Pointing out that a liar's true intentions are obvious does not minimize the fact that they lied.

Not obvious to all. I have relatives who get all their “news” from a Facebook feed that’s heavily filtered to confirm their priors. They told me time and time again that Trump had disavowed Project 2025. The obviousness of his lies were not apparent to them. Yes, they should be better informed (believe me, I know) but they’re far from alone.

So that’s why it bugs me when I see someone say “he’s doing exactly what he said he’d do!” and the story quickly pivots to “well yes of course he specifically said he wasn’t going to do that but it was obvious he was lying”. A lot of people are living in vastly different information ecosystems, which is why the words coming out of a candidate’s mouth matter.