--- title: How To Make Lying Unpopular in Politics description: It's time for politicians to take a pro-truth pledge, writes Bill Adair. canonical: https://time.com/7085682/making-lying-unpopular-in-politics-essay/ author: Bill Adair article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-10-15T11:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:42:59.622Z article:section: Ideas og:title: How To Make Lying Unpopular in Politics og:description: It's time for politicians to take a pro-truth pledge, writes Bill Adair. og:url: https://time.com/7085682/making-lying-unpopular-in-politics-essay/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt77b72c5108c3453c/698a84179862f5a94a89a41f/swearing-oath.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3450 og:image:height: 1941 og:image:alt: swearing-oath og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How To Make Lying Unpopular in Politics twitter:description: It's time for politicians to take a pro-truth pledge, writes Bill Adair. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt77b72c5108c3453c/698a84179862f5a94a89a41f/swearing-oath.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How to Make Lying Unpopular in Politics > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=26d4e3fc-97fe-4f40-8d3a-f745fa0ac896&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Trump Falsely Claims Harris Hasn’t Always Identified as Black [Watch (HLS stream): Trump Falsely Claims Harris Hasn’t Always Identified as Black](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bpbGfOMi.m3u8) (3:27)  _Published 2024-07-31. Former President Donald Trump used his turn before the nation’s largest professional association of Black journalists to question the racial identity of his rival for the White House this fall, telling a shocked National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago that Vice President Kamala Harris “happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black.”_ by [Bill Adair](https://time.com/author/bill-adair/) ## Bill Adair Oct 15, 2024 11:00 AM UTC  Man places his hand on a Bible and swears to tell the truth. Man places his hand on a Bible and swears to tell the truth. Getty Images by [Bill Adair](https://time.com/author/bill-adair/) ## Bill Adair Oct 15, 2024 11:00 AM UTC The general election campaign is in high gear, filling our airwaves, web pages and mailboxes with attack ads, often powered by lies. We see them every election: TV spots with ominous voiceovers and grainy black-and-white photos and flyers with cherry-picked quotations and dramatic headlines. We roll our eyes and accept lying as an inevitable part of our messy democracy. But lying matters. It poisons our discourse, breeds cynicism about government, and makes it difficult to have serious conversations about the issues of the day. If politicians lie about issues such as immigration and climate, they can’t agree on common facts that would allow them to work together to find solutions. I’ve spent much of my career studying lying—first as the founder of the fact-checking site PolitiFact and more recently as the author of a book about how and why politicians do it. I’ve concluded that politicians lie because they believe it pays dividends. It scores points with their base and helps them get rewarded by their donors. There are few, if any, consequences. While scholarly researchers [have](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8449384/) found fact-checking can be effective at correcting misperceptions, political reporters and independent fact-checkers cannot keep up with the volume of claims. The partisan media either ignores the lies or repeats them because they stir up anger and keep viewers and readers coming back. But we can change the dynamic—specifically by making lying politically unpopular.  Courtesy of Simon & Schuster. We can borrow an idea from Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform, the conservative anti-tax group. A longtime Washington power broker, Norquist is the enforcer of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, a promise “to oppose any and all tax increases” [that is signed](https://www.atr.org/pledge-database/) by the vast majority of Republican senators and House members as well as many other GOP candidates and officeholders. By celebrating the signers and trying to pressure the holdouts, Norquist has been a singular force in establishing the GOP’s anti-tax culture. You might disagree with the politics of his anti-tax pledge, but it does show how peer pressure and party culture creates change. Now, let’s think about combatting lying again. If candidates and elected officials faced the same pressure about lying that Republicans feel about opposing taxes, it could become part of their core beliefs and make them think twice about filling their ads and flyers with falsehoods. **_Read More:_**[_9 Ways to Respond to Political Misinformation_](https://time.com/7027488/how-to-respond-to-political-misinformation/) In fact, to reduce lying, we need to change the incentives and build an anti-lying culture in both parties. (Although my research finds that Republicans lie