The White House Should Not Be A Political Prop

This week, President Trump intends to accept the Republican nomination from the White House and the First Lady is slated to speak from the newly renovated Rose Garden. This raises both legal and ethical questions. The legal questions primarily involve the Hatch Act, and are being pursued by advocates opposed to the President’s plan.

The ethical questions are trickier. As everyone’s mother has told them, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. In this case, even if it’s legal, it’s not right.

In his chapter in Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice Kip Wainscott notes that laws are only one set of rules for political communication professionals. Wainscott, a former election lawyer and senior advisor in the Obama administration, writes “In the United States, our political system has often functioned with assistance from a somewhat dynamic set of unwritten rules and practices...” One of those unwritten rules is not using the White House for partisan political purposes. (Such activities are prohibited in the US House of Representatives - according to the House Ethics Committee, “House rooms and offices are not to be used for events that are campaign or political in nature”). 

Part of the reason is that the White House represents the government, and the government should work for all the people, not just supporters of one party or candidate. Using the White House as a campaign setting says “this building is for those who support me,” when it is for everyone - even those who voted for another candidate or didn’t vote at all. While the President occupies the White House for the duration of his or her presidency, it does not belong to them. The White House belongs to us, the people. It is our house that we loan to the head of government for a fixed number of years. The White House is not Donald Trump’s, just as it did not belong to Barack Obama or any President who came before or will come after. Giving a prime-time campaign speech from the White House suggests otherwise, and such a suggestion is wrong.

Saying that the White House belongs to the people and not the President does not just say that our taxes pay for it. The White House belongs to the idea of the American people. Saying the White House is ours says that in our democracy the most famous and important address is the people’s address. The White House is where the President lives and has an office - and it is also a physical representation of an American ideal. Buckingham Palace is the symbolic seat of England but it is also the Royal Family’s home. They live there because of their bloodline. Their children will move in and the queen will never move out. England is a constitutional monarchy, and the monarch keeps the house. More important than who happens to occupy the White House is that it belongs to America. It belonged to the generations that came before us, and it will belong to the generations that follow.

In this light, the White House stands out of time. It is not just an address occupied in a moment - it is a symbol of an idea with a past and a future. The White House, the Lincoln Memorial, the Supreme Court, and a handful of other places are “sacred sites” in American civil religion. They are physical symbols of who we imagine our nation to be at its best. Just as Buckingham Palace stands in for a royal history of England, the White House stands in for the history - and promise - of our democratic republic. Turning it into a campaign prop debases not just the White House, but the idea for which the White House stands. Equating a person with the place, rather than the people with the place, tarnishes the idea of the American ideal.

Of course, everything a President does in the White House has political implications. Of course, suggesting that a politician stop doing politics once he or she walks through the doors of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is absurd. But the fiction of a distinction is important. It is symbolically important to say “politics stops here,” even if we know that politics never really fully stops.

Giving a Republican National Convention speech from the White House may or may not be illegal - but it is unethical because it treats the White House as if it belongs to a person and not the people. It treats the White House like a political prop. Political speeches in the White House turn it from an idea into merely a residence.

Altered Images in Campaign Ads

President Trump’s re-election campaign recently released a television ad that included three doctored photographs. The images were edited to remove people, trees, and a microphone. One image added an empty background to make it appear as if Vice President Biden is in an empty room when he was not. As Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler noted, “Political ad-makers often seize the ugliest, nastiest photos they can find of the opponent. But this takes it to a whole new level.”

Images can be powerful political messengers. “A picture is worth a thousand words” as evidenced by the fact that more than 50 years later, political junkies all still know the “Daisy” spot.  Today, visual strategic communication is a growing field of study. However, these images come with a whole set of their own ethical issues. And, as Kessler points out, using an opponent’s image against them is a political tradition. Think of President Bush’s attack on Senator Kerry in the “Windsurfing” ad or this anti-Trump ad (which may have its own ethical issues).

But the doctored pictures in the Trump campaign ads go from hard-hitting to crossing several ethical lines. 

One of the images was both altered and used without permission. The Gazette newspaper in Delaware, which owns the picture, asked Facebook to take it down because it violated their copyright. The Trump campaign has been sued for copyright infringement in the past for the unauthorized use of both images and music. It is obviously unethical to violate a law out of convenience, not because one views the law itself as unjust.

