"Either They're Liars or They're Stupid" — Anne Applebaum on the People Around Trump

Anne Applebaum argues that Donald Trump’s circle is less a normal political team than a system that repels people who care about truth, evidence, or consistency. In her view, Trump’s constant need to reshape reality leaves room only for people who are easily manipulated or willing to make a moral sacrifice, and she says Mike Waltz’s exit reflected that tension: he could not keep lying convincingly when it conflicted with his own beliefs.

She says the people who remain around Trump are self-selected because they already know what he is like and choose to stay anyway. Applebaum points to an old Polish saying about communist officials to describe the dynamic: they are either lying because they know better, or they are foolish enough to believe it.

On how an autocratic or kleptocratic system can be reversed, Applebaum says Poland offers the closest comparison she knows, though the United States is on a larger scale. She argues the cleanest off-ramp would come from Congress, then voters, and then the courts, while warning that the damage from replacing idealistic civil servants with loyalists can be long-lasting and hard to undo.