Beyond the Big Lie: Book Review

Beyond the Big Lie: The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans do it More, and How it Could Burn Down Our Democracy, Bill Adair, 2024. Bill Adair created PolitiFact, one of three journalistic sites checking on political misinformation. Politicians can’t be honest and get elected, but many are beyond the pale, especially Republicans with Trump the champ. Adair uses mainly storytelling, focuses on a few, presumably extreme cases.

“Lies are often much more appealing to reason, than reality, since the liar had the great advantage of knowing beforehand what the audience wishes or expects to hear” (Hannah Arendt).

Prologue: My Lie to Brian from Michigan. “We [at PolitiFact] researched factual claims by politicians and political groups and rated their accuracy. … Republicans simply lied more. A lot more” (p. xi).

Introduction. “I believed journalists weren’t doing enough to tell people about the lies in political campaigns” (p. xiii). Adair started with Congress in the 1990s when there was theater, but the sides often made deals. Then things deteriorated and lies popped up, like the “death tax,” when only heirs to the wealthy paid. Republicans wanted to stop even that being reported. “Republicans took shortcuts to craft a good talking point, while Democrats were more careful to be accurate” (p. xiv).

John Kerry was “Swiftboated” and lost the 2004 presidential election. Bush (W) gave a false rationale (weapons of mass destruction) to attack Iraq. This led Adair to want a fact-checking system. Republicans attacked journalists as biased and journalists complained less. Then Covid and vaccine skepticism. Adair wanted a Truth-O-Meter.

“Lying matters because it destabilizes our social fabric. It makes people distrust government, the mainstream media, and our educational system. … They can’t agree on facts because one side denies the truth. … You just can’t sell compromise in an echo chamber” (p. xvii). Democrats lie about Social Security and Medicare. Democrats often apologized for mistakes. Republicans were ruthless and repetitive.

“Republicans had more effective talking points than Democrats and used them more often, with far better discipline than Democrats did. [Simplistic “bumper sticker speak?”] This was true for their falsehoods. They just kept repeating them until people believed they were true” (p. xx).

“Fact-checkers were ready for the Big Lie …that supposedly meant Donald Trump really won the 2020 election. … Fact-checkers … did an extraordinary job debunking the ridiculous falsehoods that kept popping up on social media and conservative websites. … But the traditional ways of asserting the facts were no match for the tidal wave of falsehoods” (p. xxii).

Chapter 1: The Ministry of Truth. This chapter (and others) focused on the story of Nina Jankowicz, an expert in foreign affairs, social media, and misinformation, named as director of a new department in Homeland Security called the Disinformation Governance Board, picked up by “the right-wing outrage machine” as a censorship board: “a Ministry of Truth”—which it was not. Jankowicz was called a political hack, illiterate fascist, hardcore leftist Marxist, censorship police, lefty laptop denier who couldn’t sing.

“It was a simple idea: a group inside the big DHS bureaucracy to help officials coordinate their work on one of the most important problems of our time. … The department was like a Frankenstein monster that included everything from customs and border protection to cybersecurity, from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the Coast Guard and the Secret Service” (p. 8).

She got basically zero support from Homeland Security and DHS did not even allow her to defend herself. HHS provided virtually no information and let the attacks continue and her life was threatened.

Chapter 3: A Taxonomy of Lying. What is a lie? A definition was “a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive” or “an untrue or inaccurate statement that may or may not be believed true by the speaker or writer.” Then there was “falsehood.” With Trump there were “whoppers.” Severity was something serious, others less so. “Accidental errors” were called “under-the-lights mistakes.” “White lies” were small, innocent falsehoods.

The Washington Post Fact Checker was Glenn Kessler. PolitiFact created the “Obamameter” to measure his promises, some 508. Obama stated: “To be a politician, you have to periodically, maybe systematically and hopefully skillfully and with some retention of a moral sense, deceive people” (p. 27). Others could be bad politicians or corrupt.

