A few weeks ago, President Donald Trump visited Scotland in a semi-private capacity to inaugurate a new golf course owned by his family business. In a widely circulated video, one of Trump’s caddies is seen discreetly placing a ball in an advantageous position for the President to hit.

I’m not a golfer, but I understand that when a ball is lost, it’s common practice to drop another in a visible spot to keep the game moving. What made this episode different was the secrecy – an almost cinematic little sleight of hand. Commentators chuckled: the president, caught “cheating” at golf.

But the point isn’t the game – it’s the pattern. On the fairways of Scotland or the corridors of Washington, the same playbook applies: when the truth is inconvenient, replace it with something that fits better.

The golf incident is harmless compared to what followed. Trump dismissed the commissioner of the US Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) after it released revised employment figures showing fewer jobs than initially reported. Without evidence, Trump claimed the numbers were rigged to make his administration look bad.

Soon after, economist Stephen Moore of the right-wing Heritage Foundation stood beside the president, declaring that the BLS had been wrong for years – back into the Biden administration. He presented charts supporting Trump’s story, based on “non-public” data no one else could verify. The performance was as bizarre as Trump’s infamous Sharpie edit to a hurricane map in 2019 to “prove” that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama (it didn’t).

But this time, the implications are deeper. On Monday, Trump nominated EJ Antoni, also of the Heritage Foundation and a Trump loyalist, to replace the BLS commissioner. “Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

The BLS isn’t just a statistics bureau – it publishes the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the key inflation measure that central banks use to set interest rates. Tinker with that, and you’re not just cheating at golf – you’re rewriting the scoreboard for the entire economy.

Cheating is without borders

This tendency to bend the rules isn’t confined to the United States. In Cyprus, the Yiannakis Yiannaki case showed how some still view cutting corners as a perfectly acceptable way to get things done. Yiannakis admitted three charges against him but denied another five, which prosecutors later dropped – claiming it would not affect sentencing. Whether that’s true remains to be seen.

It seems like Trump, many cheaters have no qualms about their actions – but they do hate seeing them in the public record, using “plausible deniability” as a shield to avoid being ostracised.

The digital fog

Even outside politics and courtrooms, truth is under siege. Recently, a story circulated on Facebook claiming Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum was defiantly rejecting Trump’s tariffs and vowing to sell only to “like-minded” countries. It sounded plausible, especially given current trade tensions and discussions of a Mexico-Canada trade corridor bypassing the US. But to me, Sheinbaum’s tone was uncharacteristic and on closer inspection, the speech was fake – never delivered at all.

Still, thousands reacted and commented, eager to pass judgement. It was a reminder that in the digital age, reality is negotiable, and outrage often outruns verification.

Perhaps there’s still value in seeking news from credible, traditional outlets – the kind where facts are checked before they’re printed. Old-fashioned virtues like honesty, accountability and restraint may sound quaint in a world of viral outrage and algorithmic truth-bending. But they’re still the foundations of a functioning society. And with that, as I alluded to last week, I’ll return to sipping my Mai Tai from a lovely Caribbean resort. Or am I?