Did you know everyone is ok with politicians lying? Well they are, because science!
NPR churned out one of their patented tsk-tsk both sides do it reports yesterday on campaign ads and our friends at the comedy site Reason highlighted the report’s most ridiculous claim—both Democrats and Republicans think it’s OK for their politicians to lie. Here’s psychologist Dan Ariely of Duke University to explain:
… We recently did a study on this. We just asked a few hundred people online to what extent they think that their candidates could be dishonest if it promoted their political agenda. And by the way, for Democrats, this was a slightly more endorsed position than for the Republicans. So the Democrats are more willing for their politicians to lie to a higher degree than the Republicans.
Ha, ok. I don’t know much about Dan Ariely’s data collection methods, but surveying a few hundred people online seems like the worst possible way to produce concrete scientific information on political preferences. I’m confident, based on my own extensive scientific study of my own personal thoughts, that this is nonsense.
While Reason trails off into a discussion about confirmation bias (a real thing and a real problem), they didn’t discuss the preceding elements of the NPR report. What exactly is a lie in an campaign ad? Well NPR highlights the recent gaffes of the President (“You ain’t built dat der biznass, socialism did!”) and Romney (“I enjoyed firing people, retroactively when I was still at Bain”) and how each campaign is using them against their respective opponent. These are, to my belief, pretty flimsy examples of “campaign lies” (They didn’t even bother to use an example my favorite political ad technique—highly questionable numerical data!). Also, we’ve been living in a reality full of actual concrete, over the top, every-day dangerous lies. Like Death Panels, Muslim Brotherhood infiltration, Presidential apology tours, and supply-side economics.
It’s likely that people have merely accepted that political ads are bending the truth and/or using opponent’s words out of context. I doubt Republicans or Democrats think it’s exactly OK for their pols to lie. But they are most definitely still interested in having their preferred candidates win.