more, Democrats produce plenty of whoppers. The pledge needs to be bipartisan.) I’m not the first to suggest this idea. A group called Intentional Insights tried something similar in 2017, the Pro-Truth Pledge, but it did not get the visibility or critical mass of signers that it needed. A lying pledge—it could be a relatively simple vow that the candidate or official would not lie in campaign materials nor to the media—would need an organization to keep track of the signers. Then, peer pressure and voter interest would kick in. Candidates could boast about their commitment in ads and speeches, as many of Norquist’s signers do. They could raise a ruckus about opponents who won’t sign. Enforcing the pledge would be left to public opinion. Take it from someone who, as PolitiFact editor, was often accused of being “the arbiter of truth”: It would get messy if a single organization tried to determine who broke the pledge. But the group doesn’t need to wade into that thicket. It need only track the signers and can leave the determination of liars to public opinion. Opponents and rival parties would surely pounce on every opportunity to call out a violation. Journalists and fact-checkers could then explore the complaints just as they do for claims about corruption or other accusations. The debate—even an extended brouhaha about an accused violator —will elevate the prominence of lying. Voters will be on the lookout for it. The result: fewer lies. _From_ [Beyond the Big Lie](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Beyond-the-Big-Lie/Bill-Adair/9781668050705) _by Bill Adair, published by Atria Atria Publishing Group a division of Simon & Schuster. Copyright (c) 2024 by Bill Adair_ ## Transcript Mr. President, we so appreciate you giving us an hour of your time. I want to start by addressing the elephant in the room, sir. A lot of people did not think it was appropriate for you to be here today. You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals from Nikki Haley to former President Barack Obama, saying that they were not born in the United States, which is not true. You have told four Congresswoman McCullar, who were American citizens to go back to where they came from. You have used words like animal and rabbit to describe Black district attorneys. You've attacked Black journalists calling them a loser, saying the questions that they ask are stupid and racist. You've had dinner with a White supremacist at your Mara Lago Resort. So my question, sir, now that you are asking Black supporters to vote for you, why should Black voters trust you after you have used language like that? Well, first of all, I don't think I've ever been asked the question, so in such a horrible manner, a first question. You don't even say, Hello. How are you? Are you with ABC, because I think they're a fake news network, a terrible network. And I think it's disgraceful that I came here in good spirit. I love the Black population of this country. I've done so much for the Black population of this country. I think it's very. I have answered the questions with another. I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln. That than my answer. Better than President Johnson, who signed the Voting Rights Act. You to start off a question and answer period, especially when you're 35 minutes late because you couldn't get your equipment to In such a hostile manner? I think it's a disgrace. Let me. Let me just ask a follow up, sir, and then we'll move on to other questions here. Some of your own supporters, including Republicans on Capitol Hill, have labeled Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the first Black and Asian American woman to serve as vice president and be on a major party ticket as a DEI hire. Is that acceptable language to you? And will you tell those Republicans and those supporters to stop it? How do you define DEI? Go ahead. How do you define diversity equity inclusion? Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Is that what your definition is that is Give me a definition. Sir, then. Would you give me a definition. Give me a definition. Sir, I'm asking you a question. Direct define define it for me if you. I just defined it, sir. Do you believe that Vice President Kamala Harris is only on the ticket because she is a Black woman? Well, I can say no, I think it's maybe a little bit different. So I've known her a long time indirectly, not directly very much. And she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn't know she was Black. Until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don't know. Is she Indian or is she Black? She is always It as a Black. I respect Black college. I respect either one, but she obviously doesn't because she was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden, she made a turn and she she became a Black Just to be clear, sir, do. Somebody should look into that, too, when you ask a continue in a very hostile, nasty tone. It's a direct question, sir. Do you believe that Vice President Kamala Harris is a DEI hier ab really don't know. I mean, I really don't know. Could be. 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