“Misdemeanor lies” use numbers and claims on broad topics that can mislead, like saying inflation or unemployment was down during my presidency. “Felony lies” are serious and could be targeted to a person, like the story of Nina Jankowicz. This could range from covering up misdeeds to “lying to overturn democracy” (p. 28). Politicians can lie about accomplishments. Cherry picking is the most obvious. [Plus Mark Twain’s: lies, damn lies, and statistics.] Then Trump’s “accomplishments.” There are self-defense lies like Clinton’s “not having sex with that woman.” Lies about policy and positions, like crime, immigration, and taxes.

Perhaps the most common are lies attacking opponents, with wild exaggerations like now (just before the 2024 presidential election). Repetition is constantly repeating the same lie, including “Zombie claims that will not die” (p. 30). “Up is down” is the obvious lie compared to a basic fact-check.

It is easy to exploit predictions. You can’t say it’s wrong only unlikely. Fear can be an effective factor [like it’s something like “they’re eating the pets”]. Democrats like to claim Republicans will take away Social Security and Medicare, Republicans focus on crime and immigration.

Chapter 3: The Lying Hall of Fame. Big tobacco was an obvious starting point, beginning in the 1930s with ads showing doctors smoke a particular brand, although the evidence was accumulating on the deadly health effects beginning with lung cancer. PR firms focused on discrediting these findings. Tobacco firms funded their own favorable studies as the Council for Tobacco Research. Tobacco CEOs testified before Congress and “one-by-one, the CEOs kept lying by claiming that their products were not addictive” (p. 34).

“Exxon mastered the art of surrogate lying, paying millions to think tanks and influencers to spread doubts and falsehoods about climate change. … As early as the mid-1970s Exxon knew that fossil fuels were accelerating climate change” (p. 35).

Rupert Murdoch’s papers and TV stations had a history of distorting facts or lying to maximize viewers, creating a global empire. He bought the New York Post and Wall Street Journal, then Fox News Channel—as “the main platform for Murdoch’s political agenda. … Fox acts like a daily talking-point factory for the political right—regardless of whether those talking points are true. … Fox has relatively few reporters who actually cover the news” (p. 36). Instead, it’s mainly opinion programs. PolitiFact noted their “dreadful record.”

Then there was the Dominion Voting System case, which showed the presenters knew they were lies, but the listeners wanted to hear them—they were good for business. The payment of massive damages did not stop the coverage.

“Roger Ailes was the perfect person to build the Fox News Channel for Murdoch. … He was a showman. He was a partisan. And he had contempt for people who would carefully try to tease out facts and ambiguity” (p. 39). Ailes went from CNBC to run Fox: “a place where he could showcase Republicans and their ideas. … a pioneer of political image making who understood how to blend politics and entertainment into effective propaganda” (p. 39). Apparently, people who thought the media was biased used Fox as their primary news source: groupthink, rumors, smears, without rational discourse.

Facebook proved to be a major trouble spot, including the primary source for people storming the capitol on January 6: “an incubator for misinformation. …Facebook provides lies to people who want them” (p. 41). The misinformation started in 2016 and criticized by PolitiFact and others. Facebook has improved but does not fact-check politicians.

“Tucker Carlson … brought conspiracy theories about race and the January 6 attack into the mainstream. … He mastered the art of lying without lying, able to make false claims in ways that often elude fact-checkers” (p. 42). That included sarcasm, exaggeration, and promoting fear about everything from Covid to election fraud.

The right-ring dominated talk radio, including Sean Hannity, Dave Ramsey, Glenn Beck, and others. “PolitiFact rated nearly two-thirds of Rush Limbaugh’s claims False or Pants on Fire” (p. 44).

Adair has a long list of lying politicians. They created the “credibility gap” about the Vietnam War. “Nixon lied big and lied small, seeking to gain every advantage he could, earning the name “Tricky Dick,” then caught by his own secret tape recordings.

Newt Gingrich may have caused the current move to no-shame lying, including “camscam,” talking to an empty House chamber. “Conflict created the opportunity to get news coverage. … Manipulating the truth was totally legitimate as an act of partisan politics. … the mold for today’s say-anything Republicans. Partisan combat—replete with name-calling, conspiracy theories, and strategic obstruction” (p. 48).

