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The mistake Todd makes here is that he seems to recognize the characteristically Trumpian mode of lying — repetition of crude falsities — but not the mode preferred by the progressive establishment — capturing sense-making institutions and turning them toward promoting ideologically-driven narratives. The latter predates Trump, is far more consequential, and is propagated primarily by the likes of the NYT and CNN.
So then, to you, what would not be an ideologically-driven narrative?
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I love the saying "Trump lies like a used car salesman, Democrats lie like lawyers". Did someone here come up with that? If not, where did it come from?
It perfectly encapsulates the current meta.
I said two months ago
I don't recall seeing it formulated close to that before saying that but I absolutely could have, I don't think of it as any kind of personal insight, I see it as trivially derived from other insights I took elsewhere (taking Trump seriously not literally, him talking like New Yorker, being directionally if not literally correct, etc...)
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It interesting that although we all understand the intended meaning of this expression (and it is true when given the meaning that people expect), it is not an accurate description of how lawyers and used car salesmen lie.
Creating a false belief using a carefully-curated set of technically-true statements is no more effective in an adversarial environment like a courtroom or a negotiation than creating the same false belief using false statements. The normal technique of a lawyer representing a rich-but-obviously-guilty client is to flood the zone with shit. This works best in criminal trials, where if the jury can't understand the case they are supposed to acquit based on reasonable doubt, but it also works in civil trials if the other side can't keep up. Lying by omission is explicitly prohibited in litigation (this is why discovery exists) and in some but not all negotiations.
Used car salesmen working for commercial dealerships, on the other hand, are trying to outnegotiate unsophisticated parties, which is exactly where "lying like a lawyer" is helpful. Making a technically-false statement creates legal risk and isn't necessary if you are good at your job. The people who tell blatant lies when selling used cars are private sellers, who are effectively gone once the cheque clears. Real estate agents are in the same boat - they will tell blatant lies, but they would much rather mislead you in legally safer ways.
So who does lie like Donald Trump? In my experience, the main groups are cheating spouses, toddlers caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and actual conmen. Trump, of course, belongs to at least two of these groups.
Who does "lie like a lawyer?" Well the main group is politicians not called Donald Trump. Politically biased journalists do, as do tendentious academics. Basically, exactly the people who form the "establishment" Trumpism is against. In each case it is because it is a lot easier to work a sympathetic ref if you got caught making a true-but-misleading statement than if you told an outright lie. But working the refs in that way doesn't work on normies, and doesn't work on neutral or unsympathetic refs.
Unfortunately this means that the saying reduces to "Trump lies like Trump, the liberal elite lie like liberal elites." This is tautological, but to someone who has been paying attention it is even truthier than the original. It also avoids calumnising innocent lawyers and used car salesmen by associating them with politicians and journalists.
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Do lawyers lie? They try to craft different narratives with the available facts at hand, sure, but I don’t see that as dishonest.
To me it’s somewhat more dishonest. A lawyer lies by recasting the facts so that they tell the story that best serves his purpose, even when the clearest telling of the facts points in the exact opposite direction. They often do so by leaving out crucial context and details that would lead a neutral observer in the opposite direction, thus making people believe something is true that isn’t.
We’ve all been talking about the Lebanon pager explosions. Some people here have speculated on how it was done and how it might be detected or hidden. And on the political side, I would find it fair to say that the comments on this site have a lean towards conservative and neo-reaction. Now if someone who frequents this site is prosecuted, any good lawyer would have painted this site as a reactionary and even fascist site where terrorism was discussed pretty openly. Ripped from context, as lawyers tend to do, the discussion of how Israel blew up pagers juxtaposed with a bit of juicy reactionary or HBD talk paints a picture of this place as a Proud Boy type site. Left out is the crucial context. It’s against the rules to recruit for any cause, liberals post here fairly often, and the discussion of pager batteries was talking about a news story and discussed by people who work n tech.
