Dear FUKR’s (that’s Frequent Users of the Krich Report):
Politifact announced its Lie of the Year last week, and no surprise, they got it wrong. More on that at the bottom of this post.
If you are unfamiliar with Politifact, they are the Pulitzer prize-winning fact checkers who assign ratings to claims made by politicians and pundits. Their rating scale starts at “True” and continues all the way down to “Pants On Fire,” with four shades of truthiness in between. They’ve been at it for over a decade. Each year, they choose one lie so big and bold that it deserves special recognition.
You know that here at The Krich Report, our goal isn’t just to entertain, it’s also to educate. So with both those goals in mind, I thought we’d take a look at the history of Lie of the Year, and then dive specifically into this year’s honoree. Here, in chronological order, are the winners dating back to 2009. We’ve listed the lies, along with the person(s) responsible for them.
2009: Obamacare will create ‘death panels’ that decide if sick seniors are worthy of medical care.
– Sarah Palin
2010: Obamacare is a ‘government takeover of health care.’
– Pretty much every Republican in Congress
2011: Republicans voted to end Medicare.
– Pretty much every Democrat in Congress
2012: Jeep manufacturing plants in Ohio are being moved to China.
– Mitt Romney
2013: If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.
– Barack Obama
2014: Ebola is spreading across the country, and immigrants are the ones who brought it here.
– A collection of xenophobes and conspiracy theorists, mostly conservatives
2015: Virtually everything that Donald Trump said during his presidential campaign.
– Donald Trump
2016: Fake news. (In other words, a shared win by every person in the universe who posted or re-posted something blatantly false on the internet.)
– Too many sources to list
2017: Russian election interference didn’t happen.
– Donald Trump
2018: Student activists at Parkland High School, where a mass shooting occurred, were just crisis actors.
– Conservative media
2019: The whistleblower got the Ukraine phone call details completely wrong.
– Donald Trump
2020: Coronavirus is a hoax.
– Approximately half the country, mostly conservatives
Ok, after reading through that list, put three seconds on the clock and tell me the first thing that jumps out at you.
If you’re like me, you noticed that out of those 12 entries, only two of them came from Democrats. The vast majority are from conservatives.
Now, does that mean that conservatives lie more than liberals? That’s an easy conclusion to draw, if you want, but not one that I’m particularly comfortable with. At least, not based merely on who has won Lie of the Year the most.
The other easy conclusion you could draw is that Politifact is biased in favor of liberals, and I know a handful of people who believe that. Their argument usually goes something like “I saw a post from Politifact that I disagreed with, so I don’t trust them anymore.” Well, sure. I’ve seen posts from Politifact that I disagreed with, too. Politifact has rated literally thousands of claims over their 12 year history. Have they gotten a few wrong? I would think so. I’ve gotten dressed roughly 15,000 times in my life. Have I put my underwear on backwards a few of those times? Yup. Would it be fair for Mrs. Krich Report to lose all faith in my ability to dress myself and insist on checking my boxers before I leave the house each morning? No, though that might add a spark to our relationship, so I’m game if she is.
Personally, I love Politifact. If I could tell you to follow one news source other than The Krich Report, it would be Politifact. In a world inundated by lies and fake news, the work they do is invaluable.
But – you have to be okay with seeing your team get called out for lying. If you’re a fan of Barack Obama, you can’t just dismiss the 151 times his statements have been rated Mostly False (71), False (71), or Pants On Fire (9). News flash – your team lies too.
And here’s where things get really interesting. I bet you’re saying to yourself “Well I’m a straight shooter and if my guy gets caught lying, I’ll hold him accountable just like I would if it were a guy from the other team.”
You’d like to think that. But our friend Dr. Justin McBrayer says “think again.”
Now Dr. McBrayer may not be a FUKR, but he is a well respected philosopher, occasional contributor to the New York Times, and author of the new book Beyond Fake News, which I recommend. In a recent op-ed piece he argues that most people dismiss fact-checking when it conflicts with their own political views, because as a species we humans are programmed to value our tribal associations more than the truth. That’s bad news for Politifact, and bad news for the truth. It’s also an important thing for all of us to keep in mind as consumers of news. Next time you see your favorite politician rated “Pants On Fire” and you start to feel defensive, take a moment and imagine that it was your most hated politician who said those same words. Would you still feel angry at Politifact?
As a side note, can we all just take a moment and acknowledge how quaint it is that the Lie of the Year eight short years ago was about a Jeep factory moving to China? Oh, what I would give to return to those halcyon days.
Ok, let’s take a look at this year’s winner, and why it’s the wrong choice.
Politifact chose “claims that deny, downplay, or disinform about COVID-19” as their Lie of the Year. Among the many claims they highlighted were: it’s no worse than the flu; masks don’t work; hospitals are over-counting COVID cases so they can receive more money from Medicare; COVID was planned; and the government is using the vaccine as a way to inject you with a microchip.
Now, don’t get me wrong. There were a lot of big lies surrounding COVID, and some tremendously bad consequences that resulted from them. Could tens of thousands of lives have been saved if the government and the pundit-sphere had presented COVID honestly and objectively? I believe so. And in any other year, that would be enough to earn Politifact’s top honor.
But not this year.
This year, there was also a lie that presented an existential threat to our democracy. And while the repercussions of this lie may take longer to fully manifest, I believe in the long run they will have a more significant impact on our nation.
This was the year that half of our country managed to convince itself that our elections were rigged, even though they weren’t; that Venezuelan-made voting machines were switching tens of thousands of votes from one candidate to the other; that ballots were being tossed in rivers by the truckload; that ballots being counted after election day were an indication of fraud; and that something nefarious must be happening when a candidate’s lead on election night evaporates in the following days of vote counting.
These were lies that undermined the very foundation of our democracy. They threatened to tear apart the fabric of what makes our political system so special. And most dangerously, they created a distrust in our electoral process that is likely to live on, long after 2020.
Some would argue that it’s all okay, because in the end these lies did not alter the outcome of the election. Indeed, Politifact used this as their main justification for relegating these lies to the number two spot on this year’s list. Our democracy was strong enough to withstand this assault, they say, so all is good.
Well, this time, yes. But who among us is confident that these same lies won’t be alive and well in 2024? Who among us thinks that confidence in our elections can be repaired?
That’s incredibly naïve.
In 2024, will half of us still believe that COVID was a hoax? I doubt it. Even if they do, will it matter?
This isn’t to downplay the tragic loss of life that this pandemic caused and continues to cause. But there’s a vaccine for it now.
What’s the vaccine for protecting our democracy? There isn’t one. We can’t stick a needle in our arms and make ignorant people suddenly understand that voter fraud exists only in miniscule amounts. We can’t all take a pill and suddenly come to a collective realization that a president who tries to overturn the results of a fair election is a dictator, not a hero.
So sure, it all worked out this time, and lies about a stolen election get second place. But history will judge differently.