By Phil Huber, ADVANCE COLUMNIST
There is a difference between making a mistake and telling a lie.
Every public official makes mistakes. Presidents make them. Governors, members of Congress, judges, generals, editors, business executives, and ordinary citizens make them. The test of character is not whether a person is ever wrong. The test is what that person does after being shown that he is wrong.
Does he correct the record? Acknowledge the harm? Apologize? Change his conduct?
Or does he deny, deflect, attack, invent a new explanation, and repeat the falsehood until exhausted citizens move on to the next outrage?
That is the question Americans face with President Donald Trump.
For years, Trump’s public life has been marked by statements that are false, misleading, exaggerated, or unsupported by evidence. Some are small boasts. Some are convenient evasions. Some attack opponents or the press. Others concern matters of great civic consequence: elections, public institutions, the economy, public safety, and the conduct of government.
The issue is not that Trump is uniquely human. He is not. The issue is that he often behaves as if admitting error is impossible because it would contradict the image he has cultivated: the man who never loses, never backs down, never concedes, and never says he is sorry.
That is not strength. It is fragility dressed up as strength.
A mature person understands that truth does not become less true because it is embarrassing. A responsible president understands that the power of the office magnifies every word he says.
When a president speaks, millions listen. Allies and adversaries take note. Public servants adjust. Families discuss what they heard. Citizens decide whom to trust. A false statement from the president is not merely another careless remark. It can distort public understanding, deepen division, and weaken confidence in the institutions on which self-government depends.
That is especially true when the falsehood is repeated after it has been disproved.
The danger is not merely that some citizens believe the lie. The greater danger is that the rest of us become accustomed to it.
There is a temptation among Americans who recognize Trump’s pattern to shrug and say, “That’s just Trump.” He exaggerates. He makes things up. He insults. He changes the subject. He blames others. He rarely apologizes. That is simply his style.
But “style” is not a defense when the subject is truth.
If a child lies repeatedly, a responsible parent does not say, “That is just his personality.” The parent teaches that lying damages trust. The child faces consequences and is expected to repair the damage.
If an employee lies repeatedly, a responsible supervisor does not call it leadership. The supervisor addresses the conduct, limits responsibilities requiring trust, and, if the pattern continues, removes the employee from the position.
If a military officer lies to superiors, subordinates, or the public, the consequences can be severe. Command depends on trust. Orders, intelligence, readiness assessments, and accountability collapse when truth becomes optional.
Why should the standard be lower for the president?
The presidency is not a branding platform or a contest in which the loudest voice wins. It is a constitutional office entrusted with enforcing the laws, commanding the armed forces, conducting foreign policy, and safeguarding public trust.
No president must be perfect. None has been. But Americans are entitled to expect honesty.
They are entitled to expect a president to distinguish fact from fantasy, evidence from rumor, and public service from personal self-protection. They are entitled to expect correction when he is wrong and accountability when a false claim causes harm.
When a president will not voluntarily meet that standard, citizens must insist on it.
That does not require hatred, censorship, or treating every Trump voter as foolish or unreachable. It requires discipline. Citizens should refuse to repeat unverified claims because they flatter their side. They should ask for evidence, read beyond headlines, consult original documents and credible reporting, correct friends without humiliation, and support candidates of either party who tell the truth when it is costly.
Most of all, they should stop rewarding dishonesty.
A president lies repeatedly because he believes he can. The political rewards exceed the political costs. Supporters excuse it as strategy, critics become numb, and institutions may be too slow or too cautious to respond.
The public can change that calculation.
Every lie need not provoke hysteria. But every material lie should carry a cost: loss of credibility, public correction, scrutiny, withdrawal of support, congressional oversight, and electoral consequences.
This is not only about Donald Trump. It is about the civic standard we leave behind.
If Americans excuse lies from a president they support, they cannot credibly condemn them when a president they oppose tells them. If Democrats accept dishonesty from Democrats and Republicans accept dishonesty from Republicans, neither side is defending truth. Both are defending tribe.
That is how democratic societies lose their footing. Truth becomes partisan. Evidence becomes optional. Institutions become enemies. A correction becomes an attack. An apology becomes weakness.
This is an election year for every member of the U.S. House of Representatives and for one-third of the Senate. Voters therefore have a duty—and an opportunity—to ask candidates a question more fundamental than their positions on taxes, immigration, spending, or foreign policy:
What do you do when the president lies?
Not whether they agree with his policies. Not whether they support his party. Those are legitimate political questions. The more basic question is whether a candidate believes truth still imposes an obligation on public officials.
When the president makes a false claim, will the candidate correct it? Ask for evidence? Say plainly that a false statement is false? Defend election officials, judges, public servants, journalists, and citizens when they are attacked for telling the truth?
Or will the candidate remain silent because confronting a lie may cost a primary election, an endorsement, or a comfortable political future?
Silence is not always neutrality. But repeated silence in the face of repeated falsehood can become permission.
A candidate who will not challenge a president’s lies is telling voters something important about how he or she would exercise power. Independence is not proved by a campaign slogan. It is proved when speaking honestly carries a political cost.
