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The Likable Lies of Campaign 2024
Are likable liars the secret weapon of campaign 2024?
After the Tuesday night vice presidential debate ended, there was widespread praise about the demeanor of the candidates, Gov. Tim Walz and Sen. JD Vance. “Voters overwhelmingly characterized the debate as positive in tone,” wrote CBS News, which hosted the debate and then conducted a poll right immediately afterward. The BBC headline used the word “politeness” to characterize the debate. GZERO used “civility.” It’s true. A much-needed Midwestern decency prevailed throughout the VP debate, the expected personal attacks giving way to a wider policy discussion.
After watching the screed-filled mayhem about immigrants eating pets that characterized the Donald Trump-Kamala Harris debate, the VP face-off was like sipping a cold beer in the middle of a heat wave.
But something about this new political “decency” beer doesn’t taste right, and it’s causing a massive hangover. The common decency displayed by Vance and Walz cleverly masks constant deceptions, and yet that doesn’t seem to have any impact on the campaign. In fact, there’s more controversy about the candidates being fact-checked by journalists — that is their job! — than about candidates lying.
Vance won the debate because he had one job: Don’t look like the “weird” guy Democrats say you are, don’t insult women, don’t alienate voters by being the extreme Trump attack dog. He exceeded all expectations. He was prepared, likable, and polished, sawing off Trump’s rough edges with the candor and geniality that appeal to independent voters in swing states. On the surface, it was a master class and might well help secure Vance’s role as the Republican standard-bearer of the future. Below the surface, though, there was an indelible flaw: Vance kept lying.
For example, Vance claimed that Trump didn’t try to destroy the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare — but that he actually saved it! That was such a revisionist spin that it took me a while to even process it.
“WhenObamacare was crushing under the weight of its own regulatory burden and healthcare costs,” Vance declared smoothly, “Donald Trump could have destroyed the program. Instead, he worked in a bipartisan way to ensure that Americans had access to affordable care.”
It sounds so reasonable that you might forget that it has no connection to reality. Trump repeatedly claimed his goal was to “let Obamacare fail” and, in 2017, he brought in the “repeal and replace” vote to finally kill it. That vote failed when Trump’s nemesis, the late Sen. John McCain, famously gave it the 1 a.m. on-the-floor thumbs-down. Claiming Trump saved Obamacare is the equivalent of “We had to destroy the village to save the village,” the logical contradiction that became a parody of perfidy during the Vietnam War.
Vance’s likable lies extended to the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump’s overt attempt to illegally stop the peaceful transition of power. “It’s really rich for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over power on January 20,” Vance said, as if the mob, the deaths, and the arrests of Jan. 6 never happened. The guy Vance replaced, former VP Mike Pence, has starkly contradicted this nonsensical claim, telling Fox News back in 2021 that he refused to comply with Trump and “his gaggle of crackpot lawyers” who “didn’t just ask me to pause. They asked me to reject votes, return votes, essentially to overturn the election.”
Just a reminder: Trump was impeached in the House of Representatives in 2021 because of his actions supporting the insurrection, and he was the first president in 150 years to be a no-show at the inauguration of his predecessor. Of course, Trump still claims the results of the election were fake, and this week he is facing new allegations about his potentially criminal actions leading up to the events of Jan. 6 as revealed in the recently unsealed legal brief from special counsel Jack Smith.
Later in the debate, it got worse, as Vance would not admit that the last election results were fair, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Rebranding Jan. 6 as a peaceful transition of power where a bunch of curious patriots took a friendly tour of the Capitol building is swampland in Florida that no sucker needs to buy.
Finally, Vance claimed that he “never supported a national ban” on abortion. “I did, during [sic] when I was running for Senate in 2022, talk about setting some minimum national standard.” Again, this sounds reasonable, and maybe Vance’s position has changed, but in 2022 he said on stage, “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.”
Walz also had his likable liar moments. He had two jobs in the debate: Don’t look like the radical the Republicans claim you are and do no harm. Walz simply had to keep up his straight-talk, friendly neighbor, America’s coach persona. Apart from being nervous off the top and ragged and jumpy in his points, Walz for the most part did no harm, even if he was roundly seen as losing the debate by a slight margin. But he also could not explain his past lies.
Back in 2014, Walz declared to a congressional hearing that “as the events were unfolding [in Tiananmen Square, China], several of us went in. I still remember the train station in Hong Kong." Except he didn’t. Walz was in Nebraska at the time. When asked about it in the debate, Walz was flummoxed and fumbled badly, first saying he gets “caught up in the rhetoric,” then admitting that he is “a knucklehead at times” and then, finally, “All I said on this was, I got there that summer and misspoke on this. That is what I have said.” He never admitted that he had lied but made the weird case that being a good guy makes this excusable.
Walz later claimed that Trump hasn’t paid taxes in over a decade and half, which is also not true. According to a report by the Committee on Ways and Means, Trump has paid taxes in some years, even if the rates were shockingly low. For example, he listed $641,931 in federal income tax in 2015 but only $750 in the next two years. Trump didn’t pay any taxes in 2020. Walz didn’t need to lie about Trump’s taxes as the evidence is already damning, but he did it anyway.
Revealing that politicians lie is about as shocking as saying the pope is Catholic. And to the credit of many organizations like CBS, CNN, and others, there were a lot of articles fact-checking the debate. Still, no matter how frequently it happens, you wonder why it doesn't cause an anaphylactic voter reaction? After all, someone who lies to voters in a campaign will, logically, lie to them in power, and who wants that? Would voters rather have likable over believable?
