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Comment by carapace | Hacker News Reader

Do you really believe that all politicians are like Donald Trump just better at hiding it?

I'm not sure how you can come away from any observation of politics and not conclude that lying is absolutely rampant. Are there politicians who are relatively honest? Sure, but while they may have loyal grass-roots support, they tend not to be the most successful and they are most definitely in the minority.

Most any person with a sense of political history could provide a litany of examples just for recent politicians, not to mention past eras.

I don't think the main difference here is Trump's ability to lie, though he does have an impetuous manner of speaking that makes it hard to sustain elaborate lies. I think the main difference is the willingness (or lack thereof) of people in respectable positions to cover for his lying, because he is not considered respectable.

> but while they may have loyal grass-roots support, they tend not to be the most successful and they are most definitely in the minority

Because the electorate want that. If they rewarded honest people we'd have more successful honest politicians. In the end too many people want easy solutions, which often don't exist.

Whataboutism isn't going to win any arguments when comparing trump's lies to other politicians. The difference in scale is many orders of magnitude different.

> lying is absolutely rampant. Are there politicians who are relatively honest? Sure, but while they may have loyal grass-roots support, they tend not to be the most successful and they are most definitely in the minority.

That actually matches my default belief pretty well, FWIW, but I don't have a lot of evidence for it. Yes, there are lots of news stories about lying/corrupt politicians, but without the greater context how can you tell the prevalence? It's like a negative survivorship bias, we only hear about the scandals.

> I think the main difference is the willingness (or lack thereof) of people in respectable positions to cover for his lying, because he is not considered respectable.

Yeah, I found that sad and disgusting.

My personal problem is, is this just what humans are? Can we do better? Should we "Take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."?

I try to remind myself that we are in fact getting better, we have the tools to fix our problems, and there's reason to hope. Yay us!

Please point out the place I used the word "all" or anything resembling it.

> The only thing this time was the politician was incompetently bad at hiding it.

The word "only" implies that all other times all other politicians were competently good at hiding it.

Are you gonna answer my question or do you just want to play logical footsie?

you're the one playing logical foootsie. nothing op said implied that all other politicians are as crooked as trump, only that all the other crooked politicians that do exist are smarter than trump. stop being so disingenuous and actually read that which you react to.

That's not a very helpful response.

garbage in, garbage out

No it implies all other times when other politicians were better at it. Plenty have been caught (I could name dozens a-la Nixon, Clinton, Boris Johnson, the Mahon Tribunal) but there are plenty of others that get away with what they do too (eg. Albert Reynolds).

Too put an exact percentage on who falls where on a scale of greyness is basically unknowable as a lot shall die with their secrets. But I would sooner claim it was 100% (I don't, not even close) than it is 0% minus Trump which is simply laughably naive.

> Plenty have been caught (I could name dozens a-la Nixon, Clinton, Boris Johnson, the Mahon Tribunal) but there are plenty of others that get away with what they do too (eg. Albert Reynolds).

I'm going to assume you're Irish (because of the context) - can you explain to me how Albert Reynolds was a liar? Maybe he just looks honest, sandwiched between Haughey and Ahern.

Sorry, you're right, had Haughey mixed up with Reynolds in my head somehow. My bad.

Cheers!

Sorry for the noise.

Someone once asked me, when Barack Obama was first elected, if I trusted him. I was mildly astonished. I said, "That's not what politicians are for!" To me it seems clear that the primary purpose of politicians is to get out in front of the crowd and justify to ourselves and to the world our crimes, cruelties, and vices.

I mean, if people weren't wicked would there be any politicians or lawyers?

I actually dropped out of high school and was homeless for a few years, in part because of disaffection with society and politics. I got over it. Nowadays I tend to believe that most people are doing their best, we just suck. I think it's the aftermath of the Younger Dryas and the invention of agriculture, but that's a whole 'nother story.

Anyhow, I'm curious about how other people view the world and (at this point in history) the political class, so thank you.

No politician is as outwardly vulgar or crude as Trump, but... for e.g. Bill Clinton is now seemingly allowed, nay, welcomed in polite company after sexually assaulting multiple women. How come the media or our esteemed blue checkmarks never ask dems about that? Trump and his flaws are well represented in US politics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_sex_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_scan...

They're worse then Trump, by far the most exciting thing about him is that he isnt part of that political class that has lied and cheated America for decades.

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