Does the Truth Matter?

Not until we make it

The shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis this week shocked a lot of people. And for many, a part of that shock was the willingness of politicians and others to instantaneously spin a narrative around the shooting that fit their point of view, and then confidently run with that narrative without really knowing what happened.

If you want to understand what is going on in politics right now, or are frustrated by this “post-truth” era, and maybe even brainstorm ways to overcome it, it is critical to understand what is going on here:

Right now, there is literally no downside to lying in politics, and a ton of upside.

I got the type of inside look into that as a candidate that many of you will never get the chance to have, so I’d like to share that with you now.

For background: at one point near the end of the election, my opponent’s team left their billboard-like bus illegally parked across six spots in a private lot across from one of the busiest malls in the St. Louis area.

As it accumulated illegal parking stickers and started getting media attention, their campaign responded by saying that it was all a hoax and that I had sent my team out to put fake Amazon parking violation stickers on their bus.

This was blatantly untrue, the security folks at the parking lot were later interviewed and said that they had put their parking-violation stickers on the bus because it was illegally parked. But their campaign had no problem making the allegation because it was what they wanted to be true.

As the morning went on, someone on the bus kept coming out and removing the stickers until a tow truck was called and they finally left.

Now, with that background, it’s time for the interesting part.

A short while later, I was interviewed by a local news outlet. The interviewer struck up a conversation beforehand and said something along the lines of “Isn’t it wild that Hawley’s bus driver accidently parked his bus in that lot and created such a headache for the campaign?”

I replied with a question of my own.

“Maybe. But what makes you so sure parking a billboard across from a busy street and the mall was an accident?”

“Well, that’s what their campaign said.”

I was astonished.

“Their campaign also claimed that I sent my people out to put parking stickers on his bus, which one interview with building security disproved. So if they’re willing to make up a story that’s so easily exposed, for such a small and unimportant thing, when they could have just said ‘oops,’ why would you believe the next thing they say?”

He shrugged. “We just report what they say.”

That’s where we are at right now.

People lie in political ads despite the fact that they will get fact-checked and proven wrong because exponentially more people will see their ads than will see the fact checks.

I hate to say it, but the truth really just doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is the narrative. And so, in politics, events are no longer sets of facts to be analyzed. Instead, they are opportunities to advance your narrative.

In a world of gerrymandering and polarization, where energizing the base is more important than persuading the few remaining persuadable voters out there to switch sides, this strategy has become critical to victory. And operatives who are good at it are rewarded.

The campaign representative who said I sent my people out to put stickers on my opponent’s bus, for example, is now a spokesperson for the White House.

I wish I had an easy button solution. There has to be some sort of carrot for honesty again, though. And a stick for dishonesty.

Perhaps that could come from voters again if we were able to reduce the influence of money in politics. As I learned, a more critical local media could help, but that’s been hard to come by now that most local media is owned by large conglomerates. Perhaps some level of media antitrust would be helpful there. Or rules around truth in advertising for political ads. Every ad comes with a fact check from the station played right after it? Same with statements made by campaigns? Would anyone even believe it? Would the media be trustworthy enough to do it given their ownership and incentives? Are there even enough independent thinkers for it to matter? Those are the questions we would need to answer.

In the meantime, I’d like to thank everyone out there for sticking with this substack for a full year now! You’ve been wonderful, your comments have been insightful and interesting, and I’m looking forward to what the next year will bring.

Lucas