This is something I’ve been meaning to look at for a while, and WaPo dumped it in my lap:
Here we see President Trump’s alleged lies on a time series graph: how many per month. It’s apparent that the average number of lies appears to be increasing, although, since months are not the same size, there’s a bit of vapor involved; weekly would have been better, while daily, which is an option, turns out to be too granular.
Of course, data like this demands an explanation even as it provokes outrage. I speculate there are three possible explanation, non-exclusive. The first is the obvious: the more stress President Trump feels, the more he lies. Thus, the peaks prior to the mid-terms and during the impeachment process.
The second is an effective liar must maintain integrity. That is, if a liar takes an opportunity to lie, now they must continue to tell that lie. While cultists will tolerate being lied to without regard to integrity, independents may take a dim view of losing track of one’s lies.
Finally, a third reason: the network effect. Assertions often have relationships with each other, and a lie is an assertion that just doesn’t happen to be congruent with reality as it’s widely known. A lie can force more lies on other subjects, simply in order to have it all make sense. This is, in fact, the construction of a narrative: a collection of assertions that should contain a story arc, true or false. Where one lie exists, there can easily be more to support the first, and soon they must be repeated – at least for a politician of Trump’s sort.
So it seems unsurprising to see the average slowly rising.
