prosecution. At this point the Trump administration\u2019s word is worth nothing, or less than nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krugman notes that the same concept can be applied to a wide range of issues. After Trump\u2019s initial wave of tariffs was deemed illegal, for example, he ginned up a new rationale \u201cthat literally nobody believes\u201d \u2014 that targeted countries aren\u2019t doing enough to combat slave labor. Trump slashes SNAP, saying it\u2019s to stop fraud, when everyone knows it\u2019s simply because he\u2019s against the government helping put food on the table. His administration denies FEMA aid to blue states, delivering various reasons, then it\u2019s revealed that Trump is punishing states that didn\u2019t vote for him. According to Krugman, \u201cIt\u2019s all being done in sneeringly bad faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018All eyes on\u2019 Trump foe as senator throws major wrench in White House plan<\/a><\/p>\n

This cycle of lies, says Krugman, has led to mounting \u201cdisasters.\u201d Trump\u2019s war on Iran, for example, has been a disaster on many fronts: economically, militarily, diplomatically, strategically, and so on. \u201cOne obvious question,\u201d writes Krugman, \u201cis why Trump didn\u2019t move much sooner to conserve interceptor missiles etc., either by calling off the whole war or at least by calling off actions that used up already depleted stockpiles of weapons like ATACMs.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Krugman, \u201cMost attempts to answer that question focus on deranged Trump syndrome \u2014 his pathological inability to admit failure, which has led him to double down even as he runs out of ammunition. But it now appears that a contributing factor may be that he didn\u2019t know how bad things were, because Hegseth lied to him, telling him that the munitions problem had been \u2018fixed.\u2019\u201d Hegseth, in turn, is blaming his deputy. Krugman suggests that his deputy may have lied to him, as the U.S military has undergone a \u201cPutinization\u201d in which \u201cnobody wants to tell Hegseth things he doesn\u2019t want to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s liars all the way down,\u201d Krugman declares. \u201cThis is an administration in which to serve is to abase yourself constantly, rendering fealty to Dear Leader, lying to your colleagues and lying to the American people. And if this administration doesn\u2019t like the official government reports that are detailing the many disasters it has caused, it just quashes them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krugman concludes on a grim note, warning, \u201cAmericans should be prepared for more chaos and mendacity, because we are governed by people who, just like Trump, are unwilling to acknowledge the truth. Unfortunately, things can get worse \u2013 and they probably will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s wild hair spawns wild theories<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Each day seems to bring a new example of President Donald Trump\u2019s lies and \u201cpresidential tantrums,\u201d and according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, one legal concept explains the damage his \u201cbad faith\u201d governance is doing to the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump\u2019s 'pathological' denial explained by 1 legal concept: Nobel economist - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4532\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump\u2019s 'pathological' denial explained by 1 legal concept: Nobel economist - 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