Trump’s Lies Cost Citizens Everything

A president rewriting reality, a government frozen in chaos, and leaders lost in illusion; when truth becomes optional, Americans pay the heavy price and democracy itself teeters on collapse.

Guest article by Michael Cohen. Follow him on Substack for more by clicking here.

The government shutdown has dragged into its seventh day, and the nation is already bleeding from the self-inflicted wound. Federal workers sit idle without pay. Families brace for delays in benefits and services they depend on. Airlines, small businesses, and everyday Americans feel the ripple effects of a government deliberately held hostage. And what do we hear from the president of the United States in this moment of crisis? Fantasy. Smoke. Theater.

President Trump stood before reporters just hours before the Senate votes and declared that “negotiations are happening” with Democrats on health care—talks that might, he said, bring “very good things.” Sounds reassuring, doesn’t it? Except there was no such negotiation. Not even close. Democrats flatly denied it. Republicans scratched their heads. The senators supposedly at the table didn’t even know the meeting existed. That’s because it didn’t. It was pure invention—Trump spinning a narrative on the fly, like the Wizard of Oz promising wonders behind a curtain that conceals nothing but emptiness.

This is what happens when the Oval Office becomes a stage set and the president its lead actor, more concerned with the applause line than the policy outcome. The shutdown isn’t just about numbers on a budget line or legislative horse-trading. It’s about what happens when reality itself is bent to suit one man’s ego.

And here’s the dangerous part: millions of Americans are forced to live inside that distortion. They feel the effects every time a paycheck doesn’t arrive, every time a benefit is delayed, every time premiums threaten to double because the funding that keeps them stable is left dangling like bait in a political game. Meanwhile, Trump grins, confident that he can conjure up whatever story he pleases—and enough people will buy it.

Even Republicans in the Senate, who should know better, have surrendered to this hall of mirrors. Majority Leader John Thune says Democrats need to “release the hostage” before talks can even begin, as though the shutdown were a tactical game of chess instead of a real-world crisis. His caucus stands around waiting for Democrats to fold while their own constituents suffer. Nobody seems willing to break the spell, to admit that the man at the center of this storm isn’t negotiating—he’s improvising.

And then, of all people, Marjorie Taylor Greene pipes up with a dose of something resembling common sense. Yes, you read that right. The woman who built her brand on conspiracy theories, MAGA extremism, and scorched-earth politics suddenly looks more tethered to reality than her own party’s leadership. Why? Because she recognizes the math. When the subsidies vanish, premiums double. Her own children’s coverage will skyrocket. Her constituents will feel the sting. And even Greene—hardly a champion of Obamacare—is willing to break with her leadership to say what’s plainly obvious: ideology doesn’t pay medical bills.

That should terrify Republicans. When Marjorie Taylor Greene is the one breaking through the fog, it means the rest of the party has lost the plot entirely.

What makes this so dangerous is not just the shutdown itself—it’s the precedent. If the president can announce phantom negotiations that don’t exist, if senators can shrug it off as political theater, if the public is expected to swallow whatever version of “truth” gets rolled out at the podium, then what’s left of accountability? What happens to democracy when reality becomes optional?

Trump’s tactics aren’t a mystery to me. I’ve been in the room, drafting the very moves he now deploys. The strategy is simple: dominate the narrative, even if it means fabricating one. Flood the air with so much noise that people stop questioning the details. Create villains and heroes, battles and betrayals. It’s not governing; it’s show business. But the price isn’t measured in Nielsen ratings—it’s measured in livelihoods, in premiums that double, in mortgages that go unpaid while workers wait hungry for Washington to find its footing.

Elizabeth Warren is right: Trump is “feeling the heat.” That’s the only reason he suddenly pretends to care about health care. But instead of stepping into real negotiations, he dangles empty promises, hoping to distract from the fact that his own inaction has locked the doors of government and thrown the country into disarray.

The bottom line is this: shutdowns don’t hurt Democrats or Republicans in Washington nearly as much as they hurt Americans outside of it. And Trump’s refusal to ground his presidency in fact only multiplies the suffering. You cannot govern a nation on fantasy. You cannot improvise a reality into existence just because it fits your ego.

Sooner or later, this shutdown will end. But the deeper wound—the erosion of truth, the corrosion of trust—will linger. Because once Americans grow accustomed to leaders inventing reality as they go, once they stop expecting honesty from the Oval Office, the very foundation of democracy begins to crack.

And if the last week has shown us anything, it’s this: the greatest danger isn’t just a government shutdown. It’s a government so warped by fiction that even Marjorie Taylor Greene looks like the voice of reason. And when she’s your North Star, you don’t just know the compass is broken; you know the whole ship is drifting straight into the rocks.

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