American Political Speech Today
A cheerless homage to George Orwell
Like using the keys below; only I can see who you are.
Another riff on last week’s Hoover Institution paper.
It’s always tempting (and the American way) to denounce politicians as liars, and it’s almost amusing how often we catch our top government officials in bald-faced lies.
I did not have sexual relations with that woman.
William J. “Honest Willie” Clinton
Such episodes erode public trust, especially when justified (as they often are) by cynical sentiments such as “everybody lies about things like that.” Politicians lying is a serious problem, and just accepting it shows how jaded we’ve become. But it’s just one part of a much bigger issue of public distrust. More prevalent, and just about as problematic, are less barefaced forms of deception that have become entrenched in how politicians and other leaders discuss policy issues in our public sphere. Habits of deceit have become systemic in the public communications of the civic and political leadership.
Deception is often a matter of self-interest. As I said last week, a certain degree of dishonesty in human affairs requires no explanation beyond the common desire to seek advantage for oneself by bending the rules a bit. When deception becomes systemic, it inverts and threatens the normal order of civilized life.
I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.
Harry S Truman
The malignant spread of dishonesty throughout our public discourse has its roots in a condescending attitude toward the public among our elites, especially our “leadership” and those who supposedly keep us “informed.” They assume that the public cannot deal with hard truths rationally and responsibly. When informing the public about contentious policy issues, public officials of all stripes simplify, distort, or withhold information. This deception strategy has become a routine way of managing the reaction of a public considered too dense to handle the truth responsibly. As with all condescending attitudes, there is a presumption of benign intent, similar to tricking children into taking unpleasant medicine for their own good. This is not what the Founders had in mind when they dreamed up a constitutional republic that guaranteed citizens the freedom to make their own informed choices.
It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies.
Noam Chomsky
I have seen and heard so many outright lies and prevarications by the talking heads I can no longer keep track of them—and just about any sentient adult could say the same. Consider how the debate regarding the Obama health reform bill. I submit that a vigorous and informed democratic debate never emerged during the entire lengthy public discussion of the bill because the cheerleaders for it avoided an honest presentation of the bill’s essential facts and their consequences. The primary victim of this neglect was the public’s sense of trust in both the bill and its promoters.
The best jokes are dangerous, and dangerous because they are in some way truthful.
Kurt Vonnegut
Obfuscation through complexity has long been a proven strategy of deception in all matters financial, which is why fine print made its way into many legal contracts. For the health care debate, the Obama administration prepared a two thousand page document that mystified even members of its own team. Compounding the complexity and length of the presentation was a demand to rush the bill through quickly. Shortly before the bill came to a vote in Congress, the Associated Press reported:
Washington, D.C.—The Obama administration’s chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) notified Republican leaders Saturday that the “very tight time frame” and “complexity” of the Democrats’ health spending bill would prevent them from fully analyzing the costs and efficacy of the bill before the House voted on the legislation. . . . The Chief Actuary, Richard S. Foster, wrote: “In your letter, you requested that we provide the updated actuarial estimates in time for your review prior to the expected House debate and vote on this legislation on March 21, 2010. I regret that my staff and I will not be able to prepare our analysis within this very tight time frame, due to the complexity of the legislation.”
Even the technical experts responsible for defining the details could not present the full implications of the bill’s costs and benefits before the deadline . One would expect that complete and accurate information would be deemed necessary before final consideration of major legislation. Yet the actuary’s inability to provide needed information was just one in a long line of dismissive responses from the bill’s partisans when asked for clarifying details. If the experts and the political leadership lacked the honest facts needed to debate the merits of the bill, what was the public to think?
We have to pass the bill to know what’s in it.
Nancy “Trust Me” Pelosi
The answer to this question became apparent in a spate of irate public forums that spread across the nation before the congressional vote on the bill. It became apparent during those forums that vast segments of the public had become confused and distrustful of what they had heard from the political leadership, which appalled the politicians expecting lockstep approval. Their condescending reflex kicked in: the common response from politicians and the media was to dismiss the public’s reaction as an irrational fear of change amplified by a hysterical tendency toward self-protection.
If you like your current health insurance plan, you can keep your current health insurance plan.
Barack H. “I’ve Got Your Back” Obama
How irrational was the public distrust? Obama said repeatedly that his health care bill would change nothing for people who were happy with their current health plans. People could keep their same doctors, get treatment at the same medical facilities, and count on a continuation of their medical services. All other members of the administration, and most of the mainstream media, parroted these assurances with no noticeable qualifications.
If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people.
Virginia Woolf
Yet the public—not as ignorant or as unthinking as politicians assume—was aware of one fact about the bill they could not hide: The health care system would have to absorb somewhere between thirty and fifty million new patients, resulting in an enormous increase in demand for a system already strained in all but a few areas. The bill made no provision for increasing the supply of health professionals or health care facilities to cope with this massive new demand.
At the moment of truth, there are either reasons or results.
Chuck Yeager
Few promoters admitted this issue or addressed the concern that seemed obvious to much of the public: with demand far outstripping supply into the foreseeable future, medical services would not be available to all who needed them. Inevitably, the imbalance between demand and supply must lead to some form of medical rationing to deal with shortages in service. This unavoidable outcome the bill’s cheerleaders refused to acknowledge. The closest allusion to this concern among national political figures was the claim from the opposition that the program would establish “death panels” to decide who would qualify for lifesaving treatments. But the “death panel” claim misstated the contents of the bill, adding to the aura of suspicion surrounding it.
This inaccuracy was doubly unfortunate.
