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The conclusion here is a simple one: Trump lies with zero sense of shame, guilt or remorse. Unlike most politicians who, when caught in a falsehood or a lie, won't repeat it again for fear of the blowback, Trump seems to revel in saying things that have been proven not to be true. According to the Post's Fact Checker, there are more than 60 falsehoods that Trump has repeated at least three times during his first year as president. Sixty!
But nothing is more important -- and more damaging to the long-term fabric of society -- than Trump's willingness to just say (and say and say and say and say) things that aren't true. And that he knows aren't true.
Trump's entire life is a story he tells himself. That narrative sometimes comports with established facts. Often it doesn't. Whether it did or not wasn't a concern for Trump. The important thing is that in the story of his life, Trump was always winning, always the coolest.
And, until he entered politics, that was OK. After all: Trump was hardly the only fabulist at work in the culture.
When he was elected President, however, Trump's willingness to say things he knows aren't true became far more corrosive. His persistent lies coupled with an active effort to undermine the very idea that facts actually exist -- and are not just one's opinion -- are tremendously deleterious to having a society in which we all agree on a handful of accepted norms no matter where we land on the political or socioeconomic spectrum.
Whatever else Trump does in the next three (or seven) years, that disregard for facts will be his most lasting legacy.