Unexplored major issues in politics: About chronic liars

Yesterday I was happy to post about poll data that suggested that DJT's chronic lying just might be hurting him in public opinion. I posted this as evidence and my reaction to it:

IMHO, this bit of data is quite encouraging

(that was my reaction to the data)

https://dispol.blogspot.com/2024/07/another-poll.html

That data struck me as something new, since I could not find or recall poll data that hinted at the possibility that chronic lying by a politician or demagogue could be a significant factor in a voter's choice of candidate. My recollection was that in 2016 when chronic lying by DJT became apparent to me I was shocked that it did not seem to faze anyone I came across. No one seemed to think it was important, while in my mind it was as important as the obvious authoritarianism that I thought DJT was exhibiting at the time. I recall citing this Politifact data in 2016 in several posts and/or comments:

The guy who originally posted this 

was vehemently verbally attacked and commented:

"I was surprised by the anger and hate behind many of the comments I received. 

I don’t think I can physically do some of the things you told me to do."

The original data post is here

I got two reactions to that data in 2016 and my argument that DJT was an astonishing chronic liar. One was from people who opposed or were neutral to DJT. They dismissed the data with a blithe, "all politicians lie" response. They ignored my "but look at the data" argument. They just shrugged it off. 

The other response was from DJT supporters. They virulently attacked me as a liar, idiot, communist, pedophile and etc., many of them fiercely claiming that DJT had never once lied. Over the years, both kinds of responses softened to my assertions of chronic liar as more evidence that DJT really was an unusually persistent and shameless liar. The WaPo ended its gargantuan 4-year DJT fact checker effort from the first to the last day DJT was in office with this headline (not paywalled): 

Trump’s false or misleading claims total 30,573 over 4 years

 

DJT left office with me feeling that being a chronic liar was generally not a major problem for at least some demagogues and politicians. My rationalization was that, at least for some Americans, especially people on the political right, political DJT had normalized and moralized lying. For affected people, the public norm apparently went from all politicians lie to one of chronically lying is not that important. Other factors such as sex scandals, "fitness for office" or old age seemed to be more important factors. That struck me as an important effect of of DJT's dark free speech.

Of course, my enthusiasm yesterday at the possibility that chronic lying might be a significant factor was quickly dampened by blunt criticisms (cold wet blankets). One was that (1) this is just one poll, and/or (2) polls suck and are meaningless, crappy and wrong. There is validity to those criticisms. I did check and could not find any poll that had data hinting that being a chronic liar was important. The old all politicians lie apparently included chronic lying. 

Another criticism was that the question was worded wrong, and if reworded properly, the liar factor would probably fade in importance, presumably to a factor that is minor, insignificant, or maybe even non-existent. That is also a legit criticism. The data in that poll just might be 100% bullshit.

The data from yesterday I cited above just might be the only data that even starts to get this issue. I asked Perplexity, and it offered gobbeldygook, with this fun summary:

While many voters express a preference for honesty, the strategic use of lies by politicians and the complex media environment can lead to a greater tolerance for dishonesty. This dynamic has significant implications for public trust and the ethical standards of political discourse.

Well, duh! 

I asked Google Scholar the same question that I asked Perplexity and got a slew of papers and books (20,800 hits), including this 2023 research paper with these general observations:

Politicians are motivated by the desire to build a positive reputation, therefore they will be more likely to deliver false statements (incurring the risk of being fact-checked) when the potential benefit outweighs the cost. This happens as new elections come closer, since the electoral benefit of falsehoods increases along with the probability of being checked too late (after the election day). Politicians are less likely to issue falsehoods in detailed statements and in scripted communication, since the reputational cost are higher because such falsehoods would be considered intentional.

But none of that gets at the specific issue of how important, if important at all, is chronic lying by a politician or demagogue. Some level of lying seems to be mildly to moderately good, neutral or bad, depending on the liar and circumstances. But lying by DJT is different. He is much more like the monstrous chronic liars that Hannah Arendt wrote about in the 1940s, than the run of the mill all politicians lie-level liars like Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton.

Now that is talking about real hard core lying

Go get 'em Hannah!

Is there any evidence that I am not just a lone crackpot in thinking that the data suggesting that being a chronic liar might be, just might be, something more important than the standard all politicians lie standard for acceptable veracity in American society? Maybe. I found this today, talking about the same data I got jazzed about yesterday:

Shocker Poll Suggests Trump’s Lying 

May Be Huge Weakness for Him

One possible reason the polls haven’t moved as much as pundits expected: Voters still don’t like or trust Trump

A new Marist poll takes the novel step of asking registered voters which is more off-putting in an occupant of the Oval Office: dishonesty or excessive age. The results are surprising, and along with other polling along these lines, it should influence how Joe Biden’s and Donald Trump’s relative qualifications for the presidency are covered from here on out.

