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I find this all so fascinating and frustrating.
Back in the 2016 election, I remember being struck by the fact that Trump lies like a used car salesman, and most other politicians lie the way that lawyers lie (which is to say, they know exactly how to shade and color and selectively edit and omit what they say so they can't be held legally accountable for it while still absolutely misleading different audiences rhetorically) And at the time, I remember noting that that distinction mattered a great deal to the existing ruling class, because it accounts for much of their skillset, but I was pretty sure that it was not a distinction that lots of normies were so concerned with - or that they might even find lawyer-style lying much more objectionable than used car salesman lying, which they intuitively understand much better.
I guess this gets kind of philosophical or something about the nature of truth and lying, but I find most of Trump's lying so transparent and bullshitty and unimportant that it's hard to even read them as lies, exactly. I remember all the breathless gasping by the press about Trump inflating his inauguration crowd sizes, and... seriously? Who could possibly care? That kind of thing is baked into the cake when listening to someone like Trump. It's like being shocked that Steve Jobs would say the new iphone was the most amazing phone ever, even though he didn't run double blind studies. Trump exaggerates like crazy and plays very fast and loose with details in way that generally strikes me as pretty lazy and bigmouthed, but it's all so brazen and in your face. Everyone knows people like him. It's not hard to calibrate your reaction as an audience and still know how to get the gist of what he's saying (even if I find that all pretty exhausting).
Meanwhile, if I think about my own experience as a voter, I personally experienced Obama as a VASTLY bigger liar than Trump could ever hope to be. And that's because Obama, and his campaign, and the press, were able to shape a public narrative about himself and his administration, leading into the 2008 election, that ended up being massively at odds with how radical and divisive his administration ended up being behind the scenes. But he lied like a cross between a lawyer and an author (which is what he is, so, you know, this shouldn't have been news). Now, legally, it may well be that if you pored over everything Obama said in public in 2008, none of it would be technically a lie in a court of law. And that would be the point, right? Maybe it was my own fault for treating him like a blank slate and projecting what I wanted to believe onto what he said (which he and his campaign aggressively aided and abetted). And again, that would be the point, right? Those can be useful skills to win an election. But I know how I feel about it all now, for whatever that's worth.
Interesting point, and hits on something in the vein of "Trump's supporters take him seriously, but not literally."
Part of his image and legend is being a bragadoccio, and embellishing stories is something the 'average' person probably considers fine as long as you do it with a bit of a wink and a nod.
Vs. the normal Politician method of lying by omission, or using weasel words, or aggressive cherrypicking of data so that no particular statement is blatantly 'false' but ultimately the information is not conveying any 'truth' about the world to the listener.
Trump could claim to have a 15 inch penis, which is a very specific statement of fact, and fact checkers can retort "ACKSHULLY the largest recorded penis is 13 inches, it is extremely unlikely Trump has exceeded that length" and include photos of his (clothed) crotch which would suggest he's not that well endowed. But supporters wouldn't care because they don't expect him to whip his schlong out to prove it, they get the message as its presumably intended.
There's ample lies one can pin to Trump, I don't mind calling those out, but anybody who understands that politics is a game of dishonesty in every single aspect probably can't muster up much outrage for Trump as if NOW the political system is trying to enforce honesty in candidates.
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This was a very enlightening comment, thanks.
However, I think there's a very good reason people think of used-car salesman lying as reflecting much more poorly on character than lawyer lying. The used-car salesman style demonstrates sloppiness with and disregard of details---this is a huge red flag if you want your leaders to have any sort of ability to understand technical or scientific questions. Conversely, being able to pull off lawyer-style, technically-true lying is a great demonstration of being good with details.
Lawyer-style lying is never going to lead to travesties like sharpiegate, which actually harmed the ability of the National Hurricane Center to function as a scientific organization. This sort of thing is very dangerous if you want government policy to accurately reflect reality.
The motivations are different. One doesn't really care all that much about details, as long as the point is gotten across. The other is perfectly willing to mislead about the overall point, as long as it's defensible in the details. When a lot of people are judging and making decisions based on the overall thrust of what's going on, not details, one is far more deceptive on a practical, who-aligns-with-me-more (and so I should vote for them) level.
It seems to me like a lot of people care more about overall alignment than details. (This is not at all to say that details aren't important.)
I wasn't disagreeing that these (and the various feelings described in the original post) are the true feelings people have. I will however argue that people who care more about overall alignment than details are wrong to do so. We should therefore judge car-salesman lying as worse than lawyer lying.
The world is too complicated---caring about vibes and perceived alignment over details is one of the biggest sources of misguided policy today. Most liberal nonsense, for example, comes from this: restricting housing construction to keep people from being displaced by rising prices, making college admissions more "holistic" and less objective to help disadvantaged students, etc.
Would you then say that what's complaint-worthy is not the deception, but that it evinces a lack of concern for details? That is, there's a problem, but the problem isn't that it's lying?
Yeah, I would say that. When a stranger (like not a friend, family member, mentor, doctor---stranger means someone with no professional or personal reason to care significantly about specifically my welfare) is trying to convince me to do something (vote for someone, buy something from them, sign a contract), its just a default assumption that there's serious amounts of lying and manipulation involved.
Specifically for politicians, you might as well complain about a TV ad lying to you. And sure, I guess part of my gut judgement here is based on a personal bias that I find lawyerly lying way easier to see through, but I hope I presented enough arguments that don't rest on this bias.
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This would be more compelling if the lawyerly liars actually demonstrated competence. Unfortunately, they rarely do.
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I think there's some epistemic room there to believe that Trump himself believed he saw an earlier forecast that included Alabama and that the media were being unfair to him. During the controversy he apparently tweeted out an undoctered map from some agency that did show impacts to Alabama.
I can think of examples coming from respectable lawyerly types that don't have so much room. For example, Rache Levine getting WPATH to drop age guidelines on "gender affirming care."
I vaguely remember seeing a spaghetti plot that showed a few tracks leading into the Gulf....
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