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Comment by noonespecial | Hacker News Reader

I don't think is like that at all. The primary qualification is to be able to look citizen voters in the eye and know exactly what they want to hear said, and then say it sincerely without ever pausing to consider "the truth" at all.

They don't "lie", that would entail thinking about the truth and then speaking differently. What might be true or false never crosses their minds.

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You and parent poster are both wrong. A politician rarely ever lies. Incredibly, most career politicians sincerely believe what they say. They just change their beliefs more often than most people, even several times a day.

Whenever some specific belief is challenged by external conditions (poor polling, disagreement with wealthy donors, etc), they just go through long doublethink processes multiple times with their advisors, until they're persuaded that changing their position is the best thing to do. Once they believe what they say, they simply sell it like only Real Believers could.

>You and parent poster are both wrong. A politician rarely ever lies. Incredibly, most career politicians sincerely believe what they say. They just change their beliefs more often than most people, even several times a day.

I'm sorry, but I truly believe that not only is this view utterly naive but apologist as well, and I simply think it tries to blot the sun with its thumb.

Isn't it just a limit then? The best politician simply changes his beliefs for every person he talks to until "belief" is so fluid it becomes completely unmoored and meaningless. Hence no consideration of truth or falsehood and being able to sincerely tell everyone what they want to hear.

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