The poll asked: Which is more concerning in a president, someone who doesn’t tell the truth, or someone who might be too old to serve? The results were lopsided: By 68 to 32 percent, respondents were more concerned about the lying than the aging. Given the relentless media focus on presidential age of late, that’s simply remarkable.

While the poll doesn’t directly compare Trump and Biden on that particular question, it also finds that 52 percent of Americans say Biden has the “character to serve as president,” whereas only 43 percent say this about Trump. Fifty-six percent say Trump lacks the character to serve, which surely reflects public perceptions of Trump’s dishonesty.  

The new Marist poll, by the way, also shows Biden leading Trump by 50 to 48 percent. But that’s out of sync with polling averages, so we should be cautious about that finding. Still, even if the overall poll is off by a few points, the numbers on dishonesty and age remain striking.

Trump was probably the most dishonest president in U.S. history. His lies and distortions topped 30,000 during his presidency, according to The Washington Post. That has continued unabated: CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale tallied up over 30 lies from Trump at the recent presidential debate, while Biden’s falsehoods amounted to maybe a third of that. Critically, many of Trump’s whoppers were far more gargantuan lies—such as the claim that Democratic states execute babies—leading Dale to describe Trump’s lying as “staggering.”  

What the new Marist poll adds to this debate is the idea that voters see excessive lying as a serious problem in a president. Yet ask yourself this: How often is Trump’s lying covered that way? Trump’s dishonesty is rarely treated as a sign of his temperamental unfitness for the presidency. Biden’s age, of course, is constantly covered as an important factor in determining his fitness for the office. Biden’s age should be covered this way, to be clear. But so should Trump’s relentless lying.

The key distinction here is between mental unfitness for the presidency (where Biden does very badly, relative to Trump), and temperamental unfitness for that majestic office. On the latter, Quinnipiac found earlier this year Biden does significantly better than Trump does, with an extraordinary 61 percent saying Trump is temperamentally unfit for the presidency.

Hey! Those yahoos see the new lying data the same way I do! MAGA!!

I guess that despite the weakness of the data and the valid criticisms of it, I am not alone in thinking that maybe some Americans have had their fill of being insultingly lied to and are maybe, just maybe, fixin' to do a backlash against the immorality or evil[1] inherent in chronic lying by a politician or demagogue.

Damn it, I am not alone!

Footnote:

1. As I have explained before, immorality morphs into evil when there is malice or reasonably foreseeable, unwarranted damage, harm or death to people from the behavior or rhetoric from liars. Where I am less certain is does evil arise when there reasonably foreseeable, sufficient unwarranted damage, harm or death to civilization or to the environment, animals or plants. I think sometimes there is evil arising from excessive harm to things other than people. 

And, when knowledge changes, behavior or rhetoric that were once moral, neutral or merely immoral can move to evil. For example, new research sometimes shows that something previously believed to be harmless or even beneficial is in fact harmful enough to merit consideration as evil under the circumstances. 

Another poll

PBS reports new poll data:

IMHO, this bit of data is quite encouraging

That data strongly suggests to me that there is a lot of fear of DJT out there. 

Which is more important? Saving your conscience or saving democracy?

We all (or most of us) have thresholds for what we will or won’t do. It’s called “personal ethics.”  For example, as a 55+year vegetarian, I’d say nothing could make me eat animal flesh. 

Supposing someone holds a gun to your head and says “Do X or I pull the trigger.”  Will you do X?  You may say “no” when not faced with that prospect for real, but I guarandamntee you that if it was a reality, you’d say, “How high should I jump?” Or, in my case, “Give me that fucking hamburger,” and I’d gag it down somehow.  IOW, you will do X no matter how disgusting you find it.  Self-preservation runs THAT deep. 

There is a political gun pointed at our collective “high moral standards” heads this November. Will you help the perpetrators pull the trigger, out of your prioritized conscience?  Will you choose your conscience over democracy?

For you third party or write-in voters, that’s what this November election comes down to. Your vote for Stein, or RFK, Jr., or Mickey Mouse is just a wasted vote. That is a cold hard objective fact. 

BUT… your conscience will be clear. It, your conscience, helped enable/catapult a psychopathic madman into the leader of the “no longer free as we’ve known it” U.S. world. (see Project 2025)

Am I wrong about this?  Do you still plan to vote third party or write in?  

Make your case in view of my scenario. Tell me why I’m not seeing clearly?

(by PrimalSoup)

The NYT editorial board calls DJT unfit

The NYT writes (not paywalled):

OPINION

DONALD TRUMP IS UNFIT

TO LEAD

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.


Next week, for the third time in eight years, Donald Trump will be nominated as the Republican Party’s candidate for president of the United States. A once great political party now serves the interests of one man, a man as demonstrably unsuited for the office of president as any to run in the long history of the Republic, a man whose values, temperament, ideas and language are directly opposed to so much of what has made this country great.

