essays
Would Factual Politics Be So Crazy?
Could our leaders maybe mislead us just a little less?
There goes Joe. Dropping some last presidential falsehoods about his son and inflation on the way out. Now we’re off to another season of The Apprentice President. Leading the cast of amateur politicians, an orange conman, scamming the nation with lies of salvation. But let’s assume for a second the whole thing wasn’t just a reality show – and that the actual sum total of Trump’s first term were a dizzying 30,573 falsehoods and misleading claims, as in 21 per day, which you’d be hard-pressed to come up with if it was your main occupation – why would anybody who lives in the real world put up with misleading leaders? We wouldn’t put up with family members, friends, or coworkers if they dropped bullshit wherever we stepped. Why do we let those in the highest offices walk all over the lowest bars?
Now, I don’t suggest we raise the bar all the way to the ceiling – politics is not science and there is room for opinion, ideology, and overexaggerations in senate halls. But shouldn’t we hold politicians to facts wherever the data is in?
If Donald were to hop onto the flat-Earther train to Loontown, shouting the words “sphere-hoax” and claiming that we need to build a wall around the world’s edges to save folks from falling off, we would laugh the guy out of office.
But when that orange clown (yes, the guy is orange, that’s fact) delivers his trademark climate-hoax routine, quite a few of us applaud his denial of overwhelming scientific evidence. We let someone’s pseudo-political beliefs inform policy no matter how hair-raisingly at odds with the facts. What’s the difference between someone who denies Earth’s curvature and someone who denies its manmade warming? Less than we might think and that’s the problem. While data shows that the public estimates the scientific consensus on climate change to be as low as 65 % (in the UK), the (f)actual degree of agreement lies snugly between 98.7–100% (among the world’s most qualified scientist the consensus is unanimous). That’s flat-Earth rejection levels. Of course, you can still be of such flat opinions (and a growing subculture is); however, your opinion would be wrong. Yes, opinions can be wrong.
"Policy shouldn’t be based on ludicrous off-chances. The stakes are too high for politicians to be full-tilt gamblers."
If you ask a dictionary, the antonym of opinion is fact. One could argue that opinion is everything that isn’t a 100%-waterproof-airtight fact. However, it might be more reasonable to argue that true opinion lives at the 50/50 intersection where there is absolutely no right or wrong (think coin toss), while fact lives up the road at 100 % certainty. And that within the neighborhood of opinion, not all opinions are equally valid. Even with the most generous room for climate doubts on the short 98.7–100% spectrum, the odds of being right are at a very skinny 1.3 %, while there’s a fat 98.7 % chance of that opinion being wrong. The chances of Trump and his lemmings being right might be as low as 0,00 %. Let me throw in two exclamation points for good measure: zero!! And yet, the executive order to pull out of the Paris agreement has already been signed with an orange middle finger on day one of term two. Policy shouldn’t be based on ludicrous off-chances. The stakes are too high for politicians to be full-tilt gamblers. And in a globalized world, where neither decisions nor emissions stop at borders, a misplaced bet by one player is shouldered by all. American withdrawal from climate accords has global consequences, seeing that the US is the world’s second largest carbon emitter (after China).
Climate change is real, but for those who like it a bit more tangible, the pandemic is a tragic example of the catastrophic consequences that follow political deviation from scientific fact. Before Corona reached the United States, best practices had been established abroad and proved effective in curbing the spread. They also made good common sense: an airborne virus will have a harder time getting into your body if it lands on a mask instead of flying right into your mouth or nose. Just writing it, I feel like I’m coming down with a case of the duhs. The then-administration didn’t give a duh though, ignored best practices, and downplayed the situation’s severity as well as the efficiency of masks and other measures. Freedom over reason. The grave mishandling of factual guidelines contributed to the beyond-belief rise in case numbers and related deaths, which would be – outside of politics, where everything goes – mass manslaughter.
Knowingly peddling false information about election fraud has cost lives too and eroded democratic foundations when a flashflood of rioters hit the Capitol on January 6. Facts that are easily painted over with a pardon, of course.