“Bill Clinton was an unusually good liar. … It’s a very lawyerly, sophisticated, elastic lie” (p. 49), dubbed “Slick Willie” while still governor of Arkansas. The most infamous was: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

For Trump on the national scene, it started with the “birther movement,” claiming Barack Obama was born in Kenya. During his presidency the Washington Post counted 30,573 “false or misleading claims.” “His lies about the 2020 election threatened the framework of our democracy” (p. 51). Making his first press secretary claim the 2017 inauguration crowd was the largest ever, just showed silliness and the Washington Post fact checker created “the bottomless Pinocchio” rating for it. What happened to a “moral compass?”

“He is like a predator who exists to feed his own needs and nothing else. He doesn’t care about democracy or other people. … His lack of conscience is part of being a psychopath” (p. 52).

Chapter 4: Consumed by Lies. The House January 6 Committee published their findings with the US Government Publishing Office. Adair focused on one participant who went into Congress and was prosecuted. The information source was Facebook, reinforced by Fox News suggesting we are in a “cultural war for the soul of our country” (p. 56), plus stealing the election and the evil “antifa.” Most of the rioters continued to believe the election was stolen.

Adair asked why people fall for information and provided the reasons:

1.    Lack of skepticism: “Our preferred position is to believe that the world is telling us the truth” (Malcolm Gradwell).

2.    Overconfidence as people overestimate their own ability to determine what is credible, especially true for males and Republicans.

3.    A home team mentality, consistence with consistency with their identity and “cognitive dissidence” for other information. [Us versus them.]

4.    Network of Lies, Fox News in this case. The lies part was documented in the Dominion lawsuit.

5.    Repetition. Repeating lies results in the “illusory truth effect.”

Politicians are focused “getting on partisan cable channels and generating content for their social media feeds and fundraising emails. … They have the freedom to lie with little scrutiny” (p.70).

Chapter 5: Catching the Liars. George HW Bush attacked Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election using the “Willie Horton” attack ads and other shady tactics. Journalist David Broder wanted increased fact-checking. The problem was the reporters would be called biased by the perpetrators. Many papers did start “ad watch” features. An issue was a journalist’s “instinct for self-preservation.”

One problem was magazine editors have used fact checking on the accuracy of article they’ve run since the 1920s, different from politician accountability but using the same name.

FactCheck.org was started at the University of Pennsylvania in 2003. The St, Petersburg Times came out with Truth-o-Meter, and Adair started PolitiFact in 2007 at the same paper. Ratings ranged from True to False, plus Pants on Fire. The Washington Post started Fact Checker a few weeks later, rating from one to four Pinocchios. Candidates were not happy they were being fact checked, even Obama. They requested his birth certificate, for example.

Chapter 6: The Ministry of Truth, Part 2. “Where were the friendlies?” Republicans used the Ministry of Truth, right out of George Orwell, to kill the Disinformation Governance Board and harass Jankowicz. “What sort of person could have so much hate and be so harmful to another human being? And how could the Republicans foster this with their angry rhetoric?” (p. 83). McCarthy introduced a bill to eliminate it in the House, with the usual right-wing suspects in support. There was no support for Jankowicz from the Democrats or even the ACLU, especially given the history of DHS and civil liberties. With no DHS support, Jankowicz resigned—out of a job with a tarnished reputation.

Chapter 7: Why They Lie (and the Tale of Mike Pence), who moved in down the street from Adair as a conservative Republican in the House on a street full of Democrats. As Pence got more prominent in Congress and more ambitious: “Mike got more news coverage and began saying things I found dubious” (p.96). He showed up on PolitiFact for False and Mostly False points. Then it was governor of Indiana.

“The courtship between Mike and Trump was quick and perfunctory. … Trump needed Mike to shore up the Christian right; Mike needed Trump because of his own ambition” (p. 99). Falsehoods followed. “He spewed false talking points on fracking, the stockpiling of medical supplies, abortion, tariffs, and health care” (p. 101). “Mike ultimately stood up to Trump when it mattered most” (p. 102).

