Roughly once a week the Project on Ethics in Political Communication highlights something we’re reading and something we’re watching. We will largely (though not entirely) avoid the presidential election on the assumption that readers are already following it closely, and probably have strong opinions about the candidates and their rhetorical strategies.
August 15, 2024
What We’re Reading
Harris’ Online Ads
The Harris campaign is getting attention - none of it positive - for deceptive ads on Google. Earlier this week, Sara Fischer at Axios wrote:
The Harris campaign has been editing news headlines and descriptions within Google search ads that make it appear as if the Guardian, Reuters, CBS News and other major publishers are on her side…
As Fast Company notes, this isn’t a new practice, and doesn’t violate Google’s terms of service. But that doesn’t make it OK. If you have to explain that something is ethical because it technically doesn’t violate terms of service, and besides others have done it, you should probably do something else.
What We’re Watching
The DNC and the FEC on AI
Like everyone reading this, we’re going to be watching the Democratic National Convention next week. There will be balloons (so many balloons), amazing convention couture, campaign swag, and a whole lot of speeches. We will be watching for speeches that are partisan, sharp, and ethical. We hope the Democrats make their case passionately and persuasively - and in ways that promote democratic institutions and reinforce democratic norms. As always, we’re hopeful if skeptical.
We are also watching to see what will happen in the wake of today’s Federal Elections Commission vote on artificial intelligence and deceptive campaign ads. The FEC is expected to pass a “disposition of petition for rulemaking,” putting the issue to bed for now. In addition to FEC inaction, Axios writes that the FEC and the Federal Communications Commission have been arguing over jurisdiction and approaches to AI. The Washington Post points out that this turf war and general inaction could leave “voters largely unprotected ahead of the 2024 election.”
Senator Schumer and others may try to attach some AI regulations to budget and other “must pass” legislation in the coming weeks. But “may” is not “will,” a lot of must pass legislation (most notably the budget) doesn’t pass, and eight weeks before an election isn’t a great time to establish the rules for a campaign that has been going on for several years. In the absence of federal action, some states are passing their own rules about AI and campaigns.
We’re watching to see how all this shakes out. We’re patient, it could be a while.
July 29, 2024
What We’re Reading
Political Violence and Republicans on Harris
In his weekly newsletter for Good Authority John Sides highlighted a new paper on public support for political violence. As Sides notes, the researchers had a survey in the field when the attempt was made on former president Trump’s life. The coincidence made for a timely paper. Researchers found that Republican support for political violence fell after the shooting. Sides argues this is in part because the assassination attempt and political violence were condemned by Republicans and Democrats. No one called for revenge or escalation.
As Rachel Kleinfeld, an expert in political violence, told Politico:
The most important thing is for political figures to speak out, and we need them to speak out on all sides of the political spectrum…You stop political violence through accountability, widespread condemnation from your own side and public revulsion…It’s all of us regular people saying we don’t want this in our society, and we’re going to change how we speak about the other side to make it less common. It’s the “Have you no shame?” moment, as in the McCarthy trials.
The other good news is the quick condemnation of racist and sexist attacks on presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris. A handful of prominent Republicans attacked Harris based on her race and gender - and they were quickly shut down. Former Ambassador and Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said, “You don’t need to talk about what she looks like or what gender she is…” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and other leading Republicans have made the same point over the past week.
Campaigns should be tough. The stakes are high and elections have consequences. But as many leading Republicans have made clear over the past few weeks, politics should never be violent, and campaigns should be about what candidates stand for, not what they look like.
What We’re Watching
Will it Hold?
As I note above, there is a lot to like about political rhetoric over the past couple of weeks (if you like political rhetoric, which can generously be called an acquired taste).
As the campaign slips into a more predictable rhythm, will adversaries keep checking their language? Or, as the election draws closer, will they revert to politics as usual? American politics has always been terrible. In 1960 “…former president Harry Truman told voters they might go to hell if they voted for Richard Nixon.” The Adams/Jefferson race of 1800 set the bar for garbage. But just because something has often been bad, doesn’t mean it always has to be bad.
We are are watching to see if pundits and pols keep their language sharp, but violent, sexist or racist.
July 22, 2024
The last 18 hours have been something else. Biden’s dropping out wasn’t entirely surprising given the last 10 days, but that doesn’t make what comes next any less of a scramble. Anyone who tells you they know what’s going to happen next is lying, delusional or both.
Today I’m sticking with political violence in the first section, and talking about the RNC and Democrats in the second section.
What We’re Reading
Coverage of Political Violence - Cont.
