 When we first heard Trump and Kellyanne Conway and other members of Trump's campaign lying to us in 2016, we should have known. As other pathologicals we've seen in history, they were testing us to see if we would believe them, and how far they could get. In the four years following, they lied to us daily. The media counted the lies to nearly 30,000 until they stopped counting. There were so many lies it wasn't newsworthy anymore. Not just little white lies, like how many people came to his inauguration, but increasingly big dark awful outrageous lies that tested our critical thinking, judgment and life experience. And he got people to believe him, increasingly, all the way through, no matter what lies he told, and no matter how big they were. He got people to suspend rationality, argue for, and double down on his lies. People from Harvard and Yale, to the undying embarrassment of those institutions, people who should have known better. Combinating of course in the big huge lie, festooned with false voter fraud conspiracies behind every bush in the 2020 election. A huge lie that gets bigger and bigger, corrupting more people every day, almost a year later. Pinocchio himself would be amazed, and understandably concerned. Trump has opened an exacerbated and ugly fissure in the American moral fiber. This has undermined our republic, perhaps permanently. The damage to rational thought, and the damage to the public conversation and confidence in the truth, is incalculable. Sure, it was the political lackeys he put on his payroll, but there are many more he has also been able to corrupt. The entire republican party for example. So many US senators, congressmen, congresswomen, federal and even military officials, and judges who have broken their oaths. So many republican state legislators, state governors, state officials, state judges, lying and promulgating lies. Virtually half the country is buying into repeating and advocating for Trump's lies. They are lying to the other half, and to themselves. It's actually unbelievable, but it's happening in plain sight. A nation completely and tragically divided on what is the truth. It doesn't stop at lying about science climate change medicine and politics. It doesn't stop at lying about what has happened and what is happening, but now includes lying about what will happen in the future. It doesn't stop at lies that don't directly affect us in our daily lives, it now includes lies that are self-destructive, and in fact suicidal. Some, if not many, are now aggressively if not violently fighting to advance the lie and many, sadly, are dying for the lie. Should we grieve for them? Many news media, radio, TV and social media are lying, publishing lies, improperly and intentionally misinforming the public, and getting away with it. There is no sanctuary from the lies. We are swimming in them and they have made us confused, disoriented, angry and dysfunctional. Somehow, incredibly, this has become another deadly national infection, a pandemic of lies. The belief in acceptance of these lies has spread far beyond the earlier boundaries, and has now become openly systemic. How long will it be before this terrifying self-destructive phenomenon will affect everything in our society? Why should religion be exempt? Business, and nonprofits too, recreation, even the arts. In the end, there is no place to hide. It's the worst of Madison Avenue on steroids. Trump has unleashed a national storm of self-interest greed in ubiquitous prevarications, and it is destroying our long-held moral principles. No he is not president, but his strangely seductive influence is still felt, even without Twitter, by tens of millions of people every day. We all know that a democracy requires broad agreement on facts and truth, and cannot survive on lies. What is happening now reflects the deterioration of our government, our security and our guardrail institutions. What is happening is eating away not only at our democracy, but our way of life and our society in general. The social fabric that has bound us together for so many years, and enabled us to exist and to act as a country, is being torn apart. This legacy of lies is coming for us, and will define and very possibly destroy us. How in the world can we get back from here? Can all the king's horses, and all the king's men, put the truth back together again?