Lying and politics: an inevitable pairing?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/07/2021 (1763 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There is an old joke that goes, “How can you tell if a politician is lying?… His lips are moving.” Many people would agree. Opinion polls record worrisome levels of low trust and confidence in politicians. Our own Premier Brian Pallister is seen by many to have a casual relationship with the truth.

In the age of the internet, social media and more aggressive traditional media, and when there are numerous professional and amateur fact-checkers at work, one wonders why politicians lie and think they can get away with it.

Despite the widespread perception that politicians regularly lie, there is little research on the topic and little agreement on what, if anything, should be done about the problem.

First, we need to recognize there are many different forms of falsehoods. The website PolitiFact has developed a “truth-o-meter” that places the statements of politicians on a continuum, ranging from the deliberate misrepresentation of facts at one end to incomplete statements at the other end.

The most blatant forms of lying seem to occur on social media, where there is little regulation and no firm norms of responsible commentary.

Harry Frankfurter, a moral philosopher, argued in his 1985 book On Bullshit that “BS” is different from lying. Those who dispense it are not principally concerned with the truth or falsehood of their statements; rather, their statements are intended to give a segment of the audience a certain perception of the speaker, without being concerned about whether anything at all is true.

At a time when many people live in a social-media bubble, messages are often meant to solidify support among their followers. An encyclopedia entry on political B.S. could appropriately include a picture of Donald Trump.

It takes a healthy ego to be a political leader, and a few politicians are dangerous narcissists who believe the world revolves around them. Self-importance contributes to a belief that they are entitled to interpret events and encourages them to engage in manipulation.

To many in politics, lying is an occupational requirement, akin to the white lies one tells a family member or close friend to avoid giving offence. Similarly, false promises that are never intended to be kept are seen as essential to compete with opponents who make their own improbable pledges.

Many politicians still assume the public does not want to hear, and cannot handle, the truth. This paternalistic attitude reflects a bygone era when the public was more prepared to defer to the presumed greater knowledge and skills of elected and appointed public officials.

It is true that many more people than in the past have become disengaged from politics and do not pay close attention to developments in public life. However, this reflects in part a self-fulfilling prophecy: politicians engage in deception, misrepresentation, simplification or omission of information, and then complain that the public lacks understanding.

In an era of permanent campaigning and attempted news management, communication involving spin has become a central part of the governing process. Avoiding negative news and attempting to claim credit for positive developments encourages politicians to represent reality in ways that are flattering to them and the governments they lead.

With the benefit of polling, focus groups and other intelligence-gathering methods, leaders make cost/benefit calculations on the political advantages and risks of being honest, candid and complete in their communications.

If politicians lie because they think they can get away with it, why don’t we just pass “honesty in politics” laws making lying illegal? There is a long history of outlawing false advertising in the economic marketplace, so why not do the same in the political marketplace? In fact, as part of a broad movement toward attempts at regulating “political ethics”(many would regard the phrase as an oxymoron), more than two dozen U.S. states have made it illegal to lie about particular matters, such as polling times and locations, the military-veteran status of political candidates and the record of opponents.

Even such narrowly cast laws have faced a hard time before the courts, based on free-speech considerations.

In Canada, legal challenges alleging that broken campaign promises constitute a breach of an oral contract have been rejected several times by courts, most famously in a 2005 Ontario court ruling that maintained acceptance of the argument would have “a chilling effect” on political speech, would interfere with the concept of parliamentary sovereignty and would render our system of government dysfunctional.

Manitoba is the only Canadian jurisdiction that has a code of conduct for political parties, which was developed in 2000 after a scandal involving vote-rigging. It relies on self-regulation by the parties, and it does not work. It is not even to be found on the party websites. It contains nice-sounding declarations such as the following: “Political parties and Members, in their advertising, campaigns and promotional material, shall strive at all times to make statements that are accurate and to avoid statements that are misleading or deceptive.”

However, there are no monitoring and enforcement provisions.

When it comes to political lying, it seems we will have to rely on politics to ensure the truth.

Paul G. Thomas is professor emeritus of political studies at the University of Manitoba.