political economy

Pushing beyond the despair and doomerism of “Nothing matters”, the question has never been is there a price for lying in politics, but rather what is the price of lying in politics. Note that “in politics” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. In day to day life, the price of lying is the threat to your reputation. A reputaton for being untrustworthy is always very costly in the long run. But politics, however, has different layers across which the price of lying is heterogeneous. And yes, there are contexts where that price can go negative.

Put simply, what is the cost here? Is Greg Bovino, head of US Border Patrol, worried about his reputation? Is he worried about future personal legal liability? Is he worried about maintaining cooperative alignment across the administration and within the ranks of the Border Patrol and ICE? There’s a saying in politics – the worst thing you can do is tell the truth at the wrong time. But that’s more relevant to “lying by omission”, about simply abstaining from speaking on a subject so that you are not forced to choose between lying and paying a high political cost. This is different. I’m picking on this one person in the administration because Alex Pretti was summarily executed in the street in cold blood by a thicket of federal agents for the apparent crime of being in attendance and trying to help a woman while she was being pepper sprayed, but it is the subsequent lying that I am concerned with here. It follows a pattern that continues to darkly fascinate me.

Rather than simply “say nothing”, this administration has committed to the broad tactic of stating things that are factually, obviously untrue. That, more important, it is highly likely they know are untrue. That’s not something we’ve seen a lot of before. Politicians were known for being “slick” and “slippery”. For bending the truth, torturing the facts, or managing to fill entire press conferences without saying or committing to anything of substance. This administration, as I’ve said before, is different.

I see two likely explanations:

The price of lying is zero because no one believes anything anymore. The truth is subjective and siloed.
The price of lying is negative because constant and consistent commitment to the party can only be demonstrated by bearing the personal cost of telling obvious lies. In doing so you maintain the group, save yourself from being purged, and everyone in the group lives to fight another day. The net of which is a negative price for lying.

So what is it? Are we through the lol-nothing-matters looking glass, or are we witnessing an administration circle the wagons and solidify their committment to one another by blatantly lying on national television? I’m (perhaps obviously) of the belief that everything matters, that lying does have a cost, but the need for unity is so strong within this administration and it is, in fact, the lying that is holding it together. Until, of course, it doesn’t. Remember the most important lesson of The Folk Theorem – you can sustain cooperation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma, but only until you learn when the game is going to end. Then all bets are off.

Political drama was about to happen and then it didn’t. Across the country, deep and insightful thinkpieces were left unfinished, relegated to the folder for things writers hope will become future brilliance but definitely never will.

The Big Covid Stimulus Bill was about to fall short by a single vote, with Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) threatening to break against party lines. It was a disaster… until it wasn’t. A political catastrophe, evidence that the Democrats were a failed coalition once again humbled by their ruthless coordinated opposition… until it wasn’t.

So what was the source of this unforeseeable political miracle? Joe Biden’s long-running political strategy of asking people what they wanted, keeping promises, and not being a d*ck.

As much as I want to roll with three paragraphs of clever wordplay referencing stratagems and gambits, the obvious point to be made is that Biden has decades of political capital that the entire Democratic party is currently able to leverage. In contrast, the Republican Party is currently fronted by a Senator who has broken every political norm for short/medium run political gain, while bearing the brand of a career grifter who spent decades opting not to pay his contractors, employees, or lenders.

I’m not much for making forecasts or predictions, so here’s my predictive forecast for the Republican party: they don’t matter and won’t for years.

Make no mistake: their politics still matter a great deal. White ethno-nationalism has a real foothold in chunks of the electorate all over the country, evangelical Christians remains one of the most influential voting blocks, and the US system remains weighted towards the preferences of rural voters. Rather, what I mean is that the institution of the Republican Party no longer brings much to the political bargaining table. The party has spent down decades of political capital and no recourse to trust in their reputation to solve collective action problems. The bill has finally come due for their spendthrift and short-sighted culture. As much as it may hurt our sympathetic sensibilities, we owe it to them to let them learn from this experience and, after a few decades of trustworthy behavior and political saving, they should be able to pull their party up by their bootstraps.

In four years, two with control of all three branches, the GOP was never ever able to pass legislation as impactful on the US landscape as what the Democrats pulled off this week. The Republican party remains an efficient fundraising organizing and cultural brand for running a campaign, no doubt. There’s not going to be a third-party usurping of their status as one of the two dominant parties, at least not any time particularly soon. But as far as the legislative marketplace is concerned, the Republican party is dead broke.