“Journalists rarely ask politicians why they lie. … I suspect that’s because we expect lying politicians will simply deny they do it. … I had the most success with former Republicans who left the party at least in part because of Trump’s many lies. … in Mike’s case, his lying seemed to be a product of political ambition. …  Politicians try to score points with key constituents” (p. 103). Bob Kerry: “It’s human nature to want to get a standing ovation.” No shame in lying now.  “Converting complex policies into simple phrases is a shrewd tactic. … Lying can mean promising to solve huge problems that politicians know they really can’t solve” (p.105). Then: “artful wordsmithing.” Partisan media makes it worse. Adair mentions Tim Miller’s book, Why We Did It, which I’m currently reading.

Chapter 8: Orca and the Teacher Who Wouldn’t Lie. “Tim Miller, a spokesman for the 2012 Romney presidential campaign, found himself telling lies to reporters on Election Day” (p. 111). The Romney camp built a high tech program called Orca to log in volunteers and get the latest information on voters—and Romney bragged about it. Unfortunately, it didn’t work on election day. Miller was tasked to say “Orca is running,” a lie.

Paul Boyer was an Arizona state legislator. There was a bill that claimed Trump won in 2020, with the authority to hold county Board of Supervisors in contempt and have them arrested. Boyer cast the deciding vote against contempt charges. “Donald Trump lost Arizona and the overall election. And Boyer was not going to lie about either one of those facts” (p. 119).

Chapter 9: Patterns of Lying. “Republicans had a worse record than Democrats. But how lopsided was it?” (p. 121). Newt Gingrich was an early user of lies, which got him into power and caused Republicans to care little about facts and experts. “Trump legitimized lying” (p. 121). It’s about power. “Trump showed you could be president and not have real policies, only be consumed with power, and you could lie with impunity. …The new generation of Republicans—Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Josh Hawley, among others—mimicked Trump’s behavior” (p. 122). The Democrats focused more “false-ish” statements and few “Pants on Fire.” Thus, Republicans lied more and worse. Win at all costs on one side, some level of earnestness on the other. That and then give long explanations on complex issues.

Lying is a form of cheating. “No one ever tries to change the rules of a game they’re winning” (p. 126). The country is becoming less white and younger, problems for Republicans. One result was a cynical strategy based on race and fear. Republican-favored media like Fox and Facebook seldom checked claims. Criteria for checking include statements based on a fact that’s verifiable, and could the statement be misleading or wrong?

“The nature of the lie involved three broad aspects that included self/personal record, legislation, and opponent’s record” (p. 128). Republicans on immigrants: massive crime, illegal voting, taking welfare and social services meant for citizens, stressing the fear—with Trump the master of rage and worry.

Democrats apparently lie about Social Security and Medicare, mainly to keep older voters from defecting to the GOP.  

Republicans say fact-checkers are liberal and biased, while Democrats claim the fact-checkers hold Democrats to a higher standard. Of course, 139 House Republicans refused to certify the 2020 election. Also: “only a small percentage of rank-and-file members of Congress ever get fact-checked on anything” (p. 136).

Chapter 10. The Jeep Lie. Back to Tim Miller and the 2012 Romney race. Running for president in 2012, Romney needed Ohio, a toss-up state. Jeep (part of Chrysler) was selling a lot of vehicles in China and was considering starting limited production directly in China for that market. Romney claimed Jeep was moving ALL production to China and would shut down all Ohio plants. Chrysler quickly said that was untrue, but Romney’s campaign kept it up, including Tim Miller having to continue to lie about it. The Washington Post gave it Four Pinocchios, PolitiFact “Pants on Fire.” FactCheck “Whoppers.” Result: Obama won Ohio by three points. PolitiFact later awarded it 2012 Lie of the Year.

