{"id":2648,"date":"2016-10-16T21:47:30","date_gmt":"2016-10-16T21:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/?p=2648"},"modified":"2019-09-12T13:38:03","modified_gmt":"2019-09-12T13:38:03","slug":"donald-trump-and-the-truth-bubble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/16\/donald-trump-and-the-truth-bubble\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump and the Truth Bubble"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWherever the people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government.\u201d — Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, 1789<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thomas Jefferson\u2019s support of a free press and education for the common people — including entry to the highest levels of instruction (i.e. a college or university) — was based on the belief that a knowledgeable, well-educated citizenry was necessary for the preservation of democracy. One of his greatest fears was that the people would cede power to the government through sheer ignorance and lack of understanding.<\/p>\n

So what happens when the process of educating and informing American citizens starts to break down? Can the checks and balances put in place by the Founding Fathers hold up in the face of a full blown idiocratic meltdown<\/a>?<\/p>\n

These types of questions were pretty far from my mind last summer when I started tracking the progress of Republican and Democratic presidential candidates using data from Politifact. I thought it would be an interesting exercise to see if there was a way to use this data to better understand the path to a successful nomination.<\/p>\n

As a refresher, the 2016 Presidential campaign officially began in March of 2015 when Ted Cruz announced his intention to run for office. He was eventually joined by sixteen other Republicans, six Democrats and a miscellany of Libertarians, Socialists and Green Party candidates \u2013 the largest presidential primary field in American history. At the time, Hillary Clinton was considered the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination but there was no clear frontrunner on the Republican side. Pundits couldn\u2019t decide if the large Republican field reflected that party\u2019s depth of talent or its lack of cohesiveness<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With the participants off and running, I was interested in seeing whether or not a politician\u2019s truthfulness would be reflected in their strength as a candidate or whether there were other factors involved. My first analysis consisted of looking at Poliifact\u2019s \u201ctruth-o-meter\u201d and seeing if I could tease out any meaningful differences between candidates. The following chart shows each candidate’s average rating (where 5 = True, 4 = Mostly True, 3 = Half True, 2 = Mostly False, 1 = False, 0 = “Pants on Fire”) and their “skewness”, which was my attempt at getting at the asymmetry (lean more true, lean more false) of their responses. Size represents the number of times Politifact checked statements by the candidates. I included a few outside sources of information (Facebook, emails, blogs) and politicians (Biden, Obama) for reference. (Responses as of September 18, 2015.)<\/p>\n

\"politifact-candidate-ratings-v1\"<\/p>\n

Here’s the same chart (same time period) with just the two final candidates:<\/p>\n

\"politifact-candidate-ratings-v2\"<\/p>\n

I had two takeaways from this exercise. The first was that candidates like Donald Trump and Ben Carson had about as much credibility as a chain letter from your cranky uncle. The second was that — based purely on my evaluations of truthfulness and believability \u2013 the most likely pick for the Republican nomination was probably going to be someone like Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush … two Republican candidates with relatively high levels of positive (true) Politifact ratings.<\/p>\n

As we now know, pretty much everybody got this wrong. How did this happen? Throughout the campaign commentator after commentator expressed their concern with Trump\u2019s rather dubious relationship with the truth. New York Times columnist David Brooks stated<\/a> that Trump \u201cis perhaps the most dishonest person to run for high office in our lifetimes\u201d while political writer David Frum said<\/a> that Trump\u2019s mendacity is \u201cqualitatively different than anything before seen from a major-party nominee.\u201d Politico awarded Trump\u2019s campaign misstatements their 2015 Lie of the Year<\/a> and, in May of this year, Politico reporters analyzed<\/a> a full week of his speeches and found that the orange one made nearly one false or misleading statement every five minutes.<\/p>\n

Summarized from the Atlantic<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitiFact recently calculated that only 2 percent of the claims made by Trump are true, 7 percent are mostly true, 15 percent are half true, 15 percent are mostly false, 42 percent are false, and 18 percent are \u201cpants on fire.\u201d Adding up the last three numbers (from mostly false to flagrantly so), Trump scores 75 percent. The corresponding figures for Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton, respectively, are 66, 32, 31, and 29 percent.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Far from hurting him in the polls, however, Trump\u2019s dishonesty is viewed as a positive feature by his supporters. An NBC, Telemundo, and Marist College poll<\/a> taken last December suggests that more than seven in ten Republicans believe Trump \u201ctells it like it is.\u201d Since \u201ctelling it like it is\u201d seems to be synonymous with lying out of one\u2019s ass<\/a>, many have speculated<\/a> that the underlying cause of Trump\u2019s success springs from his ability to give voice to the concerns of the typical conservative voter.<\/p>\n

Perhaps.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps there is just a large swath of the American electorate who can no longer tell the difference between fact and fairytale.<\/p>\n

Among Trump supporters …<\/p>\n