Imagine if a U.S. president were to flagrantly make up a claim that some other country was developing weapons of mass destruction. Imagine that there was no way to verify this claim. Imagine that the president insisted on invading said country on the basis of the unsupported claim.

Do most people still expect that someone in that position will not post clearly false messages, specially when those messages affect something as fundamental as the death of thousands of people and the overthrow of a government?

Iran contra, Watergate, Vietnam, ...

Is there any trust left?

It's bewildering that the answer is, "Yes". It's discouraging that so many presidents have so often deceived the people so horribly. It's much much more discouraging that the people don't learn.

The message isn't clearly false. See this article for example:

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-...

> Yet votes cast by mail are less likely to be counted, more likely to be compromised and more likely to be contested than those cast in a voting booth, statistics show. Election officials reject almost 2 percent of ballots cast by mail, double the rate for in-person voting.

You could say that 1% increase in problems is small, but in close elections that could easily be considered huge.

I feel like the only people who think Twitter is a credible fact checker of the President are not the people who would believe anything the President says anyways.

Democratic elections are supposed to be the failsafe for that no?

> most people expect that someone in that position will not post clearly false messages

Who the hell actually expects that from any elected politician, let alone Trump?

Is the idea that all politicians constantly controversial among other adults? I thought we all knew this?

Under a doctrine of free speech, politics has no "clearly false messages". There are only "messages". You are, however, allowed to state that a message is "clearly false".

Thus if you wish to say that the world is flat, then you are allowed to say so, and others are allowed to state their supporting or opposing arguments on the same topic on the same forum, and everyone is allowed to listen.