Chapter 11: Working the Refs. “National Committee chair Rich Bond revealed one of his party’s secrets to manipulating the news media. The strategy … was to constantly complain that the coverage was unfair. … Political reporters have pulled their punches. Fearful of blowback, journalists have packed their stories with false balance and failed to point out the glaring disparity in how the parties lie” (p. 153). The GOP expanded the strategy to universities, tech companies, bureaucrats, and more. Lawsuits and Congressional committees are part of the harassment: exploiting “the weak underbelly of enlightened democracy” (p.  154). So much for balance. “Big Tech wants to censor us”; “academia is too liberal”; and “government meddles too much” (p. 154). The right-wing as an “oppressed minority.”

Nixon said “The press is the enemy.” Roger Ailes at Fox “built a network on the lie of fairness” (p. 156). Stanford students built an “Election Integrity Partnership” before the 2020 election, working with various group like AARP. Jim Jordan’s Congressional subcommittee went after it, plus various lawsuits followed by a Stephen Miller group and others. The “Big Lie” crowd and “right-wing crankosphere” joined the pretend outrage. Stanford and other groups were slow to respond. Republicans claimed almost anything was censorship—the “Censorship Industrial Complex,” by the right wing’s “lawfare.” [Like Anne Applebaum’s Axis of Autocrats, working in sync was effective.] The strategy was called “politically induced ignorance” (which actually has a name: agnotology): facts were partisan and left-wing. Starting with Twitter (now X), social media seldom stopped falsehoods.

Chapter 12: The Ministry of Truth, Part 3. Back to Jankowicz and Josh Hawley’s continued harassment. She got a new job at a London-Based company called Centre for Information Resilience focused on global problems of disinformation, especially Russia. The insults continued, suggesting she was an enemy of the state. Her comment: “It’s very profitable for them to continue to smear me” (p. 172).

John Boehner said about Jim Jordan: “I just never saw a guy who spent more time tearing things apart—never building anything, never putting anything together” (p. 171). Jordan set up a new Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government—apparently without considering the irony. According to Charles Grassley: “Jordan’s weaponization panel is all conclusions, no evidence.”

The Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox was filed in 2020. Did the Fox hosts act with “actual malice?” Emails and text messages from Fox employees showed they did and Fox agreed to pay out $787.5 million to Dominion.  

Jankowicz filed her own suit. Fox referred to her as “low IQ,” “Illiterate,” Miss TikTok meets America’s Got NO Talent,” “Disinfo overlord,” “minister of truth,” “Scary Poppins,” a “useful idiot,” “Janko-half-witz,” a “lunatic,” and “the wicked witch.” Moved to Federal court by Fox lawyers, she lost.

Chapter 13. How Can We Stop the Lying? “Liars seem to have the upper hand. … I underestimated the strength of the partisan media. … Fox just smeared our work” (p. 189). Trump has the fear going, also fundraising for Republicans in general. There is the “backfire effect,” as people double down on a false belief, after hearing the correction. Most people still believe in the importance of politicians being honest. “Politicians who were reminded … that their statements would get scrutinized by PolitiFact were less likely to make false statements” (p. 192). A Pro-Truth Pledge might help. Some social media like Facebook have some fact-checking.

Debates can be structured to be constructive, usually on a specific substantive issue, rather than the focus on insults, their perceived charisma, and comments that make the news. Adair suggests a single webpage to aggregate the relative truthfulness in a combined score. ClaimReview is the current data standard. Facebook has Third-Party Fact-Checking.

The World Economic Forum has an annual review of the global risk factors: war, climate, natural disasters, and infectious diseases—and added disinformation. Technology makes disinformation easier to create. Adair: “I’ve been amazed at the sheer volume of falsehoods that go unchecked, the callous way that campaigns and media organizations profit from them, and the stony cruelty of the liars” (p. 204). Then he focused on Nina Jankowicz and the continued cruelty from Josh Hawley in particular, just another battle in his partisan war. In 2024 Jankowicz started a nonprofit called the American Sunlight Project to combat political disinformation.

Epilogue. Back to Mike Pence and how he became a Trump enabler. Then, Tim Miller and a relevant line like something from Veep: “Our principle is that Donald Trump can’t be president. … Oh wait, he’s president? Our principle is that we need Donald Trump!” (p. 213). Trump became a GOP role model for unapologetic lying. Of course, many “want to believe information that’s not true” (p. 214).