the vast majority of people will always accept a pretty lie over an ugly truth

I’d argue this is true temporarily.

A lie is like putting something on a credit card. It can make things look better in the short term, but the debt builds. Maybe you can get lucky and win the lottery (or get a pandemic to use as an excuse) and pay off the debt temporarily, but keep following the same strategy and the debt will build again. And when the debt grows larger than what you can repay, and people figure this out, they start to get pissed.

Maybe Trump can survive the current crisis in his popularity, but eventually he’s going to be no more popular that Pol Pot is today.