Then, there's Tommy Flanagan. I am pleased to say that I compared Donny Trump to the character long before Donny himself referenced the character (see, for example, here). Jon Lovitz created the character as a bit character for Saturday Night Live. He introduces himself as follows, "Hi, I'm Tommy Flanagan. I represent Pathological Liars Anonymous. In fact... uh... I'm the... uh... President of that organization! Yeah! That's the ticket!" His catch-phrase was, "that's the ticket!" after telling one of his whoppers, along with regular references to his supposed marriage to Morgan Fairchild. (Look her up, kids. She was big in the 1980s.) In contrast with Gregory Anton, Tommy Flanagan was twitchy, sweaty, stupid, obvious, and the point was to laugh at how ludicrous his lies were because nobody could possibly believe lies that idiotic, particularly when told by someone who acts like that.
Is Trump a liar in the sense of Gregory Anton or Tommy Flanagan? I'm not going to bother with the question of his truthfulness because... no. He's a liar. He lies about everything. Lying is what he does. What kind of liar is he? He's obvious and stupid, so he's Flanagan, right? I have compared him to Flanagan semi-frequently anyway. However, plenty of people believe him, terrifying as that fact is. So, is he Anton?
One of the observations I have made about con artists (which Trump is) is as follows: if you are being chased by a bear, you don't have to be faster than the bear. You just have to be faster than the guy next to you. There is a corollary to this, and it comes from Saturday Night Live. Specifically, the "landshark" sketch. The "landshark" would show up at people's doors, ring the bell with a bunch of dumb excuses, and wait for people to open the door, and then attack. The explanation that writers gave for their thinking was that the landshark was considered to be stupid, but just ever-so-slightly-smarter than the people who kept opening the door for it.
A con artist doesn't have to be smart in any object way. He just has to be smarter than the mark. The dumber the mark, the dumber a con artist can be, and still be successful. I have made this point repeatedly.
Apply.
How stupid can a liar be and still be believed? It depends on the audience. Can Tommy Flanagan get away with lying? It depends on how stupid the audience is. Arthur C. Clarke famously wrote that "any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic." That standard, though, clearly changes as technology advances. Similarly, the standard is lower for a less technologically advanced audience. Let's apply that principle. If an audience is sufficiently stupid, any liar is indistinguishable from Gregory Anton. Including Tommy Flanagan. Of course, this effect is moderated by partisanship (and race, which is closely associated with partisanship), but the point here is an important one. Trump is stupid. And a liar. A bad one. An obvious one. His lies are transparent, obvious, over-the-top, insultingly self-contradictory, and he rubs your face in how dishonest he is.
However, if an audience is sufficiently stupid, it can be gaslit by Tommy Flanagan, particularly if Tommy has a major news network and party apparatus working overtime on his behalf.
It's almost enough to make you feel sorry for Gregory Anton. There was artistry to what he did, villainous though it was.
