The importance of calling a lie, "a lie"

Matt Yglesias has an interesting piece up at Vox on Trump, lying, and whether or not it matters that we call his lies, "lies." Yglesias's point, essentially, is that what matters is the issue of giving Trump the benefit of the doubt. Trump is a known liar, and terminology is less important than recognizing that we should essentially treat his pronouncements as elephantshit, and reject them out of hand when they are obviously absurd and without evidentiary basis because Trump is a known liar. What matters is not terminology, but our response.

I disagree. I don't think they are separable.

Think of the word, "racist." The label is a toxic one, and for years, people have gotten away with what we call "dog whistle" appeals to racism by putting just enough of a veneer on what they say to have some plausible deniability. So, for example, talk about "welfare," and "lazy people," and you appeal to racists' images of African-Americans. There is a great deal of political science research on the association between attitudes towards spending programs and racial attitudes, and how peoples' responses change when you use the word, "welfare." It invokes images of race, and that invokes racial stereotypes. Dog whistle politics, or in the terminology of David Sears, "symbolic politics."

However, people use dog whistles in politics to avoid being called racists because of the power of the accusation. If a racist is called a "racist," he or she will object vehemently because we, as a society, have deemed racism to be among the greatest evils. That accusation is a slur, and by collectively agreeing that it is a slur, and deeming it too harsh to be used unless discussing David Duke or other known members of the klan, we take it off the table. Even when it is true.

The result? The proliferation of symbolic racism, and eventually, everything festers into Donald Trump.

"Lie." Oooooooh. Harsh word, right? We don't like calling something, "a lie," or calling someone, "a liar," do we? No, we don't. It's mean, and harsh. Lies are bad. Very bad. So bad that when you make the accusation, you've gone too far. It's the nuclear weapon of argumentation because it's such a bad accusation.

I call bullshit. Who says it's off the table? Who says we can't ever make the accusation? Some people just lie. Donald Trump lies all the time. He does so more than any political figure we have ever seen. It's not close.

You can't punish an offense if you can't even say its name because you consider it so verboten that the accusation can never be made. When you go that far, you are telling people that they can lie to their hearts' contentment. The reason Donald Trump lies as much as he does is that he knows that nobody will impose any sanctions on him for it. Because nobody ever has. Because so many people have trouble even saying the word, "lie." We don't avoid the word, "murder," for murders. Why can't we call a lie, "a lie?"

And if you can't even bring yourself to say, "lie," you won't do jack fucking shit to him when he does tell lies. So he'll keep on telling lies. And he'll keep on getting away with them. As I keep writing, he'll get away with everything. Everything.

If you are one of those people who is uncomfortable calling a lie, "a lie," you are part of the problem. You have helped create a society in which liars get away with it.

I keep reading think-pieces on whether or not to call Trump, "a liar." It's too late. Society has deemed the accusation to be beyond the pale, and in so doing, it has enabled liars. Think about this from the perspective of three categories. Trumpists... don't care about facts. They are disconnected from reality, and cannot be reached. Those who oppose Trump already know he's a liar, but their assessments of his truthfulness are determined by their assessments of him based on other factors, like partisanship. The independents and other "persuadables," as consultants will sometimes call them? To them, politicians are expected to be at least somewhat dishonest, but calling someone "a liar" just sounds so harsh that you can't say it without backlash. And there's no phrasing that can convey the depth and breadth of Trump's dishonesty, accurately, that won't cause the same backlash.

In trying to convey the extent of Trump's lying, we are constrained by a history of "tact" that has deemed the accusation of "lies" too harsh to make in any circumstance, and declared the word verboten. Terminology matters. Tact doesn't.

Tact: not saying true stuff-- Chase, C. (1998). Killed By Death.