> When was the last time a President, or a Presidential candidate, has been among the best of us? No, elections are exercises in mass irrationality, glorified beauty pageants.
> All politicians are liars. If you think there's an honest one, I'm sorry to inform you that you're hopeless naive.
If all politicians are liars, then you first statement becomes a tautology. All presidents are politicians, all politicans are liars, ergo all presidents are liars.
"All politicans are liars" is an empirical claim. It's not necessarily true, in the logical sense. It's just a sad fact about us and our political system. We promote the worst of us, not the best of us. It could be different if our system were better, or if we were better, collectively.
The influence of money in politics is particularly pernicious. In the US, election campaigns are privately financed. Thus, politicians have to cater to the ultra-wealthy, or be ultra-wealthy themselves. But politicans can't run for office telling the public "My votes are owned by the ultra-wealthy", so they have to lie. (Infamously, Joe Biden told his wealthy donors the truth in 2020, "Nothing fundamentally will change", while simultaneously telling voters the opposite.) Moreover, voters believe lies, or at least overlook lies, which gives politicians even more incentive to lie and exaggerate. If lies were reliably detected and strictly punished by the electorate, then it would be an entirely different matter.
> All politicians are liars. If you think there's an honest one, I'm sorry to inform you that you're hopeless naive.
If all politicians are liars, then you first statement becomes a tautology. All presidents are politicians, all politicans are liars, ergo all presidents are liars.