9. Truths About Lying In Politics
It’s illegal to advertise products with lies. We know it's simply wrong for businesses to profit from deceptively influencing your choices. If that weren't discouraged, they'd increasingly seek success by ever cleverer lying. And a commerce that encourages such untruths isn't efficient or productive or even workable in the long term. Yet somehow, the influences exercised on your choice of government are exempted from this logic, and left outside the limits of legal restraints. Isn’t it time political ads were held to at least the same standard as soap ads?
The relationship between politics and truth has gotten so bad, it needs counseling to prevent a divorce due to irreconcilable differences. In two Reuters opinion pieces, “Looking for Truth in All the Wrong Places” and “Why We Vote for Liars,” Jack Shafer makes the case that politics and truth are rarely a good match, referencing books on the history of political lying, and comparing product markets to “political markets” to make useful analogies.
Shafer’s position is that it’s naive to expect politicians or their ads not to routinely lie. Despite the fact-checking circus and commentator kerfuffles, politicians “rarely are forced to pay a political price when they butcher the truth.” So "of course [politicians] continue to lie even when called out," concluding that this isn't a problem because voters expect it and because it works. The fact that fact-bending works is a scientifically proven fact. Scientists call one aspect of this phenomenon source misattribution or source confusion error. Some of the contents of political ads on TV are easily remembered as if they were news. Increasing exploitation of this brain bug is a major reason we have a democracy drowning in deep disinformation.
Shafer writes that voters “crave rhetoric that moves their un–fact-checked hearts,” which illustrates another confounding cognitive characteristic scientists call confirmation bias. We rarely listen neutrally for facts or evidence; rather, we listen for what confirms our heartfelt prior beliefs. That this is measurably true means we must actively seek to balance our own biases if we are to make better political decisions.
But here, Shafer makes an election-endangering error. Rhetoric needn’t be craven or deceptive. After all, rhetoric is simply the art of persuasive speech, which doesn’t necessarily entail falsehood. That’s precisely the legal line drawn in product ads, which are commercial rhetoric. Be as persuasive as you can, but don’t mislead. Truth-in-advertising laws require ads to be “truthful and not deceptive,” to “have evidence to back up claims,” and “to not be unfair.”
Shafer goes on say that the “product” voters buy in “political markets” includes, as a desired feature, the ability to tell “durable, convincing lies” that signal “a candidate possesses the political skills to run the Executive Branch…[because] much of governance is about deception, bluff, and double-dealing.” He says “To lie about an issue is to be a politician…. To lie about a legal matter is to be a lawyer.”
This comparison of the lies of politicians and the lies of lawyers can be extended to help us see other errors in Shafer’s position. Lawyers can’t lie to win cases for their clients with impunity. They are subject to a code of professional ethics, with punishments, for example disbarment for failing to act in the best interests of their clients.
In addition, lawyerly lying or fact fudging for clients’ cases is constrained by an elaborate balancing machinery of justice. An independent judge acts as referee. Rules of evidence must be adhered to. Witness testimony that doesn’t tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” is subject to criminal penalty. Shafer’s own profession of journalism itself used to function as a more effective judge, as well as an expert counterwitness against each side. But journalists now confuse the need to be balanced with treating both sides of political issues equally. Judges must be balanced, but must also make decisive rulings that guide the jury. They must rule flawed evidence as inadmissible.
The press has become a more reluctant referee recently, relinquishing the role of making emphatic judgments. But if democracy is to work effectively, it needs equivalent restraints, or voters will have no beacons to help them navigate through the foul, factless fog of warring politicos.
The relationship between politics and truth has gotten so bad, it needs counseling to prevent a divorce due to irreconcilable differences. In two Reuters opinion pieces, “Looking for Truth in All the Wrong Places” and “Why We Vote for Liars,” Jack Shafer makes the case that politics and truth are rarely a good match, referencing books on the history of political lying, and comparing product markets to “political markets” to make useful analogies.
Shafer’s position is that it’s naive to expect politicians or their ads not to routinely lie. Despite the fact-checking circus and commentator kerfuffles, politicians “rarely are forced to pay a political price when they butcher the truth.” So "of course [politicians] continue to lie even when called out," concluding that this isn't a problem because voters expect it and because it works. The fact that fact-bending works is a scientifically proven fact. Scientists call one aspect of this phenomenon source misattribution or source confusion error. Some of the contents of political ads on TV are easily remembered as if they were news. Increasing exploitation of this brain bug is a major reason we have a democracy drowning in deep disinformation.
Shafer writes that voters “crave rhetoric that moves their un–fact-checked hearts,” which illustrates another confounding cognitive characteristic scientists call confirmation bias. We rarely listen neutrally for facts or evidence; rather, we listen for what confirms our heartfelt prior beliefs. That this is measurably true means we must actively seek to balance our own biases if we are to make better political decisions.
But here, Shafer makes an election-endangering error. Rhetoric needn’t be craven or deceptive. After all, rhetoric is simply the art of persuasive speech, which doesn’t necessarily entail falsehood. That’s precisely the legal line drawn in product ads, which are commercial rhetoric. Be as persuasive as you can, but don’t mislead. Truth-in-advertising laws require ads to be “truthful and not deceptive,” to “have evidence to back up claims,” and “to not be unfair.”
Shafer goes on say that the “product” voters buy in “political markets” includes, as a desired feature, the ability to tell “durable, convincing lies” that signal “a candidate possesses the political skills to run the Executive Branch…[because] much of governance is about deception, bluff, and double-dealing.” He says “To lie about an issue is to be a politician…. To lie about a legal matter is to be a lawyer.”
This comparison of the lies of politicians and the lies of lawyers can be extended to help us see other errors in Shafer’s position. Lawyers can’t lie to win cases for their clients with impunity. They are subject to a code of professional ethics, with punishments, for example disbarment for failing to act in the best interests of their clients.
In addition, lawyerly lying or fact fudging for clients’ cases is constrained by an elaborate balancing machinery of justice. An independent judge acts as referee. Rules of evidence must be adhered to. Witness testimony that doesn’t tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” is subject to criminal penalty. Shafer’s own profession of journalism itself used to function as a more effective judge, as well as an expert counterwitness against each side. But journalists now confuse the need to be balanced with treating both sides of political issues equally. Judges must be balanced, but must also make decisive rulings that guide the jury. They must rule flawed evidence as inadmissible.
The press has become a more reluctant referee recently, relinquishing the role of making emphatic judgments. But if democracy is to work effectively, it needs equivalent restraints, or voters will have no beacons to help them navigate through the foul, factless fog of warring politicos.