Why Trump Has Never Been Held Accountable For What He Says

The Lucas Bean Show · Jun 4, 2026 · 2m

There is a trick so simple and so effective that it has worked on every institution in American life. The media. The courts. Congress. The public. All of them. Every single time.

And once you understand it you will see it everywhere.

In 2005 philosopher Nicholas Shackel at Cardiff University published a paper in the academic journal Metaphilosophy identifying a rhetorical strategy he called the motte and bailey fallacy. Shackel borrowed the name from medieval castle architecture. A motte and bailey castle had two distinct parts. The bailey was the open desirable courtyard where people lived…