It was the picture that shattered all of our records.
The idea behind it is simple enough. Take the politicians who have been active enough on the national stage to get fact-checked by PolitiFact at least 50 times since the start of 2007. Look at all of their ratings and tally them. Place the tally in the chart. Not scientific by any means, but interesting. (Update 7/21/2016: Trump's "truthiness" rating, to use Nolan's criterion in his comment of "true" + "mostly true," currently sits at 11%, which is a small gain from the ~7% when the chart was made, but still well behind Michele Bachmann. Hillary's "truthiness" is at 51%, which is largely unchanged. Again, this chart is not scientific and the post is more about the response to the chart than the chart itself.)
We didn't create the graphic (the original image is here), but we shared it on our Facebook page. It promptly shattered all previous benchmarks for reach and engagement by a factor of at least 20. Almost a hundred people were so shocked by it that they hid it in their newsfeeds; twenty-seven decided they never wanted to see anything shared by MormonPress ever again; one person unliked our Facebook page.
Judging by the comments, the harsh response wasn't because the graphic claimed that Jeb(!) Bush and Joe Biden are relatively honest politicians. No, our commenters were infuriated that Hillary Clinton was rated as being rather honest. Many of the comments on the photo can be summarized as "Hillary's a lying liar who lies." One commenter suggested that Mormon "would not stand for [MormonPress's] lies." Well, I guess we'll have to ask him down the road.
But it's clear that there's something special going on regarding the public's perception of Hillary's honesty. Just today, the Blue Nation Review called out the New York Times for saying that Donald Trump (who lies constantly, particularly about being against the Iraq War) is "being creative with the truth" instead of "dishonest." I recommend reading the piece in full for the list of ways that attributes that are positives for male candidates ("experience") become negatives for Hillary ("old," "represents the past").
This tendency to read Hillary through a particular frame of "dishonest" isn't rooted in her record, especially not when one compares her to Donald Trump, the pretend successful. A journalist who has investigated Hillary claims that she is fundamentally honest. PolitiFact has gathered many truthful statements Hillary has made.
So what's going on?
To put it simply: in America we teach our children that women are liars.
The argument is laid out well in this essay, which I very much recommend. The essay includes frank conversations about our tendency to disbelieve rape victims, the way our inability to trust women affects public policies regarding choice and contraception. But also think about how it plays out in everyday life. When we hear two sides of a couple's dispute, how quick are we to say "well, he's a good guy" or "she's crazy" or "she needs to give him another chance"? We're quick to think that women are dominating a discussion if women are speaking for 30% of the time (and men for 70%). Within the LDS community, there are struggles regarding how much women's voices are heard at the ward, stake, and Church levels, though there's been recent movement to include more women in the highest councils.
For female candidates, there is a greater perception of honesty, but this is a double-edged sword. Women are held to a higher standard, and punished by voters to a greater extent for perceived failings -- this is laid out in detail here. Hillary has had to walk this tightrope of being a woman trying to get things done in public--in ways that challenged patriarchal norms even as those norms were changing--for a long time now. It shouldn't come as a surprise that she's paid a price in voter perceptions.
One more example: In an earlier era of church history, at the height of the ERA struggles, Elder Hartmann Rector of the First Quorum of the Seventy explained to Mrs. Teddie Wood that if women were to receive the priesthood, "the male would be so far below the female in power and influence that there would be little or no purpose for his existence [—] in fact [he] would probably be eaten by the female as is the case with the black widow Spider."
I presume that Elder Rector (who became an emeritus General Authority many years ago) was speaking from his own feelings when he hypothesized that women with power or authority are inclined to physically consume men. Yet, we see these anti-woman attitudes throughout the Trump campaign.
And it isn't just Trump's objectifying and belittling of women, particularly women who challenge him; it carries through the memes shared by the people he's invited to join him on stage in Cleveland.
Trump's misogyny has roots in a long American tradition of misogyny. Read the essay on how we teach our children that women are liars, reflect on it, and think about how we can improve. Even if you decide that you can't vote for Hillary, that your vote is going to Johnson or Stein or whoever else, the essay is still worth the read.
After all, it was Mormon who told us to learn from the mistakes of the past, so we can be more wise than those who came before.
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He was making an analogy, implying that society would eventually value men and fathers as nothing more than sperm donors — as is the perceived role of the male black widow. To the point that men might as well be consumed or thrown away after impregnating the female.
Anyway…
1. It’s pretty well documented that Politifact is heavily biased toward the democratic agenda. Google “politifact bias” and find multiple articles. Of course I don’t believe everything I find on the internet – which is why, in part, I don’t believe Politifact.
