Politics without Honor

News flash: politicians lie. Republicans do, Democrats do, Libertarians do, the Whigs did, the Bull Moose party did, the Federalist did, and the Anti-Federalist too. And although there isn’t a particular scandal to cite, 74% of Americans believe even George Washington – the man who could not tell a lie, probably lied while in office. But is the fact that the public believes that politicians lie really a problem for democracy?

That politicians lie is nothing new. But there seems to be a growing concern that they are lying more often now than perhaps ever before. That level of distrust – only 19% of Americans trust the government to do the right thing, a record low – breeds cynicism. Even more dangerous for democracy, when high levels of distrust are sustained, citizens become apathetic about the lies that get told. There are now teams of researchers whose sole job during a campaign season is to fact check statements made by candidates for office. Politifact.com, for instance, has 38 full time employees who spend their entire work days fact checking. Similar operations are run by FactCheck.org, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press. But with so much back and forth between candidates, third-party Super PACs, and the innumerable attack ads, it seems overwhelming for the average citizen to try to sort through the muck to find the kernels of truth.

Not only do politicians stretch the truth in order to damage their opponent’s record, but as Paul Ryan has recently shown, they lie about achievements completely outside of the realm of politics. In a recent radio interview Paul Ryan casually told the audience that he had run a marathon in under three hours. In any given year, that would put him in the top 2% of runners in this country. When Runner’s World magazine investigated the claim, they discovered he had run the marathon in just over four hours. Ryan casually tossed aside the charge that he had lied – that race was over 20 years ago, so what if he got the time wrong, it wasn’t a big deal. As any marathon runner will tell you, when you run 26.2 miles, you remember the experience for a very long time, and you certainly remember your time. After running my first marathon, I can tell you that I will probably never forget the exhilarating, excruciating, and very long and slow 5 hours and 7 minutes that it took me.

The story of Paul Ryan is illustrative precisely because he was so casual in his lie. As Mark Remy wrote in his analysis of this story, most of the media has missed the big point of the Ryan’s Marathon-Gate scandal: “He claimed an honor that he never earned.” I think Remy is spot on – this lie is a matter of honor, and we appear to be a country that has given up entirely on the idea of honor in politics. Not to sound like a starry-eyed idealist, but as a person who has spent a great deal of time dwelling in the documents and letters of 18^th century America, I can say that we haven’t always been this way. There was a time when this country was young and perhaps starry-eyed with idealism, when preachers and politicians alike spent a great deal of time talking about honor as the foundation of our government. In one of his sermons emphasizing the importance of honest and fair arguments to life and politics, the Reverend John Witherspoon, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence, argued that no man had ever boasted that he was a liar. I’m afraid he would be disappointed today, for it seems that we see such lies as little to be ashamed of and for some, perhaps, even a matter of pride.

Whose fault is it that all this lying is going on? The easy answer is that it’s the politicians. Party politics has become so polarized that it’s easier now than ever to try to spear your opponent. But, Professor of philosophy Nick Smith of the University of New Hampshire offers a more interesting answer: it’s the fault of the American people. “Perhaps we do not hold them accountable because we have become so biased toward our own views that we view political discourse as a kind of ideological warfare where any weapon should be deployed,” Smith said. “So if a politician gets caught in a lie, some do not see this as a character defect but rather an occupational hazard.” We’ve come to expect it so we do nothing about it.

It seems to me that this is part of a terribly vicious cycle and there isn’t an easy way out. Politics becomes polarized, there is a race to the bottom to develop the most damaging attack ads, the people become distrustful of what politicians say, thus they become disengaged, cynical, and apathetic. And the cycle seems to constantly repeat itself. So how do we break the cycle? While it may be a modest and even idealistic proposal, I would suggest that we must begin by refusing to swallow the dribble the pundits and spinsters call news. Clint Eastwood talking to an empty chair and the DNC having a conversation about the inclusion of God in the party platform make for great stories to pass around Facebook, Twitter and the like – they even make for good entertainment – but they do little to promote critical or productive conversation. To quote one of America’s most preeminent philosophers, the late-George Carlin, we have to begin with a system of education that promotes moving beyond the easy sound bites: “Don’t just teach your children to read…Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything.”  The corporate news media can get away with feeding us the lies and scandals because we continue to tune in and watch. It’s practically the best reality TV has to offer now that Jersey Shore is going off the air. But maybe, just maybe, if we started questioning the coverage of the lies, and even the liars themselves, we might at least have a chance of making politics a little bit less dishonorable.