At debates, town halls, candidate forums, and in letters to the editor, voters should ask:
Can you identify a false or misleading statement by President Trump?
When the president makes a false claim, do you have a duty to correct him?
Will you reject false claims about elections, public safety, the economy, or other matters affecting your constituents?
Will you choose truth over party discipline when they conflict?
What example can you give of challenging a leader in your own party?
Should an official who knowingly repeats falsehoods face political consequences?
The standard must apply to everyone. But a candidate who cannot answer a straightforward question about truthfulness is not ready to hold public power.
Truth matters because voters cannot govern themselves without reliable information. Accountability matters because power without accountability becomes abuse. Humility matters because no leader, party, or citizen is right all the time.
This election, do not settle for candidates who merely promise to “fight for us.” A fighter for the people must also fight for the truth.
Ask every candidate for the House and Senate: When the president lies, will you tell the truth—even when it costs you?
Their answer matters. Their record matters more.
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Phil Huber is a retired Army Reserve colonel, federal civil servant and consultant who writes on civic education. He lives in Fredericksburg.
Leo, thank you — this is a serious comment, and I'd rather have it than agreement.
You're right about more than you may expect. Voters did put this President in office, and Congress stays silent largely because members fear their own primary electorates. And Tutu's line about neutrality has teeth. I'd only add that my column was aimed at that very point: when officials won't hold the standard, citizens have to.
Let me say something else plainly. Many of us who did not vote for Trump, or for the Republicans now in Congress, share your concerns and your frustration. I'm not writing from calm detachment. My own inclination is often to go at this head-on, and I have to talk myself out of it more often than I'd like.
I choose persuasion anyway — not because it feels good, and not as a substitute for confrontation. Appeasement is staying quiet to keep the peace. Persuasion is telling someone they're wrong in language that can actually reach them. I've done both in uniform in government, and in consulting and I know which one changes conduct.
There's also arithmetic. Congress changes hands through majorities, and majorities require people who voted the other way last time or didn't vote at all. If we write off everyone who voted for this President as beyond reach, there's no majority left to build. Resistance that can't win an election is a posture, not a remedy.
So I'd put your own logic back to you: if voters created this, voters can end it. Reaching them is the resistance, not an alternative to it. And a sternly worded letter isn't enough—on that, we agree completely.
Colonel, I think you're on the right track. I respect that. Truly.
But as much as I hate to say it, I don't think you've, nor many other Dems/Independents/erstwhile Republicans, have gotten where you ought to be yet. Really, where you should have always been. Certainly, since 2024.
Though, interestingly, it seems many of the Republicans have gotten there sooner.
In that, the problem is not Trump. Nor to a lesser degree, is it the Republicans in Congress.
It's much closer to home, but curiously, the one good folks are loath to address. I suspect, because it IS so close to home. Often inside it. Or at the least; next door, in the next pew, the doctor's office, restaurant, worksite.
It's the people who knowingly, willingly - CHOSE this man, this party, these actions.
Often, someone such as yourself will come out and sagely say that we need to reach across the aisle, listen to their pain, ease their suffering. Be open to their point of view. Understand. Forgive, Ignore. Placate.
A masked man is hired to shoot Americans in the head, whilst in the process of meeting his quota of tortured brown people for the month before sending them to some gulag for hire in a totalitarian state that most of us couldn't find on a map if we tried, because that brown person committed a civil violation which our business community (which means us, it's shareholders), profits from as a matter of business?
We're sad.....that wasn't very nice. But more importantly, what are you bringing to the potluck next Wednesday?
We commit open murder on the high seas, whilst other criminals are pardoned for a small donation - wars started at the urging of the President of Israel, by a secret assassination that would put Pearl Harbor to shame while we are in the middle of negotiations - but NOT with the approval of Congress - and that's just smart strategy.
No matter what the atrocity or outrage, the best we can hope for from someone with the current Democratic mindset is a sternly worded letter read slowly on the Capitol steps with a slow stare for emphasis.
Wow. That'll show them. When we know that guy happens to be taking money from the same AIPAC that appears to have more say in what our nation's policies are, than the people who live here.
Point being, the problem is not Trump. Nor Congress. Though certainly they are implicit.
It's the voters who put Trump there. And the rest of us who are willing to accommodate it to maintain the status quo.
After all, we may not like the inequality, the injustice, the ignorance, but our 401Ks are in the stock market too.
And that's my dentist. Or mechanic, girlfriend's dad, buddy from college.
But that's also the person who knew Trump was a liar, a felon, an assaulter of women - paradigm of ignorance, greed, and really every other vice you could think of - and they went with him anyway.
Don't ask what it says about him. What did it say about them?
If you are not willingly to actively resist such atrocities, whatever your reasons, what does it say about you at this point.
Archbishop Tutu put it best.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
Trump could not do what he does without Congress. Yet they don't stand up to him because they know Republican voters will get rid of them.
THEY are the issue. Give me an El-Sayed or Mamdani that's willing to stand up to them rather than a Schumer who thinks it doesn't matter. Accommodation and appeasement isn't working. At any level.
Enough.