Abstract:

Since Donald Trump’s election as U.S. President in 2016, American politics has undergone significant and substantive changes. However, these conspicuous shifts have obscured a more fundamental transformation: the change in American citizens’ attitude toward lying. In today’s United States, despite frequent exposures of falsehoods by the highest leadership, there remains a steadfast public self-identification as “truth-seekers” which continues to garner support from nearly half of the population and numerous Silicon Valley elites. This “Trump phenomenon” profoundly redefines the ethical substance of contemporary America. Through an in-depth examination of the unique form of lying in modern American politics, this study aims to reveal how Trump has successfully politicized and weaponized falsehoods, thereby reshaping the ethical fabric of present-day America. In the current political arena, lies are not merely used to conceal existing realities but are also employed to construct alternative realities.

Key words: Trump phenomenon, politics of lies, alternative reality, regime of truth, MAGA metaverse