We’ve all heard the joke: how can you tell if a politician is lying? His/her lips are moving. From negative campaigning falsehoods (the anti-John Kerry swift boat fabrication), to personal Presidential denials (Bill Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations…”) all the way up to spinning obvious contradicting facts (Vladimir Putin’s denial of military support for the pro-Russian separatists), it does seem that running a country engenders an ever-increasing level of mendacity. It’s bad enough in totalitarian regimes where truth is almost never a priority, but retaining incumbent power at all costs trumps everything else. There are extreme examples of delusional lying leadership; take for example North Korea’s Kim Jong-un where virtually nothing he says to his people and the world is remotely true.
How does lying shore up our democratic principles? Or does it tear them down? How do voters make reasonable (I skipped the word “intelligent”) choices if what they are being told about their world is simply untrue? Repeatedly. We’ve evolved (devolved?) into a society where you can completely generate a consistent “truth” (a fabrication or distortion of cold, hard and very inconvenient facts) through selective filtration of media and contacts. Leaning left, MSNBC. Leaning right, Fox News. Following spinning pundits? Rachel Madow vs. Rush Limbaugh. Don’t like where the facts are aligning? Left: it’s a conspiracy. Right: God said that isn’t happening. You definitely do not have to consume real news and real facts, since there are so many alternatives. “News” that fits. So you can develop and hold a view of the world that is not anchored in anything real. Everything can be “explained” your way.
With the demise of journalistic pride, newspapers failing in a landslide of “free” news online – bloggers with varying degrees of knowledge and expertise replacing hard journalists with years of training and experience – truth has taken a nose dive. When news on “television” went from an hour in the evening to 24/7 “reporting,” something had to fill the extra hours when there just aren’t enough hard news stories to fill the airways. Most of it was/is either over-coverage – repetitive and sometimes even interviewing reporters about their interviews and opinions as if they mattered – or naked editorializing with no real resemblance to the facts but rather clear adherence to the relevant network’s clearly understood political filtration requirements (advertisers catering to a defined constituency).
Let’s muck it up a bit more. Let’s add the “national security” excuse, creating a legal basis to cover up or completely distort the truth (lie through your teeth). Sure in military matters, you cannot advertise your next move to the enemy or you may want to cause a false move, but when stuff leaks out – like the NSA’s massive electronic intrusion into its own citizens’ most private matters, the personal communications tools of our allies’ leaders – why are we so shocked? We’ve cut out the checks and balances to keep this from happening. Too many parts of government have gone rogue, and when whistleblowers reveal the truth, well, let’s just say that their lives become vastly more unpleasant than what they had before they made an effort to fight for truth and transparency. We have other government excuses for covering up what voters need to know, but you get the point.
Not enough screwing up facts? When the United States Supreme Court decided the Citizen United and McCutcheoncases, they effectively handed the mega-well-heeled the power to place massive amounts of media-influencing cash behind truth-distortions that favor their interests, a path not remotely available to most Americans. We have a name for a political candidate without a parallel SuperPac behind him or her: the loser. Yes, there can be no direct linkage or control SuperPac. Wink wink! But sometimes the candidate has to embrace the hidden agenda in the SuperPac’s underlying message or risk losing that extravagant and perhaps financially necessary campaign support.
When we try and teach our children virtues of honesty and responsibility, their world is filled with really powerful and successful figures who are experts at spinning (lying) and not remotely where they are because of their pursuit of facts… we fail. And we have failed on such a massive basis that the powers on top are only encouraged to continue to follow their lying ways. Simply put, that mendacious strategy works. Truth, well, not so much. The result: a highly polarized society, a completely dysfunctional government and a nation in rather steep decline. If we want a functioning democracy, we need a truth and transparency makeover. If only enough people would care.
I’m Peter Dekom, and keeping democracy alive requires work, honesty and sacrifice… but where are those committed to this honorable path today?
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