The coverage of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump has quickly become a story about bureaucratic failure. Congress is holding hearings, politicians are calling for resignations, and there will almost certainly be independent commissions and reports.
Underlying questions of how we improve the quality of political discourse, beyond vague calls for unity and “dialing back the rhetoric,” are fading.
A recent piece in Politico Magazine by Michael Schaffer highlights the need to continue to pay attention to rising threats and violence. As Schaffer wrote:
“…as the FBI and Homeland Security warn of possible retaliatory attacks following the Trump shooting, I think the better question is: What does this mood do to the functioning of a society?”
A challenge is that issues are about a lot things at the same time, but we only tend to focus on one angle or “about” at once. In political science speak, issues are multidimensional. The angle we pick determines the range of policy options and responses, who the experts are, where decisions are made, and so on. If the shooting is about the failure of a person or agency, Congress holds hearings, people get fired, and we move on.
Treating threats and violence as normal or even necessary, risks threats and violence becoming things that are normal or even necessary. In this case, acting as if something is true can make it true. As Joe Goldman, president of the Democracy Fund, recently wrote in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, “[t]he problem comes when political leaders and media figures make light of or justify violence, providing their supporters with permission or even encouragement to act.”
Our democracy can neither afford to pretend a Congressional hearing can solve violence, nor can it afford to treat threats and violence normal or even good. We need to find our way to a place where we can disagree in ways that strengthen, rather than weaken, our democracy. It is up to all of us who teach, do, and write about politics promote a politics that is passionate without being destructive.
What We’re Watching
The RNC and the Democratic Establishment
Last week we watched the Republican National Convention. We expected hyperbole, soaring speeches, convention couture, cheering, and balloons. We weren’t disappointed. That professional wrestler Hulk Hogan appeared before Trump says it all - political conventions are a scripted spectacle about politics that immerses viewers in the show. Somewhere, Roland Barthes is smiling.
The first half hour of former president Trump’s speech was what one would hope for and expect. Senator Vance told a familiar and compelling American story, one with the same plot as stories told by Bill Clinton and Barak Obama at previous Democratic conventions. Connections to facts were often coincidental, but that’s not the point. The point is the show, and it was a good show.
The Democrats are in a much tighter spot. We are watching how Democrats will navigate several ethical challenges:
What are the ethics of a handful of political insiders deciding the Democratic presidential nominee at the last minute? If given a chance, Democratic primary voters might also decide to vote for Harris (or whomever the roughly 4,600 delegates to the Democratic National Convention select), and there obviously isn’t time to hold a series of primaries and caucuses, but that doesn’t make the ethical question go away.
How can Democrats continue to make the case that Trump is an existential threat to democracy without inciting (or at least excusing) political violence? It can be easy to say that these are extreme times that call for extreme measures. As Goldman points out, that would be a mistake.
We’re watching to see if, and if so how, Democrats navigate these challenges. As always, we’re hopeful but not entirely optimistic.
July 17, 2024
What We’re Reading
Coverage of Political Violence
The attempt on Trump’s life was of horrific and should not have happened. It was good to see all political corners immediately and firmly condemn the action.
This week we are reading the coverage of the shooting to see if it marks a turn in how the press and pundits talk about political violence. Much of the early coverage has focused on what impact the event will have on the campaign. This is an understandable, and terrible, approach. Asking about the electoral impact of the shooting puts the shooting in the context of campaign events - it becomes a speech, rally or endorsement. It’s horse race coverage of polls, except the sport is Rollerball.
Coverage of political violence as a normal or inevitable part of campaigns risks further normalizing political violence. It says “this is what we do in politics, this is how politics is.”
Better media coverage would look at the causes and consequences of political violence. It would note that most politics, most of the time, should be mostly boring. Coverage would highlight fierce debates that result in policy rather than stalemate or gunfire.
We look forward to reading ongoing coverage that holds candidates and elected officials accountable for violent and dehumanizing rhetoric. I don’t want to read about what someone says coming out of church on Sunday morning, I want to read about what someone does in a bar on Friday night.
What We’re Watching
The Republican National Convention
The Republican National Convention in Milwaukee will be a good test of whether or not pundits and pols really will spend more time calling for unity and less time calling their opponents agents of evil.
We expect to see lots of talk of policy, lots of hyperbolic rhetoric, lots of buttons and balloons. We hope to see lots of spirited and partisan speeches that focus on differences of opinion. Hopefully we won’t see a lot of bitterness, anger and hate. So far, we’ve been let down.
