By Samuel Damren
In “On Writing, a Memoir of the Craft” author Stephen King relates a life principle he learned as a 6-year-old when he was stricken with the measles. His case was so severe that a doctor was required to puncture his eardrum not once, but three times, to save his hearing.
The first time, the doctor said, “Relax Steve, this won’t hurt.” King believed him. The “pain was beyond the world.” The second time, the doctor “assured me that it wouldn’t hurt, and I once more believed him.” It hurt big time. The third instance was another replay. “I screamed so long and so loud that I can still hear it,” King related.
As a result of “the repeated eardrum-lancing,” King adopted “one of my life’s firmest principles: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on both of us.”
This admonition applies to Donald Trump’s repeated baseless lies to the American electorate about voter fraud.
The Lie Republicans Must Learn to Live By
In recent commentary, I referred to Trump’s false claims about voter fraud as “the lie” that Republican candidates “must learn to live by.” Not surprisingly, it has been embraced by Republican candidates for Michigan statewide office in the upcoming midterms.
For some of those candidates, it was a “flip-flop” from previous positions; for others, it was cynical politics.
If politicians were required, as litigators are before they file claims in court, to reasonably investigate factual support for allegations of of wrongdoing, the public would be spared much vitriol and misinformation from the political stump.
If politicians were held to the higher standard that litigators are when pleading fraud, they would also be required to state the allegations with “particularity.” For voter fraud, this would mean that the “who, what, when, where and how” of the fraudulent conduct would be spelled out, rather than posed as a fervent but non-descript accusation.
Trump 1.0
In his first term in office, Trump looked for some source other than himself to make an assertion of wrongdoing by an opponent so that he could embellish it and pretend that a third- party accusation was somehow sufficient to presume guilt.
Trump tried that tactic with Volodymyr Zelensky by demanding as a condition to releasing funds authorized by Congress for Ukraine’s defense, that Ukrainian prosecutors announce an investigation on Joe and Hunter Biden. He did the same thing with Bill Barr, pressuring DOJ for a letter saying the 2020 election was corrupt. Both refused.
Trump 2.0 is No Different
In a much-ballyhooed televised presentation this past July, Trump unveiled his most recent round of supposed “bombshell” claims of voter fraud newly supported by reports from the Department of Homeland Security.
Subsequent factual investigations of the underlying data exposed that the claims were merely “re-treads” or worse of prior baseless speculation.
As part of evaluating current Republican candidates for federal and statewide office, the Michigan electorate would do well to focus on other prominent commitments that Trump made during the 2024 campaign – foreign wars, ICE deportations, and affordability – now clearly shown to be lies.
Support for these policies through the election of Trump backed Republican candidates in the 2026 midterms is on the ballot. The suggestion that if elected, these candidates will “put the brakes” on the continuation of these policies is fanciful.
No Entanglements in Foreign Wars
Trump’s commitment to refrain from foreign military entanglements was quickly proven a lie with military attacks in Venezuela, the ongoing seven-month war with Iran, the closing of the Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea ports to oil exports as well as threats of military interventions in Cuba, the annexation of Panama and Greenland, and making Canada an unwilling 51st American state.
In “On Writing, a Memoir of the Craft” author Stephen King relates a life principle he learned as a 6-year-old when he was stricken with the measles. His case was so severe that a doctor was required to puncture his eardrum not once, but three times, to save his hearing.
The first time, the doctor said, “Relax Steve, this won’t hurt.” King believed him. The “pain was beyond the world.” The second time, the doctor “assured me that it wouldn’t hurt, and I once more believed him.” It hurt big time. The third instance was another replay. “I screamed so long and so loud that I can still hear it,” King related.
As a result of “the repeated eardrum-lancing,” King adopted “one of my life’s firmest principles: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on both of us.”
This admonition applies to Donald Trump’s repeated baseless lies to the American electorate about voter fraud.
The Lie Republicans Must Learn to Live By
In recent commentary, I referred to Trump’s false claims about voter fraud as “the lie” that Republican candidates “must learn to live by.” Not surprisingly, it has been embraced by Republican candidates for Michigan statewide office in the upcoming midterms.
For some of those candidates, it was a “flip-flop” from previous positions; for others, it was cynical politics.
If politicians were required, as litigators are before they file claims in court, to reasonably investigate factual support for allegations of of wrongdoing, the public would be spared much vitriol and misinformation from the political stump.