It is a chilling choice against this national moment. For more than two decades, large majorities of Americans have said they are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, and the post-Covid era of stubborn inflation, high interest rates, social division and political stagnation has left many voters even more frustrated and despondent.

The Republican Party once pursued electoral power in service to solutions for such problems, to building “the shining city on a hill,” as Ronald Reagan liked to say. Its vision of the United States — embodied in principled public servants like George H.W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney — was rooted in the values of freedom, sacrifice, individual responsibility and the common good. The party’s conception of those values was reflected in its longstanding conservative policy agenda, and today many Republicans set aside their concerns about Mr. Trump because of his positions on immigration, trade and taxes. But the stakes of this election are not fundamentally about policy disagreements. The stakes are more foundational: what qualities matter most in America’s president and commander in chief.

Mr. Trump has shown a character unworthy of the responsibilities of the presidency. He has demonstrated an utter lack of respect for the Constitution, the rule of law and the American people. Instead of a cogent vision for the country’s future, Mr. Trump is animated by a thirst for political power: to use the levers of government to advance his interests, satisfy his impulses and exact retribution against those who he thinks have wronged him.

He is, quite simply, unfit to lead.

The Democrats are rightly engaged in their own debate about whether President Biden is the right person to carry the party’s nomination into the election, given widespread concerns among voters about his age-related fitness. This debate is so intense because of legitimate concerns that Mr. Trump may present a danger to the country, its strength, security and national character — and that a compelling Democratic alternative is the only thing that would prevent his return to power. It is a national tragedy that the Republicans have failed to have a similar debate about the manifest moral and temperamental unfitness of their standard-bearer, instead setting aside their longstanding values, closing ranks and choosing to overlook what those who worked most closely with the former president have described as his systematic dishonesty, corruption, cruelty and incompetence.  

That task now falls to the American people. We urge voters to see the dangers of a second Trump term clearly and to reject it. The stakes and significance of the presidency demand a person who has essential qualities and values to earn our trust, and on each one, Donald Trump fails.

In my opinion, now the MSM's Biden vs. DJT playing field is leveled, at least for the NYT. This is overdue, but it will do. 

The opinion is very long and broken into sections Moral Fitness, Principled Leadership, Character, A  President's Words, and Rule of Law. The Rule of Law section starts with these arguments against DJT:

The danger from these foundational failings — of morals and character, of principled leadership and rhetorical excess — is never clearer than in Mr. Trump’s disregard for rule of law, his willingness to do long-term damage to the integrity of America’s systems for short-term personal gain.

As we’ve noted, Mr. Trump’s disregard for democracy was most evident in his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to encourage violence to stop the peaceful transfer of power. What stood in his way were the many patriotic Americans, at every level of government, who rejected his efforts to bully them into complying with his demands to change election results. Instead, they followed the rules and followed the law. This respect for the rule of law, not the rule of men, is what has allowed American democracy to survive for more than 200 years.

In the four years since losing the election, Mr. Trump has become only more determined to subvert the rule of law, because his whole theory of Trumpism boils down to doing whatever he wants without consequence. Americans are seeing this unfold as Mr. Trump attempts to fight off numerous criminal charges. Not content to work within the law to defend himself, he is instead turning to sympathetic judges — including two Supreme Court justices with apparent conflicts over the 2020 election and Jan. 6-related litigation. The playbook: delay federal prosecution until he can win election and end those legal cases. His vision of government is one that does what he wants, rather than a government that operates according to the rule of law as prescribed by the Constitution, the courts and Congress.

A poll about the two candidates

The WaPo reports:

Most Democrats want Biden to drop out, 

but overall race is static, poll finds

Most Democrats nationwide say that President Biden should end his reelection campaign based on his performance in the presidential debate two weeks ago, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll.

The poll results contradict Biden’s claim that only party elites want him to step aside. He has said that positive interactions with supporters on the campaign trail have helped persuade him to stay in the race after a debate in which he trailed off and occasionally appeared confused. But the poll finds that 56 percent of Democrats say that he should end his candidacy, while 42 percent say he should continue to seek reelection. Overall, 2 in 3 adults say the president should step aside, including more than 7 in 10 independents.

The poll finds Biden and former president Donald Trump in a dead heat in the contest for the popular vote, with both candidates receiving 46 percent support among registered voters. Those numbers are nearly identical to the results of an ABC-Ipsos poll in April.

That finding is at odds with some other recent public polls. Across eight other post-debate national polls tracked by The Post, Trump leads by 3.5 percentage points on average, compared with a one-point Trump edge in those same polls before the debate. Biden led Trump by between nine and 11 points in averages of public polls at this point in the campaign four years ago. He ended up winning by 4.5 points.

