I’ve told this story before, but forgive me, it’s relevant to the current topic.

About 16 years ago, I needed to rent a car in Manhattan, a terrible place to need a rental car. I walked into my local Avis outlet and saw the most imposing, ominous queue I have ever seen, 50 people jammed up next to one another in a room the size of a studio apartment. One poor soul stood behind the counter, rattled and upset but doing her best.

I’d been in line for about 20 minutes a guy walked in. He sighed when he saw the line, but he had a plan. He rushed to the front of the counter.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry about this, but this is an emergency,” he said. He placed a bag of beach equipment on the ground and turned to the Avis employee. “My grandfather has had a heart attack, and I have to get to him immediately,” he said. “It’s an emergency, I have to get there right now.” There wasn’t a single person in that room who believed he was in a rush to see his grandfather. He seemed to understand this. But he wasn’t going to let that stand in his way.

“I’m sorry, sir, we have a lot of people eager to get where they’re going,” the woman at the desk mumbled, not looking at him,, as the first few people in line glanced away, hoping this situation would just resolve itself without them having to get involved.

“I know, I know, and I am so sorry about this,” he said, not looking sorry. “But I have to get there. It’s an emergency. It’s my grandfather.” You started to hear some grumblings up front, but not much more than that. “Please, miss, please,” he said, as the Avis employee wrapped up the customer she’d been working with. “I’m sorry, I really have to get my reservation immediately. I have to insist. This is an emergency.”

She turned to The Guy and frowned. She then looked to the person whose turn it was next in line. They knew this guy was lying. They knew he was just trying to cut in line because he was a selfish jerk who doesn’t care about anyone but himself. They knew he surely does this stuff all the time.

But what can you do? Who wants to spend their time fighting a guy like this? A guy who makes the rule not apply to him not because he is special, but because he lacks the basic human quality of shame. It’s easier just to give him his stupid reservation, get him out of here and try to forget he ever existed. He’s not leaving. It’s the only way to get him out of here.

The next person in line, their shoulders shrugged. What can you do with a guy like this? The Avis employee turned back to The Guy and sighed. “OK. What name is your reservation under?” She gave him his keys. He grabbed them and his credit card and turned away, without a thank you or any sort of acknowledgment, and walked out the door.

We all looked down at our feet. What could you do?

**********

Of all the indignities and tragedies of the Trump administration — and, in many ways, the last seven-plus years of American life — one of the more underappreciated ones is how we all had to just get used to the lying. Politicians have been lying since there have been politicians, because human beings have been lying as long as there have been human beings. It is our nature. But it is also our nature to understand that lying is, even if you don’t consider it inherently wrong, at least something that’s not in everyone’s best interest. There has to be at least the presumption that people aren’t lying constantly, and if they are found to be, there must be some ramifications. Lying has to be bad — and have to pay the price if you’re caught.

It was established very early on in the Trump administration that lying not only would not be punished, it would be standard operating procedure. It would be how things work. It wasn’t just established early one: It was established on the first day.

It was obvious to anyone who had watched Donald Trump’s inauguration that he had a small crowd there to witness it. The sky was blue. Grass was green. There were fewer people at that Presidential inauguration than there had been in decades. It was impossible to debate. So Sean Spicer was told to lie. And he did. He lied. He knew he was lying. We knew he was lying. He knew that we knew he was lying. (Later the administration would actually doctor photos to make the crowd look bigger.) But it didn’t matter, because at that point, the norm was established: They’re just going to lie. That’s how it works now.

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The most satisfying part of the January 6 Commission hearings — which have been otherwise horrifyingly effective and deeply depressing — has been watching people who have been lying to us for years forced, under oath, to stop. Ivanka Trump. Bill Barr. Jared Kushner. Surely more are coming. The lies that had become so normalized, so just part of the daily rigamarole, are now being fessed up to. To see Ivanka Trump — who of course stood next to her father throughout everything and all the lies that come with that — saying that, well, now, now she’s telling the truth … there is a certain relief in that. You can lie, a lot, for as long as you can. But eventually you have to stop.

This relief may be short-lived, of course. After all, Trump is still the frontrunner for the Republican Presidential Nomination in two years, even if this week surely isn’t helping him, particularly in the eyes of the less extreme wing of his own party. If he wins, well, the return of lying may be the least of our concerns. But as someone who sat through all these lies, for so long, who watched the American public, at once, go “they’re lying, obviously,” and then go on about their lives knowing they couldn’t do anything about it … seeing them admit they were lying, to know they can no longer lie .. it helps. I cannot lie. It has made me feel better. Now they, themselves, are admitting that they were lying, that they were always lying, that they’ll always be lying. It helps. It does! Eventually: I’m sorry, but you want the guy’s rental car to crash.

Will Leitch writes multiple pieces a week for Medium. Make sure to follow him right here. He lives in Athens, Georgia, with his family and is the author of five books, including the Edgar-nominated novel How Lucky, now out from Harper Books. He also writes a free weekly newsletter that you might enjoy.