Politicians aren’t looked very highly upon in America. To us they’re liars, cheats and charlatans. A snake oil salesman might be considered more honest in this country than a Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.
Despite this perception, what does the American electorate actually do about it? Considering that politicians with trails of lies are elected again and again, apparently nothing. Perhaps it has to do with the way we go after politicians who lie: attacking them with lies of our own.
Preventing liars from obtaining office seems like a relative no-brainer. Who wants to elect a liar? Realistically, however, what is and what isn’t a lie has become an entirely abstract concept dependent on what media you consume. Not only that, but when we are faced with the truth, we often write it off as a product of a biased media if it doesn’t conform to our own views. This leads to lying being utilized as a valid political strategy, and it gets people elected.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise for many people, nor is it a new phenomenon within the system. What has changed over the years is the sheer amount of available information and sources to gather it from. People are turning to the internet in greater numbers than ever for their news. One would assume, given the vast amount of information available on the internet, that people would be more informed and therefore willing to call out and vote out lying politicians. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case.
Not all media is created equal. Take, for example, this 2010 poll from the Pew Research Center. The poll measures the knowledge of politics and current events by the audiences of different media outlets. The Colbert Report and the Daily Show audiences performed better than CNN, Fox, MSNBC and local news viewers. This is even more damning when you consider that over half of all Americans turn to local and cable news for election coverage.
And the internet hasn’t served as a substantive alternative to cable and local news, like many suspected it would. Sixty-two percent of Americans get at least some news from social media, but we all know how reliable Facebook is as a source. Not to mention the tabloid-esque news of sites such as Breitbart, the Huffington Post and Slate.
So how can we call something a lie if we have no idea whether or not it is one? Furthermore, how can we call out some politicians for lying to the public if we are just as willing to accept other liars as truthful due to our preconceived biases?
The answer requires both personal devotion and introspection to the activity at hand. You must be willing to not only view multiple news sources — from both sides of the ideological aisle — to form a holistic understanding of political context, but also be willing to challenge your own beliefs in the process.
You avoid buying a bad car by reading reviews and comparing prices; why wouldn’t you vet politicians with the same effort?