Josh Barro is right. Mean, implausible lies do not win elections.
During the closing weeks of this campaign season, I was repeatedly dumbfounded by the way Republicans talked to voters about Democrats. Filled with contempt for their opponents, they spoke to voters as if they could not imagine anyone who did not share that contempt. They told nasty, mean, personal lies that they clearly expected their audiences to eat up. But the lies Republicans told weren’t plausible, they weren’t relevant to the issues voters cared about, and the gratuitousness of the lies just made Republicans even less likable than they already were.
However, it has been proverbial for at least the last hundred years that pleasant, benign-sounding implausible lies do win elections. A chicken in every pot!
That places me in a conundrum. I’m a lot more interested in how ordinary people can afford the goods and services they need to consume than I am about who is nice, who is mean, or, indeed, who wins elections.
Hint: you won’t put a chicken in every pot by subsidizing the consumption of chicken while constraining its supply.
What worries me is the prospect of one party being mean, the other party promising “free” stuff, and decreasing standards of living for ordinary people. After all, that’s how France got in the fiscal fix they’re in today.
My wife and I agree that the recent election campaign was the dirtiest we’ve ever seen, and I remember John Kennedy’s run for President. (The internet is still full of people libeling JFK and RFK and even Joe, Rose and Jackie. Many weren’t even alive then.) I don’t recall a single positive add for any candidate, although the Dims threw less dirt than the Republicans. The whole shameful was tiresome beyond bearing. It made one yearn for the return of kings.
Just a reminder that both parties offer plenty of free stuff and/or give tax money to favored constituents, so that’s not a real choice. It’s also not being mean, it’s also the lack of integrity and lies included in the being mean. If they are OK lying to get elected they will likely do so when governing and that lack of integrity will show at some point. To be clear, I am not referring to the universal “normal”campaign promises, stuff like “I will make the economy better”. It’s the really obvious lies and deceit like the lady in Alaska who should have had an easy win but lost lots of votes for her deceit. Vance lying about the people eating dogs, Ramaswamy, Trump on stuff too many to name.
Steve