On the other side of the aisle, democratic lies à la LBJ during the Vietnam War have killed too. Many. And not just American soldiers, but over a million Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians. Never heard of the CIA's secret war in Laos? That was the point. Fact remains that Laos is the most bombed country in history and that its population is suffering the deadly consequences of unexploded ordnance until this day. And then there is the mother of political lies this side of the millennium – Georg Bush fabricating weapons of mass destruction in Iraq out of nothing but explosive allegations. Again, many gave their lives to those lies, and everyone chipped in with trillions of tax dollars.
"While we confidently associate the spread of disinformation and misinformation with the propaganda apparatuses of totalitarian regimes like Russia, it is a widely practiced modus operandi in our very democracies."
Let’s take it down a notch. The economy. Less deadly, but the number one issue for voters during the 2024 election. Both democrats and republicans have made false claims about inflation and other statistical data that is readily available to contradict their flaccid falsehoods. Why do we allow politicians to bypass the truth on issues that decide elections and where empirical facts abound?
While we confidently associate the spread of disinformation and misinformation with the propaganda apparatuses of totalitarian regimes like Russia, it is a widely practiced modus operandi in our very democracies. From Johnson’s Brexit lies and Modi’s dubious claims about India’s Muslim community, to allegations of Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz lying about the collapse of his government coalition. As citizens of democracies we have no one to blame but ourselves when we hand out political mandates to those who are quick to outmaneuver facts.
Freedom of speech (which includes freedom of lying) is always a killer argument to shield politicians from more accountability. But should it be when people actually die over it? There is precedent to limit freedom of speech in some professions. Doctors can’t bring home the latest brainworm gossip and dish it out at the dinner table because their tongues are tied by doctor-patient privilege. Patients have a right to confidentiality. Shouldn’t voters have a right to facts wherever they are available and consequential?
"But facts are facts. Right? Well, factually, yes, but actually no. They lose their meaning if we don’t pay attention to them, and they turn into fiction if we don’t believe them."
Likewise, it is possible to criminalize certain forms of denial. Holocaust denial is a criminal offense in countries like Germany, Canada, and Israel. Just last week, German right wing populist Alice Weidel called Hitler a communist during her livestreamed X-change with Elon Musk. Hitler, the epitome of fascism and poster boy for right-wing agendas worldwide, can become a communist posthumously if we let the wide cloak of opinion disguise deceit that bends historical fact a painful 180 degrees. During that same conversation, both Weidel and Musk made false claims about immigration and crime rates, a cacophony of right-wing evergreens that have been yodeled into open ears countless times. Paradoxically, awkwardly, but really just very Muskily, Electic-Car-Elon is now in bed with climate-vandals like Weidel and Trump, whose denial of scientific fact further fuels global warming. Shouldn’t the harm caused by their denial justify its penalization a million times over?
Holocaust denial, mutilations of historic fact, and glossing over racist ideologies are nationalist efforts to cozy up to a more centric electorate. Successfully so, as recent political trends in Western democracies show, from Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK, to, well, the US.
But facts are facts. Right? Well, factually, yes, but actually no. They lose their meaning if we don’t pay attention to them, and they turn into fiction if we don’t believe them. The more we grow accustomed to politicians who take generous liberties with the truth, the more we legitimize fact as something optional. Fatigued by casual disinformation, the jury presiding over the court of public opinion does no longer sentence politicians to step down. That’s why facts must be a legally binding thread in the fabric of politics. Because the fate of the world isn’t fate. It’s political decision making. Senate halls can’t be built on bullshit. They need to stand on a concrete factual foundation.
So, what to do, me and you?
There are already initiatives to outlaw political lying as a criminal offense. While a petition in the UK did not get enough signatures a few years back, a proposal is currently being crafted to put before the Welsh parliament as a first of its kind. But to prove intent (that is, lying) when disseminating falsehoods is difficult. How about this: wherever there is reliable data on a consequential issue (such as climate, economy, migration), it should be presented to the executive, legislative, and judicial branch, establishing a baseline truth on the matter. Those who subsequently soil such truths with evidently false opinions, should be held responsible.
It's hard to believe that factual politics seem so far-fetched at the time of writing. Call me crazy, but I think demanding them wouldn’t be all that crazy. It would be kinda duh.
