Trump's bullsh*t: Why his supporters don't care that he's lying
by Jeff Hancock @CNNTech
October 17, 2016: 5:22 PM ET
money.cnn.com
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are seen as equally trustworthy by the public, and yet Trump makes false statements almost four times as often than Clinton.
How is this possible?
I study deception and trust and am frequently asked this question, given that fact checkers rate Trump's statements as entirely false 52% of the time compared to Clinton's 12%.
There are several possible explanations. One is that we like and trust people who look like we do, an effect known as homophily. This also allows us to discount or ignore things that we might otherwise not. That could explain why so many white men support Trump despite his persistent falsehoods.
The two candidates also have distinctly different communication styles. Trump speaks in a direct manner, with simple words and sentences, a style that comes across as authentic and trustworthy. Clinton speaks more cautiously, qualifying her statements and using more complex sentences, a style that leads people to believe she is hiding something even when she isn't.
But neither of these explanations fully account for why Trump's more frequent lies don't affect his trustworthiness more. One explanation is that this isn't really about lying, but about bullshit. In his book On Bullshit, Harry Frankfurt distinguished between the two by noting that to lie, one has to purposely hide the truth from others.
A bullshit artist isn't concerned with the truth, but instead makes things up to suit his purpose. He doesn't care if the things he says describe reality accurately. When the fisherman says that the fish was this big, with his hands wide apart, the actual size of the fish isn't what's important, it's the entertainment of the listeners.
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