Four years ago, Newsweek published a survey with Redfield and Wilton Strategies that showed 54% of Americans agree that “lying has become more acceptable in American politics.” Voters don’t care about a lying candidate because the end justifies the means. A new study called “When Truth Trumps Facts: Studies on Partisan Moral Flexibility in American Politics” examined “explicit moral justification for politicians’ statements that flagrantly violate the norm of fact-grounding.” The study found that when lies help push the overall political aims of a candidate to victory, their supporters have no issue with it.
“A lot of people’s support for politicians who say things that aren’t true isn’t because they believe those statements per se, but they view that misinformation as supporting political goals that they believe in,” one of the authors of the study, assistant professor Ethan Poskanzer, told the University of Colorado.
The other factor at work here is sowing doubt in everything. The Steve Bannon “flood the zone with shit” strategy has tainted the political process, so partisan voters are urged to disbelieve anything that harms their candidate while believing everything their own leader says.
Lying can sometimes come off as crude, aggressive deception: “Immigrants are eating your pets!” And there are different kinds of lies: Some statements are blatant lies, others are exaggerations, and some are misleading, out-of-context statements used to make a point. So there are degrees, but let’s focus on the blatant lies because they are so obvious.
One other key factor to consider is frequency. Some candidates lie much more than others and so get called out for it more. In the presidential debate, Trump lied over 30 times while Harris told one lie and made a few misleading statements. Trump’s rate of lies might seem like a vulnerability, but he has cleverly turned it into an attack line, claiming that fact-checking proves that the fake news machine is biased against him. Repeat a lie, get called out for it, and claim you are the victim of a media conspiracy. It works. But it works even better when the candidate can do that and still be likable, and grab headlines for their decency, not their deception. That is what Vance and, to a lesser degree, Walz did.
In 2024, the likable liars may end up being the difference in a close election.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at her Presidential Campaign headquarters in Wilmington, DE, U.S., July 22, 2024.
Harris and Trump plot new campaign strategies
InKamala Harris’ previous run for president, her campaign was plagued with so much public infighting she was forced towithdraw before the first primary votes were cast. In addition, herapproval ratings during her time as vice president have sometimes fallen below President Joe Biden’s.
So how has she generated so much excitement among Democratic voters and donors so quickly?
Between Biden’s withdrawal announcement on Sunday afternoon and Monday evening, the Harris for President campaign says it raisedmore than $100 million, a huge haul by any standard. That adds to the party’s already formidable fundraising this year. Credible Democratic Party challengers quickly endorsed her. By Monday night, Harris had secured enough delegates to lock down the party’s presidential nomination.
In part, her success is a sign of Donald Trump’s perceived weakness. The media’s recent focus on Biden’s unpopularity has obscured the reality that a majority of Americans –57% in a recent poll – want Trump out of the race too. That figure includes 51% of independents and 26% of Republicans. Add the reality that Biden’s exit from the race leaves Trump, 78, as the oldest person ever to win the nomination of a major party for president. Trump remains the betting favorite, but Dems believe, rightly or wrongly, that he’s beatable.
And for anyone wondering what strategy Harris might adopt against Trump, there’s this obvious clue from her first speech as a presidential candidate. Highlighting both her history as a prosecutor and Trump’s status as a convicted felon: “I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So, hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.”
Much of the media attention on the Harris campaign will now focus on her choice of a vice-presidential running-mate. But there’s another looming question: Will Harris and Trump debate? ABC News is scheduled to host a second presidential debate on Sept. 10, but Trump has already cast doubt on his plans to attend. Heposted the following on his Truth Social account:
“My debate with Crooked Joe Biden, the Worst President in the history of the United States, was slated to be broadcast on Fake News ABC, the home of George Slopadopolus, sometime in September. Now that Joe has, not surprisingly, has [sic] quit the race, I think the Debate, with whomever the Radical Left Democrats choose, should be held on FoxNews, rather than very biased ABC. “
Beyond that, Trump is keeping his options open.
Finally, Trump faces another challenge he didn’t expect: His new opponent is a woman of African and South Asian descent. He defeated Hillary Clinton eight years ago, but Harris doesn’t come with Clinton’s considerable baggage, and there are plenty of women and people of color who will listen carefully to Trump’s every word for signs of bias against women and/or racial minorities.
In short, Trump faces an opponent with no history of national electoral success of her own but one who poses a series of campaign dangers he didn’t face until Sunday.
The politics of a pandemic: interview with Sen. Chris Coons
Ian Bremmer is examining the state of U.S. response and recovery six months into the pandemic. Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) joins to discuss what Congress has done to provide economic relief to businesses and people impacted by the unexpected and unprecedented downturn, and next steps still to come. He also takes jabs at GOP Congressional colleagues who he says have "followed (Trump's) lead rather than science."
Bremmer and Coons also discuss reports of a Russian bounty plot to pay for the murders of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Coons tells the story of 43-year-old Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Christopher Slutman who died in a 2019 roadside bombing alleged to be a part of that plot.
The two also dive into election security and the 2020 presidential race. Coons offers details of "The Biden Doctrine," what U.S. foreign policy could look like if Biden wins. He also discusses lessons learned from Sec. Hillary Clinton's failed 2016 campaign.
Tom Vilsack's Advice for Joe Biden in the 2020 Election
Tom Vilsack, former Iowa Governor and President Obama's Secretary of Agriculture, has been an important voice in VP Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign. In an interview with Ian Bremmer for GZERO World, Vilsack shares some of the conversations he's had with Biden about the importance of the rural vote and caring about issues that impact the heartland. He also discusses the need for empathy at a time when so many Americans are suffering, and his take on why President Trump hasn't expressed much of that sentiment.