First, because it was yet another misrepresentation causing more mistrust and, second, because it distorted an actual concern that, if stated correctly, should have been part of the public debate. As a series in The New Yorker revealed, most countries that have adopted universal health care have put a jury system in place to rule on patients’ rights to get expensive care. Thus, the carelessness in treating the facts harmed the credibility of a potentially valid concern regarding medical rationing.
There is more beauty in truth, even if it is dreadful beauty.
John Steinbeck
We should have decided through frank and well-informed democratic debate whether centrally managed health resource distribution or individual provision is superior. Complexity, avoidance, and denial of the bill’s unintended consequences concealed all the honest facts, preventing such a debate during consideration of the bill.
I hope that simple love and truth will be strong in the end. I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world.
Charles Dickens
The public’s dismay at this discreditable process was hardly irrational—nor was its loss of trust in the leadership that operated in this fashion. Unfortunately, the opposition did not rally to the cause of honest debate. As noted in The Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire, the rallying phrase used by the bill’s opponents in Congress was that it represented “a government takeover of health care.” This phrase was lazy and misleading because, as pointed out in the Journal piece, “the law largely relies on the existing system of health coverage provided by employers.” Indeed, this rallying phrase was given the dubious award of “lie of the year” by PolitiFact.com. Little wonder that public trust of both mainstream political parties has plummeted. To take part in an honest discussion of the issues surrounding a major policy change, members of the public were required to organize their own forums and take the established political leadership to task.
Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.
Mark Twain
Those in control did not consider the public “worthy” of the truth about President Joe Biden’s health and state of mind between 2020 and 2025. Those with eyes could see his faltering; those with ears could hear his faltering. Thousands, if not millions, of other saw it too. (I recognized it from watching my mother’s mental degeneration for a good decade before her death.) Those who asked about Biden’s mental acuity or commented on it were told they were wrong, that those film clips were deep fakes, that the President was on top of his game, sharp as ever. It took a somewhat sad debate in July 2024 for the truth to come out (that some still deny), and that stark reality has embarrassed not only his family and staff, but most of the mainstream media and most Democratic politicians, and been the fodder for talk shows, comedians, and a tell-all book each month since he left office. Entrenched dishonesty can destroy any democratic system.
Insufficient facts always invite danger.
Spock
The lack of accurate information caused by entrenched dishonesty eliminates free choices. If Biden’s staff had their way, the Democrats would have lost worse than they did in 2024, and to this day his partisans insist there was and is nothing wrong with him. Intentional deceit destroys the trust needed for civic devotion and participation by the society’s citizens. And distrust reproduces itself: when one member of society gives up on the possibility of dealing honestly with others, that person may join the ranks of the dishonest, thus influencing others to abandon their own commitments to the truth. The Biden Lie left the Democratic Party leaderless after the disastrous 2024 election, without a message or goal other than defiance against the winner and anything he does, and a spiraling loss of donations that may leave them broke. The effective destruction of America’s oldest political party may well be one result of Washington’s—and the partisan media’s—habitual lying.
Who is responsible for the desertion of honesty in the public sphere?
But what about our news media that distort the politicians’ messages, sensationalize trivial occurrences, take facts out of context, and don’t cover complex matters in any depth? Or, for that matter, members of the public who uncritically consume what the politicians and media are selling even when the product does not meet the most minimal standards of integrity? Any of those parties could break the cycle of dishonesty by refusing to go along with anything less than an expression of verifiable truth. This is the hope for our future. Truth is robust, and anyone can bring it back to life.
But we all must stand up and do it.
Most of all, we must stand up to the demonizing lies told of the “left” and the “right” by both the “left” and the “right” that put people in the crosshairs of those who want to get their names in the paper by killing, usually at a distance, those who have become the targets-du-jour of pop culture. So-called “leaders,” elected and not, scream and mumble insults and distortions at each other with impunity, getting chops and donations from their supporters, clicks and ad dollars from their fans, and the derision of their opponents, amplifying the horror. Pointing fingers and calling “Nazi” or “communist” or “fascist” or anything else solves nothing and only keeps the wounds open and bleeding—in some cases, literally. This demonization, this perpetuation of utter hatred for those we disagree with has become the most pernicious lie in the political sphere, and certainly more dangerous to the public than Biden’s gaslighting.
To make peace, one must be an uncompromising leader. To make peace, one must also embody compromise.
Benazir Bhutto
Let’s face it, no one who’s ever read a book on Nazi Germany really believes the venom coming out of the “left.” and no one on the “right” who knows what the Red Terror was can believe the next (likely) mayor of New York will institute half the programs he says he backs. But some misguided souls will believe the lies and the venom, grab a gun, knife or gasoline bomb, and start killing.
I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
Martin Luther King Jr.
The Persistent Past: Discovering The Steele Diaries
On track now for publication on 26 November. It’s both a follow-on to, and a precursor to, Steele’s Battalion: The Great War Diaries; it’s how Steele’s Battalion was written, and an example of how history gets written.
And Finally...
On 27 September:
1905: Albert Einstein’s famous equation symbolizing the equivalence of mass and energy, E=mc², is introduced in the magazine Annalen der Physik, in Bern, Switzerland. Einstein, then a patent examiner in Switzerland, soon gained recognition as an up-and-coming genius.
2015: The World was scheduled to end because of that night’s Blood/Supermoon, despite the consensus of legitimate scientists who downplayed the idea. Since we are now a full decade later, and you’re reading this…unless this is all an illusion…another lie told us by the cosmos…
And today is WORLD TOURISM DAY, commemorating the adaptation of the World Tourism Organization Statutes by the UN General Assembly on this day in 1970. The organization no one’s ever heard of promotes tourism and keeps even more New York bureaucrats busy.
The easy, effortless way to feel better about yourself, without going to the effort to actually BE better, is to tear other people down.
Politics attracts such people.