The art of lying is such a staple of politics that we accept it as a natural act, like the rising of the sun. Thus most national elected officials have dismal ratings in the polls: the President, Vice President, the leaders in the Senate (both parties) and the leaders in the House (both parties). Trust is a thing of the past and many of those who vote strain to choose the least damaging of the worst.

The Biden team is an example of such deceit, on steroids (as the President likes to phrase things). So he clearly thinks he conjured up the big rhetorical flip taking the Republican-manufactured sarcastic term “Bidenomics” and now uses it as a symbol for this miraculous economy he keeps touting. As his team cherry picks through the data for good stuff (“it’s working” Biden whispers) and ignores the bad stuff (e.g., huge spikes in the cost of just about everything and the dramatic increase in the national debt), he is performing the rhetorical choreography of the “the big dance” designed only to make his administration look good. So Bidenomics is better termed Bidenoptics. Every time he whips out his Bidenomics double talk, he is dancing. The border is closed, he knew nothing of Hunter’s business deals, etc. He continues to dance through the political tulips.

Even more embarrassing is White House Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s recent statement that the record setting sea of illegal immigration at the southern border in December is typical for the end of the year. Or “we need Congress to pass comprehensive immigration” as an excuse for the dramatic increases in border crossings under the Biden administration. These deflections are in line with today’s political word games, based on the dance, and not the truth. The American public is being waltzed down the proverbial road because the Biden team, like too many politicians, will continue to blame the person who put the cookie jar on the kitchen counter, not the person who put his hand in it. The same goes for the economic scene where Bidenomics has hit the middle class and working poor pretty hard. The White House excuse machine is not going to talk people out of their pain with some not-so-clever reverse sloganeering. Politicians have a political blind spot: all they have to do is get the right frame, the right explanation, the palatable clarification or the rhetorical justification, and no one will notice that what they say just isn’t true. They’re dancing, and we the people get a continuous show.

Is there a day of reckoning coming? Will the voting public finally reject the old school politics of deception and vote the rascals out? Are voters finally exhausted from the dance and looking to demand substance only? Lincoln might not fare well in today’s political environment, Franklin Roosevelt might. Reagan did. Carter didn’t. But those leaders were from different eras where there was at least a modicum of civility and restraint. Not that they didn’t have their own brand of shenanigans, or rhetorical sleight of hand. But nothing like the psychotic rearranging of reality of the Biden-Trump era.

Will this be the election cycle where voters dump the fibbers and elect the truth tellers? Perhaps the adults in the room will manifest themselves in such a way that this election will be more about self-interest and the needs of the county, and not power and cosmetics. But in the meantime time the big dance continues.