If politicians were held to the higher standard that litigators are when pleading fraud, they would also be required to state the allegations with “particularity.” For voter fraud, this would mean that the “who, what, when, where and how” of the fraudulent conduct would be spelled out, rather than posed as a fervent but non-descript accusation.
Trump 1.0
In his first term in office, Trump looked for some source other than himself to make an assertion of wrongdoing by an opponent so that he could embellish it and pretend that a third- party accusation was somehow sufficient to presume guilt.
Trump tried that tactic with Volodymyr Zelensky by demanding as a condition to releasing funds authorized by Congress for Ukraine’s defense, that Ukrainian prosecutors announce an investigation on Joe and Hunter Biden. He did the same thing with Bill Barr, pressuring DOJ for a letter saying the 2020 election was corrupt. Both refused.
Trump 2.0 is No Different
In a much-ballyhooed televised presentation this past July, Trump unveiled his most recent round of supposed “bombshell” claims of voter fraud newly supported by reports from the Department of Homeland Security.
Subsequent factual investigations of the underlying data exposed that the claims were merely “re-treads” or worse of prior baseless speculation.
As part of evaluating current Republican candidates for federal and statewide office, the Michigan electorate would do well to focus on other prominent commitments that Trump made during the 2024 campaign – foreign wars, ICE deportations, and affordability – now clearly shown to be lies.
Support for these policies through the election of Trump backed Republican candidates in the 2026 midterms is on the ballot. The suggestion that if elected, these candidates will “put the brakes” on the continuation of these policies is fanciful.
No Entanglements in Foreign Wars
Trump’s commitment to refrain from foreign military entanglements was quickly proven a lie with military attacks in Venezuela, the ongoing seven-month war with Iran, the closing of the Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea ports to oil exports as well as threats of military interventions in Cuba, the annexation of Panama and Greenland, and making Canada an unwilling 51st American state.
None of this is good for America.
ICE Deportations of Only the “Worst of the Worst”
That Trump commitment was proven a lie based on military-styled sweeps by ICE of metropolitan areas in 2025 and the indiscriminate detention of peaceful but undocumented immigrants of color. In 2026, the initiatives were recast to ongoing ICE arrests across the county coupled with the cruelty of immediate mass deportations to third world countries and abrupt separation from family members, including children and infants.
The ICE initiatives primarily target Hispanics, but also extended to select populations of Somali, Haitian, and Afghanistan descent. They now can be seen for what they always were intended to accomplish: ethnic cleansing.
The initiatives are in the tradition of the “worst of the worst” of American government sponsored racism following Reconstruction – the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, segregation in the Jim Crow South, the Immigration Act of 1924 championed by the KKK, and Japanese Internment Camps of World War II.
None of this is good for America.
Affordability
Trump’s campaign commitment to make America affordable for ordinary citizens was proven a lie when he post- election rebranded “affordability” as a “hoax” and portrayed rising prices of food, housing and costs of living, the ever-widening wealth gap and Trump tariff-caused economic disruptions as under control and not a problem.
None of this is good for America.
Shame on the Liar and on the American Electorate
These three lies – when added to the mantra of Trump’s false claims of voter fraud – more than cross the line of Stephen King’s principle to never trust someone who lies to you three times.
The genesis of the “three-lie rule” is set in King’s childhood, but its adoption as “one of my firmest life principles” reveals a mature understanding of personality dynamics.
Responsibility for the first lie resides solely with the liar. Given that prior experience, acceptance of a second lie by the victim is an act of naivety for which responsibility resides solely with the victim.
Commission of the third lie and its acceptance yet again by the victim begins to change the parties’ relationship from one of “liar” and “victim” to that of “abuser” and “abused” placing both parties at fault.
With acceptance of the third lie by the abused, the abuser is at fault for believing that he is entitled to continue to mistreat the abused in the future just as he has done in the past. Conversely, after accepting the third lie, the abused is at fault for continuing to tolerate and thereby encourage further mistreatment instead of severing the relationship. The result often leads to a pattern of more and increasing abuses.
Through his lies and repeated abuses of the country’s institutions and constitutional safeguards, Trump 2.0 changed his relationship with the American electorate. Severing the relationship and support for the new policies and his ongoing misconduct begins with the vote in the midterms.
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Samuel Damren is a retired Detroit lawyer and author of “What Justice Looks Like.”