Lying by recasting the facts is worse to me because it can cover itself with the veneer of truthfulness. You can cite a fact, and people who check will see that the actual facts cited are true. But stripped of context, the facts tell a very different story than the events they’re used to describe. A lie, on the other hand, is easy enough to sus out. You look it up, and it’s not true at all. And so it doesn’t get deep enough into the culture to affect how we see the world. But tell a sort-of-truth, and your fact-checking will help the narrative stick because it’s not obviously wrong. It’s just not an accurate and honest telling of the facts and designed to elicit a belief that isn’t accurate.
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Say there are two people. They both meet a guy who is 6’9” (2.05m) tall.
Person A says: “He’s the tallest person I’ve ever seen! Huge guy! At least 7’0” (2.13m) tall!”
Person B says: “He was probably above average height. I’ve seen taller. People before.”
Person A’s answer is a lie. The guy they saw wasn’t quite as tall as they said and it’s probable that they’ve watched a basketball game or a film and have seen a person who is taller than that before.
Person B’s answer is technically correct. They’ve probably seen basketball on TV, they’ve seen extremely tall people before. And the guy they saw was certainly taller than average.
But Person B’s answer is basically dishonest. The guy they saw was indeed extremely tall! They failed to convey that, all while being technically correct.
And Person A’s answer, while a lie, managed to be more accurate and honest assessment of the subject at hand. It was a much better answer if you wanted to know something about the subject.
Given a choice between them, I’d much rather deal with a person A, a liar who is directionally correct, than person B, a person that maybe rarely lies but also rarely conveys any useful information.
Person B’s answer is worse than useless; if taken seriously you would probably come to a conclusion further from the truth than Person A’s answer.
This is a rather simple and direct example but there’s ample situations like this on the real world. There really are a lot of Person B’s in the world, and once you see them you start seeing them everywhere.
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Yes, lawyers lie. If you knowingly deceive your audience, you are a liar. That counts even if your words can be artfully construed to not be false.
We even created a whole new religion to deal with this hypocrisy. In the time of Jesus, the Pharisees were obsessed with following the letter of the law while neglecting its spirit. We invented the social technology to solve this problem 2000 years ago, but some people still don't get it.
The democrats also just straight up lie a lot. When Harris kept saying “Trump’s Project 2025” that isn’t “technically true but misleading.” That was straight up lying.
I’m not sure it is really fair to say Trump is unique in lying. Where he is probably unique is that when he doesn’t need to lie he exaggerates.
My favorite was the “no US soldiers in an active war-zone” lie. Just a few weeks ago some US Soldier got shot by ISIS.
There was a viral video uploaded basically the same day of the debate that ended up getting millions of views of the debate on TV when she said that, and it pans out to like seven soldiers in a forward operating base being like “Wait… then where the fuck are we right now?”
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Can't you just say that Trump lies, the democrats deceive, if that's what you mean?
Would fit well with general rightwing memeplex of casting the democrats as the great deceiver(s). It would also be an opportunity to own the fact that Trump lies. Truth or lies isn't the primary issue, it's deception that's the issue (in politics, in news, in science, etc).
The position that you can be a habitual liar without deceiving seems like a difficult needle to thread!
You don't have to do that. You can say that truth isn't a good safeguard against deception, with the biggest deceivers being the ones telling you the "truth".
Lying isn't good but at the end of the day deception is worse. Its kind of like how betrayal is worse than opposition. You don't even have to play defense at all.
Your average democrat might lie less often than Donald Trump but they are much, much more dishonest in my opinion. It’s not even close.
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I suppose you can claim that technically it's not a lie (knowingly putting forward a false statement), but the whole rub is that a lot of people (myself included) see "crafting narratives" as dishonest.
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The best part about it is that everybody here seems to agree with it, and we're just fighting over which type of lying is better/worse.
Yes, and it also gets at a preference that is more primal than political. Would you prefer to hang out with a lawyer who selects their words carefully or a sales guy who's always bullshitting?
Seems closely related to the old finding from the okcupid blog (here's gwern quoting it, can't find archives of the original right now) that the question "Do you prefer the people in your life to be simple or complex?" is a good predictor of liberal vs. conservative US politics, with "simple" being the conservative answer.
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