Truth, Lies, and Politics

Everyman: a morality play. Politics ain't one.

Conors Freidersdorf has a reflection on "lying politicians" over at The Atlantic:

It's now easier than ever to get elected despite telling brazen lies. But on some level Americans are aware of what's gone on, and so they accord decreasing amounts of respect to elected leaders. The conventional wisdom is that in order to be a successful politician these days, you've got to gradually compromise many of your core principles and perhaps your integrity. Ask yourself this question: Can anyone become president without lying? Without misrepresenting their opponent? Without using people as a means to an end? I don't think anyone can. And I have no idea how a nation would go about reversing the ratchet effect successfully...I'll be voting for a third party this November, but I don't really expect it to make any difference. Most Americans have grown so used to mendacity that it's taken for granted. I wonder if, despite its inevitability, we'd be better off if we raged against betrayals of what we believe is right a bit more.

Freidersdorf equates Romeny's dishonesty to that of President Obama. I think this equivalence misses the point.


Romney's pervasive dishonesty isn't inherently remarkable. His dishonesty is remarkable for its incompetent presentation, for its brazenness if not its nature. A skilled liar (Reagan, Clinton, Obama) uses obfuscation and moderated language to hide their dishonesty. The skilled liar assumes that some limit exists on the public's ability to absorb the most blatant untruths. The skilled liar believes he must lie carefully.


Romney assumes no such limit on the public's gullibility. He doesn't obfuscate. He completely reverses course, confident that an assured grin and partisan politics will paper over wildly divergent policy stances.


But my lying-skills distinction misses the point as surely as Conors' misdirected call for righteously honest rage.


Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that all politicians are lying liars. Let's assume that the truth is only valued by candidates so far as it helps their cause.


Some people (commonly the most passionate libertarians and the most ardent lefties, I anecdotally find) strongly reject this purported culture of dishonesty. They prefer purveyors of consistent truth, guys like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich whose consistency is only matched by their lack of political efficacy.


But let's think about truth in more realist terms. We know that the vast majority of voters operate on extraordinarily low levels of information. And we're assuming, alongside Freidersdorf and political idealists, that all politicians lie.


What does it mean to be a "genuine" politician in this sort of environment? If voters know little, lies are likely to be effective, particularly in the short term. And elections are won and lost in the short term.


I argue that a politician who truly believes in his principles will respond by strategically working to make his vision (and that of his voters) a political reality. If I truly believe in smaller government, I should work to shrink government, not to state my views on smaller government as honestly as possible. If the optimal strategy for achieving this vision involves dishonesty, so be it.


Let's assume that Obama pretended to be against gay marriage until a few months ago for political convenience (I certainly believe he did). Did he lie? In some sense, sure. But should we conceive of truth as speaking one's mind completely at all times, consequences be damned? If Obama truly believed in gay rights and truly believed that a premature endorsement of gay marriage would harm the gay rights movement, wouldn't an earlier enunciation of his position have been dishonest to his ultimate belief in equality?


Under this framework we can conceive of politicians like Obama and Romney as more genuine than would-be truth tellers like Paul and Kucinich.


These truth tellers could be framed as idealists. 


Or they could be framed as pious sycophants, prostrate at the altar of their own carefully crafted theory of truth.


Truth, particularly in a social context, is a far more complex moral concept than we like to acknowledge. And politics is no morality play.