Post-Modern Political Honesty: Part II--How Did We End Up Here???

In Part I of this series, I suggested that honesty in political speech has crossed a threshold. Its moral value has been replaced with its argumentation value, resulting from continuously stretching the frequency and application of the same narratives to spin dishonesty. We have entered the era of post-modern political honesty.

How did we get here? From a macro perspective, globalization and technological advances have forced governments to become more transparent. The 1990s were years of foundational import in this regard. Mass use of the internet began-and exploded-during that decade, at the same time as Bill Clinton was leading the charge for globalization, most notably with the North American Free Trade Agreement.   (Much has been written on this topic by others.)


More transparency means, of course, that more can be questioned. And so it was. Initially, the United States' federal government responded to the increase in queries by digging in its heels (like most organizations would), also resisting change to the tropes that it typically employed to justify guarding information so closely. Politicians followed suit.

How easy the internet must have made it, for instance, for the media to collect - and confront Clinton with - ever more salacious details about his philandering. Yet he held fast to his denial. Of course, there was a bevy well-founded suspicion about the veracity of Clinton's claim of innocence. Added to the wave of on-camera 'gotcha' moments hitting many, the concern of most press secretaries - and even some politicians - was peaked. Their brainchild? Do more of the same; just increase the frequency and broaden the application. This shows considerable cognitive laziness, purposeful political cowardice, and a complete absence of creativity. For a while, if you were listening closely, thud after thud could be heard, as this 'approach' failed yet another spokesperson or politician.

The most well-known of these thuds came from Bill Clinton himself. The intensity of the media's investigation of his dalliances never abated, ultimately resulting in his infamous, syncopated, thumb-pointing, prime time denial of having 'sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinski'.

The public's response went something like this. How absurd; he's probably lying. The political response was, of course, his impeachment. Otherwise said, the technology facilitated 'gotcha game', as Clinton called it, caused him to have to make this absurd-yet plausible-denial.


Plausible Deniability: popularized by Bill Clinton but used as a springboard by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.