When it comes up to an election, a common trope is that you can’t trust politicians. Why? Because politicians always lie to us. But is that strictly true, or is there more behind the saying?
Whilst some politicians do lie deliberately (think Watergate, Clinton-Lewinsky etc.) most politicians don’t lie deliberately, it’s merely that their policy hasn’t got enough bipartisan support to push it through the legal body of a given country.
Most of the “lying” we see politicians doing is rather unintentional. Rather than it being a deliberate lie in order to get people’s vote, it is merely a policy idea that doesn’t have the popularity to get through the legal body.
What are the general reasons for politicians lying accidentally?
Whilst lying accidentally isn’t the best thing for our political system, it still happens every single election cycle. There are many reasons why a political leader would lie accidentally, these include:
- Not being fully briefed on policy: sometimes, a party member isn’t fully briefed on everything before delivering a speech or interview. When this happens, naturally, they can get questions that they can’t answer as they don’t know the answer to them. So they make it up as they go along, most of the time, we don’t notice it, but there are times, when this, it can reshape our world. The most famous example of this is: The Fall of the Berlin Wall.
- A ‘Freudian’ slip: sometimes called a ‘Political gaffe’ or a ‘Kinsley gaffe’ is where a politician says something that reveals the truth, and they did not intend to admit. These are picked up by the media, and spread like wildfire as a result of it.
- The policy just isn’t popular enough: we have covered this one extensively. Sometimes, on the campaign trail, a politician makes a policy that they are sure will pass through their legal body. But sometimes, this is completely wrong as the policy just simply doesn’t have enough support from both parties in order to pass it into law.
- Honest error: for some people, a politician making an honest error is like a dog talking Chinese, ie. it will never happen. This is often the favored excuse as to why something seems unreasonable, usually coupled with a nameless intern being blamed.
What are the general reasons for politicians lying deliberately?
Whilst lying deliberately is rather uncommon, it still does happen. There are a number of reasons why a president or prime minister might lie to the nation, these include:
- Stop themselves from loosing face: this one is likely the one you though of, when I said that some politicians lie deliberately. To save their own skin. These have been the most common instances of blatant lying, not to mention the most memorable instances.
- Stop the country from losing face: A job of a politician is not just to serve his/her political party, but also the country. Sometimes, that country does something that is rather embarrassing, and a politician needs to lie to the nation, in order to calm them, and prevent unrest.
- National Secrets Act: whilst this is very UK-centric, many other countries have a similar that could be applied here too. A prime minister or a president might be forced to address the nation, and tell a blatant lie, in order not to be prosecuted in a court of law.
- Placate the masses: let’s face it, the job of a politician isn’t to tell the truth. It’s to get themselves and their party elected into office. So, if they have to tell one measly lie in order to do it, they will almost certainly do it. This can be seen at the moment with in the UK with the Labour Party, who are promising free Wifi to every house in the UK.
Is it justified for a politician to lie either deliberately or accidentally?
You are probably sat there going: “No, of course not! That is completely wrong, and politicians should never lie, not even as an accident!”
And whilst you’d be justified most of the time, it is generally considered that as long as it is accidental, lying is OK.
You are probably now, sat there pulling your hair out, and asking why?!
Well the answer is quite straight-forward: we can’t vet, nor police what they are going to say, or what they have said. Whilst many independent news websites, and political websites, attempt to vet everything a politician is saying, the answer is simply, that we can’t vet them 100%.
And even if we could, by implementing some international or national political rhetoric fact-checking team, we can’t police it. If a person or a political party get known for saying things that are bogus, we can’t really do anything to stop them.
We wouldn’t have anyway to stop them from just doing it again. Because if you did, that agency, or department would be accused, every election cycle that they are tampering with the election.
There’s also the possibility that the current political party in-charge would use the agency to stop their rivals. This could be through miring them down in legal action, and investigating their leadership for not being 100% accurate or truthful.
Is there anyway we can police what politicians say?
Not really. There isn’t much we can do in the short term to police what politicans say, but the long term is a completely different ball game.
But it will be difficult to get people on board.
Both private and public figures will need to get in on the action.
For most private figures, they simply don’t care enough to get the truth out of politicians. Most people are now getting their news from web-based media outlets or social media, rather than traditional news media. This has ramifications- less people watching traditional news media= less people engaging with fact-checkers. The same people who are debunking the fake news stories.
Public figure too will have to take a stance against it. No longer will they be accepted to sit on the sidelines and say that this is how politics is done. They too will have to care enough, to make sure they 100% of the truth, and nothing but the truth, just as though they were in court, on trial.
But until both public and private figures are forced to work together, very little will change. Lies will still be spread throughout the election cycle(s), and the general public will be too impotent to listen to fact-checkers.
Should lying politicians be held accountable to the people? Why or why not? Tell me in the comments!