The survey finds little change in Biden’s job approval, with 57 percent disapproving, identical to the percentage in an April ABC-Ipsos poll. Among Democrats, 75 percent approve of Biden’s performance while 22 percent disapprove, also little changed in the past few months. Americans’ views of Trump and his performance as president has also changed little since before the debate, with 43 percent approving and 52 percent disapproving.

The incredible difficulty a lying demagogue presents to democracy: Bullshit Artillery

The Atlantic published an article by Tom Nichols that describes the extreme difficulty a liberal democracy with free speech has when dealing with lying authoritarian demagogues like DJT:

The Double Standard in Trump-Biden Coverage

It’s real, and it’s not going anywhere

After President Joe Biden’s disastrous recent public appearances, he and his supporters are attacking media outlets for a double standard in coverage of him and his opponent. They’re right, but that double standard is structural and, unfortunately, will not end during this campaign.

The president’s crisis is of his own making. Biden is clearly no longer up to any kind of prolonged extemporizing, but his campaign gambled first on a debate and then on a hastily arranged interview, both of which went badly. Many of Biden’s supporters are blaming members of the media for a pile-on of negative coverage, but there is no planet on which Biden’s behavior isn’t a major and continuing news story.

But critics of recent media coverage of Biden are dead right about one thing: Many outlets have for years been employing a significant double standard in covering Biden and his opponent, Donald Trump. When Biden stumbles over words, we question his state of mind; when Trump acts like a deranged street preacher, it’s … well, Tuesday. If Biden had suggested setting up migrants in a fight club, he’d be out of the race already; Trump does it, and the country (as well as many in the media) shrugs. Recognizing this inequity is the easy part, but here’s the harder realization: The double standard is a structural problem, it won’t change, and everyone in the prodemocracy coalition needs to grit their teeth and accept that reality.

The structural issue is that in an open society, almost all views may be expressed in the public square—even outright falsehoods. This principle of liberal democracy leaves Trump free to lie and propagandize, which he and his footmen do confidently and effortlessly. These tactics have been highly effective among a GOP base whose senses have been pounded into numbness by relentless propaganda, a daily barrage of Bullshit Artillery that leaves a smoking, pockmarked no-man’s-land in the mind of almost anyone subjected to it for long enough.

Media outlets cannot counter this by responding with a similar “truth barrage,” in part because there are simply not enough hours in the day. But it is also inaccurate to say that media outlets have not recently tried to cover Trump’s bizarre behavior.

The real double-standard problem is not about coverage, but about interpretation. This is not “bias” in the political sense. It is, as Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg put it, a bias toward coherence, the inability to accept—and say—that one of the presidential campaigns is completely bonkers. “Trump overwhelms us with nonsense,” Jeff notes, and so, when confronted with Trump’s obvious mental instability, we work backwards: “Trump sounds nuts, but he can’t be nuts, because he’s the presumptive nominee for president of a major party, and no major party would nominate someone who is nuts.”

The result of this bias is that the press too often continues to present what should be appalling, even horrifying information as if it is just part of the normal give-and-take of a political campaign: Trump goes to Las Vegas and rants about sharks, and the press, likely trying to appear unbiased, instead pulls out a dull nugget about Trump’s mention of not taxing tips. Trump vows to destroy the American civil service, and the headlines talk about his “plans to increase presidential power.”

Why? Because it is not in the American journalistic tradition to say: Today in Las Vegas, one of the two major candidates said things so rabidly toxic and incoherent that they raised doubts about his sanity.

Media outlets should stop embracing the bias toward coherence; this is now a struggle between a free press and a would-be dictator. But people cannot expect journalists to provide a daily flood of truths about Trump—and they are sorely needed—while also ignoring grave questions about Biden’s presidential fitness. A free and honest press committed to the truth doesn’t work that way.

I am not counseling defeatism. Rather, I am counseling focus and perseverance. Trump’s allies would love for major news outlets to call on him to drop out: They’d reprint it and fundraise off it. Instead, the media should report on Trump’s behavior and emphasize that American candidates—and normal people—do not refer to their fellow citizens as “vermin” or muse about having them prosecuted by military tribunals. A steady recounting of Trump’s ravings and his hideous plans is important—not because it is political, but because it is true, and the public needs to know about all of it.

Setting up a defensive perimeter around Biden won’t change the fact that Trump stands at the head of a cult completely sealed in its own information bubble. .... Many Americans are sophisticated enough to discuss multiple worrisome issues, but a fair number refuse to pay attention to politics at all. They don’t like hard-edged partisanship. They are also put off by relentless bombast. They are especially not interested in abstract debates over fascism. I remain convinced, however, that seeing a fascist every day, along with a reminder that this is not the American way, will have an effect on them. Indeed, understanding that Trump is an unhinged menace is what makes Biden’s future such a crucial story for all of us.