The Price of Habitual Political Lying Is that People Eventually Won’t Believe Anything You Say, even When You Resort to Telling the Truth — the President’s Lack of Credibility with Many Americans Has Hampered His Effort to Raise the Debt Ceiling

© 2011 Peter Free

 

19 July 2011

 

 

Regularly distorting the truth has negative credibility consequences for politicians who suddenly find themselves dealing with allegedly critical situations

 

A Pew Research Center poll yesterday revealed that opponents to raising the nation’s debt ceiling simply don’t believe President Obama’s warnings about the disastrous consequences of failing to do so.  They apparently think he’s lying:

 

While administration officials project an economic catastrophe if the debt limit is not raised by Aug. 2, many Americans do not see this deadline as a major problem.

 

Four-in-ten (40%) say that, from what they’ve read and heard, it is absolutely essential that the federal debt limit be raised by Aug. 2 to avoid an economic crisis, while about as many (39%) say the country can go past this date without major economic problems.

 

© 2011 Public Split Evenly on Urgency of Debt Limit Debate, Pew Research Center (18 July 2011) (paragraph split)

 

 

Why this matters — it isn’t all about politics, it’s about trust regarding what presumably should be obvious truths

 

Differences over policy are different than disagreements regarding facts.  Presumably the overwhelming majority of politicians would reach a consensus regarding the fact that falling bodies descend due to the influence of gravity.

 

According to the Administration, the debt ceiling is equivalent to gravity.  Tipped in certain way (by not raising the ceiling) the automaticity of government economics would cause a disastrous “fall.”

 

Who and what gets paid when, in what order, and how much, is presumably well-established.  The degree of freedom the Executive branch has to modify these parameters should also be moderately well known.

 

Consequently, there should not be a huge debate over the consequences of failing to raise the debt ceiling.  Simply looking at the automaticity of government operations would presumably be enough to answer questions regarding what will happen to the immediate economic terrain, if the debt ceiling is not raised.

 

Admittedly, how the global economy would respond to the American re-routing is more hypothetical.  But that secondary reaction is not the immediate issue.

 

The immediate issue is that 39 percent of people (according to Pew) don’t believe the Administration’s characterization of the immediate mechanical consequences of failing to raise the debt ceiling.

 

Why?

 

 

If the President and the “experts” are correct that disastrous things will happen if the debt ceiling is not raised, they have obviously hampered their effort to persuade people that they are correct by having built themselves reputations for being:

 

(a) frequently wrong,

 

(b) customarily lying,

 

or

 

(c) negligently not teaching the public about the basic elements of government operations.

 

None of these traits are excusable:

 

Being wrong most of time indicates incompetence.

 

Lying weakens the trust necessary to effective leadership.

 

Negligently failing to educate implies that leaders are too stupid to anticipate that an informed public is necessary to successful democracy.

 

 

Conclusion — regardless of how the debt ceiling situation turns out, the Pew poll indicates that the President is going to have trouble uniting the nation, even when the proper policy response to crisis should be obvious

 

It is difficult to lead during critical times when a huge proportion of the public doesn’t trust you.

 

The Pew poll is a disastrously negative indicator in regard to the President’s ability to lead.  He has obviously low credibility.  And he has (apparently) failed to educate the public regarding the facts of the situations that the nation is foreseeably going to have to endure.