July 11, 2024
What We’re Reading
Digital Fundraising Ethics
The American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) recently issued digital fundraising guidelines. The guidelines are a good baseline for candidate and advocacy campaigns. Among other things, the guidelines say that campaigns shouldn’t promise fake matches, mislead people about who they’re raising money for, and ensure people can opt-out of donating or receiving email. It’s a good start.
A few years ago, former Republican operative Tim Miller wrote that,
“…grass-roots fund-raising is also what ending democracy looks like. As with any other mass movement, people-powered campaigns followed the standard Hofferian trajectory: beginning as a cause, turning into a business and becoming a racket. Our online fund-raising system is not only enriching scam artists, clogging our inboxes and inflaming the electorate; it is also empowering our politics’ most nefarious actors.”
Miller wrote on the heels of Donald Trump’s well publicized, incredibly deceptive, practice of making donors automatically give monthly rather than just once. Many of those tricked into donating monthly are elderly and vulnerable.
Email and text fundraising appeals that amount to “donate $5 or I’ll shoot this dog” may boost donations in the short term. But they burn out lists, turn off voters, increase cynicism, and unfairly take advantage of people. If you can’t raise money by making an honest case for your cause or candidate, you should probably rethink who you support.
What We’re Watching
Campaign Coverage
This is a political season unlike any we’ve seen before. Both major party candidates for President have held the office, and neither is terribly popular. Both have well documented personal challenges. The public and press are concerned about the impacts of artificial intelligence, social media, and foreign governments on the outcome of the US elections. Public trust in virtually every democratic institution is down.
All of this as we head into the Republican National Convention next week and media coverage of the very public concerns about Biden’s health continues to rage.
We are, of course, watching all of this. We are also continuing to watch to see if the coverage helps resolve challenges facing our democracy, or if the coverage exacerbates them. The President’s health, the former President’s legal challenges, voter dissatisfaction, election interference, and the rest are newsworthy. The media should cover them. The question is how, and to what end. If all the coverage is all spectacle - show for show’s sake - then democracy suffers.
Politics can be entertaining, but politics as entertainment diminishes our shared democratic experiment. It makes our coming together, the way we resolve and manage differences to solve shared problems and advance shared interests, a sideshow. Politics isn’t something that’s over there about those people - it is us. Media coverage of politics should reflect our shared interest in, and investment in, our shared success.
July 3, 2024
What We’re Reading
Plato and the Debate
Like most readers of this email, I followed last week’s Biden/Trump debate and am watching all the fall out. Most of the discussion has been about Biden’s performance. Some attention has been given to Trump’s false or misleading claims, and even less coverage to Biden’s. But the overwhelming amount of punditry has been focused on how Biden and Trump appeared, not on what they said.
This seems like a good time to revisit Plato.
Plato spent a lot of time pointing out why sophists were bad people who risked poisoning the souls of their students (Protagoras). In the Phaedrus, the sophist Phaedrus says that a good speech isn’t one that is true. Instead, a good speech argues “not what is really right, but what is likely to seem right in the eyes of the mass of people who are going to pass judgment: not what is really good or fine but what will seem so…” Plato says this belief can have dangerous results - if neither the speaker nor the audience knows what’s actually true, then people can do some really stupid things. For example, they might send someone into battle without the proper preparation (Phaedrus) or take medical advice from good speakers who don’t know anything about medicine and ignore medical advice from people who don’t sound clever (Gorgias).
Most of us want a leader who sounds compelling, whose presence reassures us that they are sharp and in command of the facts. But the content of what they say matters as well. Plato reminds us that ethical political communication must be grounded in reality.
What We’re Watching
”Expert” predictions and horse races
All of that said about Biden, Trump and Plato, like everyone else who follows politics, we’re watching the conversation around Biden. It is worth recalling that Phil Tetlock pointed out that, “expert” political political predictions are usually terrible. As Louis Menand wrote in his New Yorker review of the book, “Human beings who spend their lives studying the state of the world, in other words, are poorer forecasters than dart-throwing monkeys…”
Our interest here is less in what happens (we’re interested in that, just not here) and more in how the decision gets talked about. The first instinct of many journalists and pundits maybe to talk about the impacts on the politics - horse race journalism (yes, I know this is an “expert” political prediction and therefore suspect). As Denise-Marie Ordway put it in the Journalist’s Resource from the Shorenstein Center at Harvard, “When journalists covering elections focus primarily on who’s winning or losing instead of policy issues –what’s known as horse race coverage — voters, candidates and the news industry itself suffer, a growing body of research suggests.”
