So many journalists, historians, psychologists, and the rest of us too have attempted to understand what’s behind the alternate reality that Trump created ever since he promoted “birtherism” (at Barack Obama’s expense), questioned John McCain’s patriotism, and demeaned everyone who ever critiqued or challenged him. His lying is legend.

The Washington Post said in January 2020 that Trump had made more than 16,241 false or misleading claims as president, an average of about 14.8 such statements per day. Of course, Trump didn’t start lying once he was elected nor has he ceased since he left office. The lying continues unabated and now millions of followers believe him and/or forgive him for his moral corruption.

There is a passage in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov that offers a measure of insight into Trump’s lies and the MAGA House members’ censure of Congressman Adam Schiff last week, as well as their insistent parroting of the Big Lie that Trump won the 2020 election and should never have been impeached twice, and that Joe Biden deserves to be impeached (for God knows what crime).

The wise Elder Zosima says to the father of the three brothers, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, the following:

“Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself. A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. It sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn’t it? And surely he knows that no one has offended him, and that he himself has invented the offense and told lies just for the beauty of it, that he has exaggerated for the sake of effect, that he has picked on a word and made a mountain out of a pea – he knows all of that, and still he is the first to take offense, he likes feeling offended, it gives him great pleasure, and thus he reaches the point of real hostility.” The Brothers Karamazov, Bicentennial Edition p. 46-47

Fyodor Pavlovich responds in a way that Donald Trump and his most cultist followers are incapable of responding:

“Precisely, precisely, it feels good to be offended. You put it so well. I’ve never heard it before. Precisely, precisely, all my life I’ve been getting offended for the pleasure of it, for the aesthetics of it, because it’s not only a pleasure, sometimes it’s beautiful to be offended… I’ve lied, I’ve lied decidedly all my life, every day and every hour. Verily, I am a lie and the father of a lie!”