1a. Related: How is it possible that all republicans lie more than all democrats? This data alone proves my point above. You have to be a fool to believe that democrats are more honest, generally, than republicans.
2. There is no discussion about the severity or impact of the lies. I can tell my wife that I forgot the bread – when I never wanted it in the first place. Or I can tell my wife that I was working late when I was really out having an affair. The severity of the two lies are significantly different.
3. The article talks about Trump’s anti-women commentary without offering any evidence. It also never mentions the severity of Clinton’s lies regarding Benghazi and email servers. It’s quite evident that Mormon Press and this author are biased. This is not a news article, it is an opinion piece, and should be labeled as such.
You lefties have consciences, too, and you’re struggling with Hillary just as much as the Republicans are struggling with Trump. Instead of lying to yourselfves to make her look better, vote for Gary Johnson instead!
So, on the face of this this analysis, I would have to call it around 30% truthful. I think it might be useful for showing how careful an individual is (assuming it came from a credible source), but that is about it. the conclusion that Hillary is somehow “OK” on truthfulness is as silly as “Benghazi was because of a video” or “I only have a blackberry”, etc.
The inference of your comment left me shagrined, how can you imply that because we disagree with a known liars (BHO or HRC) we are somehow lacking in charity?
George Orwell said …in a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act. All of these politicians are liars and the degree of untruth doesn’t matter. My God is neither republican nor democrat (truth be told they’re the same party).
So let’s get off our horses and accept that we are having our freedoms stolen from us by liars and take back our country from the two party monopoly and become Americans again?
Why waste time trying to print this garbage, regardless of who you support. Why not just draw a picture or paint with water colors….they would be at least as informative for your purposes.
Barack H Obama and Hillary Clinton have proven themselves to be able to PARSE words and phrases so closely there may not Techincally a Lie.
But two examples of this parsing for BHO would be:
Obamacare his mouthpieces
Ezieikel Emanuel lied about keeping your doctor repeating Obamas lie.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/12/08/zeke-emanuel-if-you-want-to-pay-more-to-keep-your-doctor-you-can-do-that-its-a-matter-of-choice/
Paul Gruber the professor from MIT paid to lie and get the…“STUPID AMERICAN VOTERS TO VOTE FOR IT”
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/11/17/gruber-obama-personally-asked-me-to-help-disguise-unhelpful-obamacare-facts/
Hillary Clinton:
She was dismissed by Archibald Cox ( watergate special counsel) because of her lying and dishonest character
http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/zeifman.asp
Hillary was complicit in the deaths of numerous agents and American citizens. And rather than admit any guilt ( and expose the fact she and BHO were funding and outfitting ISIS and Al CIAda) she has dodged, prevaricated, parsed and lied to coverup these facts resulting in a dead ambassador
http://m.marketwired.com/press-release/judicial-watch-defense-state-department-documents-reveal-obama-administration-knew-that-2020894.htm
http://mobile.wnd.com/2015/05/smoking-gun-hillary-knew-of-benghazi-attack-10-days-in-advance/
That being said all of the people on the charts are first class liars, and we need to accept that THAT THE RELATIVE DEGREES OF UNTRUTH TOLD BY THESE POLITICAL TYPES DON’T MATTER. It points to the course nature of our society and our dumb downed populous.
All that being said our republic is doomed as was stated by Thomas Jefferson and Alexis de Toqueville
… the republic is finished when the people can vote themselves a raise out of the public largess.
The lies and our stupidity have brought a us to this cliff will we like lemmings jump and fall to our deaths, or will we claw back from the precipice and nullify by our moral courage the decrees of tyrannical leaders and assert again the constitution and our common Christain morals????
What if Politifact is also biased? What if the choices they make in what to cover and how to frame the narrative, despite their vigorous objections, paint a more pleasant and flattering a picture of Hillary? What if they are applying a sort of false-false equivalency, picking nits at minor rhetorical flourishes of Trump’s while qualifying some of Hillary’s biggest lies by suggesting, as usual, that we can’t prove it since she did such a good job of covering and stonewalling (i.e. deleting 30,000 emails at her discretion)?
In other words—-this is gonna sound crazy—-what if Hillary and her cohorts were (gasp) lying about how much they lie?
I’ve seen this talking point floating around more and more, so I am guessing that it’s coming directly from the Hillary. As for the Mormon Press, I had never heard of it, but clearly it has its tilt and agenda, and I will certainly be blocking this tripe from entering my news feed in the future.
I hope people take a look and get some value from it.