It’s Not About Left or Right. It’s About How Many Lies You’ll Tolerate.
Every politician spins the story. The real question is what happens when the story stops matching reality... and nobody cares.
Every politician sells.
That’s the job.
A politician trying to convince voters is no different than a salesperson trying to convince customers.
They highlight strengths. They minimize weaknesses. They choose the facts that make their argument look strongest.
None of that is new.
But there’s a line between persuasion and fabrication.
And lately, that line seems to be getting blurrier.
The troubling part isn’t that politicians tell questionable stories.
It’s that voters increasingly don’t seem to care whether those stories are true.
The Simple Verification Test
Most political claims can be checked in less than ten minutes.
Not because governments make it easy.
Because the internet accidentally made it harder to lie.
When a politician makes a claim, ask three questions…
Can I find the original source?
Not a meme.
Not a YouTube clip.
Not a commentator quoting another commentator.
The actual source.
Government report.
Budget document.
Statistics Canada table.
Parliamentary transcript.
Corporate filing.
Court ruling.
Original sources are boring.
That’s why they’re useful.
Are they showing the whole number or just the convenient piece?
This is where most political spin lives.
Suppose someone says…
“Housing starts collapsed.”
Maybe they did.
Compared to what?
Last month?
Last year?
A record year?
A recession year?
A single fact without context can tell two completely different stories.
That’s not always a lie.
But it can certainly be misleading.
What do credible people who disagree say?
If everyone you’re listening to already agrees with you, you’re not researching.
You’re attending a pep rally.
Find someone intelligent who sees the issue differently.
Not to change your mind.
To test it.
If your position can’t survive exposure to opposing facts, it probably wasn’t very strong to begin with.
The Team Jersey Problem
Here’s where things get uncomfortable.
Most people don’t actually want facts.
They want confirmation.
Politics has started to resemble sports.
Once people put on the team jersey, everything becomes easier.
Your side is good.
Their side is bad.
Your mistakes are understandable.
Their mistakes are unforgivable.
Your misinformation is an accident.
Their misinformation is corruption.
That’s how tribal thinking works.
And politicians know it.
The Lie We Tell Ourselves
The most dangerous lie isn’t the one coming from politicians.
It’s the one voters tell themselves.
“Sure, that claim wasn’t exactly true... but I agree with the bigger message.”
That’s usually the first compromise.
Then comes the second.
Then the third.
Eventually people stop asking whether something is true and start asking whether it helps their side win.
At that point facts become optional.
The Credibility Bank Account
Think of credibility like a bank account.
Every truthful statement makes a deposit.
Every exaggeration makes a withdrawal.
Every proven falsehood makes a much larger withdrawal.
The problem isn’t that politicians occasionally get things wrong.
Everyone gets things wrong.
The problem is when the withdrawals keep happening and supporters keep pretending the balance is still healthy.
At some point the account is empty.
And once credibility is gone, everything else becomes suspect.
Even the truth.
The Question Nobody Likes
Here’s the question every voter should ask themselves.
Not about the politician.
About themselves.
How many false claims are you willing to overlook before you stop believing someone?
One?
Five?
Twenty?
Unlimited, as long as they’re on your side?
Because that’s the real test.
Not whether politicians lie.
Some always will.
The test is whether voters reward it.
The Recap...
Political spin is inevitable.
Outright falsehoods are not.
The internet has made fact-checking easier than at any point in human history, yet many people are less interested in facts than ever.
The question isn’t whether politicians stretch the truth.
The question is how many times they’ll get away with it before voters decide credibility matters again.
The Gut-Punch...
A politician can only keep lying if enough supporters decide the truth is less important than the team jersey they’re wearing.
And once that happens, democracy stops being a search for facts and starts becoming a competition between competing fantasies.
If you enjoy thoughtful conversations, Canadian stories, and the occasional smart-ass observation about the world we’re living in, you’re in the right place.
Subscribe free and get new stories, insights, and observations delivered directly to your inbox.
No paywall.
No spam.
No nonsense.
Leave anytime with a single click.
I promise not to take it personally.
Yes Fred - advocating for some critical thinking, and showing people how to do that! Excellent piece! Thank you!
There's misinformation (deliberately misleading), disinformation (outright lies), and empty slogans. There's also witholding vital information, or deliberately misconstruing it. This is certainly what right-wing politics has become, and extreme elements on the left are drifting into this realm as well. As long as there is a lack of critical thinking in the general populace, this will continue. AI is already, and will continue to make this even worse. Aside from the fact that use of AI discourages critical thinking, it is also syncophantic, so responds to the cognitive biases of the questioner, thereby confirming it.
So while the intenet does make researching easier than it's ever been, one still has to know how to conduct research. Where to find credible sources, how to identify key words that will produce the desired results. When it's so much easier to just ask AI, the likelihood of obtaining misleading results is not insignificant.