Regardless of who the Democratic or Republican nominees are for president, or for any other office, we hope that pundits and journalists focus more on policy than personality, and more of substance than style.
June 26, 2024
What We’re Reading
Elite Misinformation?
In his most recent Slow Boring piece, Matt Yglesias argues that “Elite misinformation is an underrated problem.” He defines elite misinformation as “erroneous ideas that are perpetrated by mainstream institutions.” Two of the examples he highlights are recent news about maternal mortality in the US and fossil fuel subsidies.
Both are a big deal, and both need to be dealt with. But, as Yglesias notes, the apparent recent surge in maternal mortality is largely the result of how maternal mortality is measured, not its current rate compared to past rates. Again, maternal mortality is a critical issue, but not one that is suddenly getting much worse.
A different take on elite misinformation is what counts as a “subsidy.” For most of us, most of the time, a subsidy means a specific and immediate benefit - tax breaks, matching dollars, that sort of thing. But a subsidy can also mean long term costs of the impacts of something paid for by someone else. For example, I subsidize the heath care costs of those without health insurance who suffer from illnesses in part brought on by their own choices (smoking, eating a lot of food that’s bad for them, etc.).
Surging rates of mortality, excessive subsidies and other headline grabbers can help draw attention to important issues. Policymakers tend to focus on a limited number of issues at a time. If your issue isn’t on the agenda, it probably won’t get dealt with. That doesn’t make policy hyperbole OK.
We all get frustrated when those with whom we disagree make rhetorical mountains out of policy mole hills. We rightly point out that it’s unfair and misleading when opponents claim a few anecdotes are the same as actual data, exaggerate impacts, take advantage of vague or slippery language, or otherwise fudge the facts. If our opponents shouldn’t do it, we probably shouldn’t do it either. As Yglesias succinctly puts it, “lying to people is bad.”
What We’re Watching
The Debate
Of course we’re planning to watch Thursday’s scheduled debate between President Biden and former President Trump. Not because we want to, but because we have to. I for one would rather watch the Copa America. Since I teach and talk about political communication (I’ll be part of C-SPAN’s pregame show on Thursday) I am obligated to watch the debate and think of thoughtful things to say about it afterwards.
My hope is that both candidates will show the best of what political debate can be: pointed, sharp, insightful, educational, and rational. I also hope that both candidates go out of their way to praise critical democratic institutions like the courts, the media, elections, and higher education. As a fan of DC United, Arsenal and the Red Sox I am used to my hopes being dashed. But I hope nevertheless.
June 18, 2024
What We’re Reading
A new, old Republican Party?
Last month a handful of prominent Republican former elected officials announced an organization called Our Republican Legacy. In an op-ed in the Washington Post, the group’s chairs - former Republican Senators John C. Danforth (MO), William Cohen S. (ME) and Alan K. Simpson (WY) - wrote, “We believe that our nation’s well-being depends on having the positive, stabilizing influence of a healthy, two-party system, which we currently do not have…” The group is neither pro- nor anti-Trump. Rather it is looking post-Trump at a set of principles on which candidates can run. Next week former US Rep. Charlie Dent, an initial member of the group, will join me for a conversation about the effort. Stay tuned for details.
What We’re Watching
Recent Talks, Cheap Fakes and Primary Stories
Missed US Rep. Derek Kilmer’s conversation with the Project about why politicians and elected officials should behave ethically? You can check it out here.
Cheap fakes - deceptively edited clips, Frankenstein pictures assembled from bits of other images, images out of context, and so on - are in the news. For example, conservative media outlets and pundits are circulating videos of President Biden edited or used out of context to reinforce stereotypes about his age and mental acuity. This deception is wrong on its own. As it gets exposed it can also decrease public trust in media in general - if everything can be fake, then why would voters believe anything is real? One risk of mis and disinformation is that it can lead people to believe things that aren’t true. A knock-on risk is that it can lead people to believe nothing at all. To quote Warren Zevon’s theme song for the mid-90s show Tek War, “The skies are full of miracles/And half of them are lies.”
Finally, of course, we’re watching the primaries. We’re especially interested in the stories pundits, the press and campaigns tell about why candidates won or lost. People win or lose elections for all sorts of reasons, some of which may have little to do with the campaigns. But the story of why one won or lost can help determine what comes next, and how candidates behave in the future. If political professionals believe that bombastic candidates won because they were bombastic, future candidates will be bombastic. If the story is that bombast lost and reasoned discourse won, the future campaigns will be more reasonable.