The second line demonstrates the difference between “one can” and “one ought.” Just because a campaign (or anyone) can legally get away with something doesn’t mean they should do it. Doctoring photographs as much as the Trump campaign did here violates established political norms and threatens to further undermine faith in the political process.

This is one reason the press, the U.S. House, and political organizations have rules against deceptively editing images. Campaigns should hold themselves to similar standards.

The Associated Press has a code of ethics for photographs which reads in part, “The content of a photograph must not be altered in Photoshop or by any other means. No element should be digitally added to or subtracted from any photograph.”

Such codes extend to the US House of Representatives, which earlier this year reminded Members that: “Prior to disseminating any image, video, or audio file by electronic means, including social media, Members and staff are expected to take reasonable efforts to consider whether such representations are deep fakes or are intentionally distorted to mislead the public.” The House Committee on Ethics explained their rationale by reminding “Members or their staff posting deep fakes ‘could erode public trust, affect public discourse, or sway an election’.”

The American Association of Political Consultants includes deception in its code of conduct, writing that members of the AAPC will “refrain from false or misleading attacks on an opponent…” The AAPC Code of Ethics does not include a specific mention of images, but the doctored pictures in the Trump campaign ads are clearly misleading and thus violate the Code. Similarly, the Campaign Doc column in Campaigns and Elections wrote that “Making substantive changes or altering the context of a photograph is not only misleading, it’s downright stupid.”

Political campaigns in America have often resembled brawls more than academic debates. The stakes are high and politics can be sharp-elbowed. But there is a difference between being biting and making a candidate take ownership for their own actions on one hand, and creating fictions on the other. If campaigns become a series of visual lies, the public will lose even more confidence in our political process – and with good reason. No election is worth damaging an already battered political process.

July Update

July Update

We hope you are well in this challenging time. The COVID-19 pandemic shows no sign of abating in the U.S., and a rough political year is only likely to get rougher. But the global civil rights protests provide hope that long standing wrongs may finally be addressed - many feel optimistic for the first time in a long time. One of those new optimists is Professor Mark McPhail, whose discussion with us is below.

Meanwhile, we’re having a busy summer. Check out our latest conversations and join our upcoming events about ethics and digital politics, and celebrating the launch of the new book. More news and updates are on our website, and you can always find us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

June Events

In June we spoke to rhetorical scholar Dr. Mark Lawrence McPhail about race, racism and rhetoric and to Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Candidate Jevin Hodge and George Washington University philosopher Joseph Trullinger about the theory and reality of running an ethical campaign. You can watch the conversations here.

Upcoming Event: Digital Campaign Ethics in Theory and Practice

On July 30 at noon EDT the Project is hosting digital entrepreneur and best selling author Cheryl Contee, digital campaign veteran Bradley Engle, and professor Vincent Raynauld of Emerson College and Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières to talk about the ideal and the real of ethical online advocacy. Ms. Contee and Prof. Raynauld both co-authored chapters in Political Communication Ethics - Theory and Practice. Details and registration here.

Upcoming Event: Book Launch

Join us on August 6th at 6:30pm EDT for the official launch of Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice. Emmy Award winner and former CNN Washington bureau chief Frank Sesno will interview Project director Peter Loge and George Washington University student Anthony Thomas about politics, communication and ethics in 2020. Details and registration are here. If you order the book, be sure to use the discount code on the right.

What’s Next

In the coming months we will be writing more case studies with the Media Ethics Initiative at the University of Texas - Austin, hosting more online conversations, and reaching out to the media more (you can catch the Project in the news here). Be sure to follow the Project on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Spread the word.

Keep in touch and be well,

• Peter

Book Launch Event - August 6

Book Launch - Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice

Thursday August 6 6:30 - 8:00pm EDT

Emmy Award winning journalist and former CNN Washington Bureau Chief Frank Sesno interviews Project director and School of Media and Public Affairs professor Peter Loge and SMPA student Anthony Thomas about Loge’s new edited book Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice.

From the publisher: “Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice brings together scholars and practitioners to introduce students to what, if any, ethical responsibilities political professionals have. Chapter authors range from a Trump advisor to an Obama appointee, from leading academics to top digital strategists, and more.

As a collection of diverse perspectives covering speechwriting and political communication, advocacy, political campaigns, online politics, and American civil religion, this book serves as an essential resource for students and scholars across many disciplines.”

Advance Praise for Political Communication Ethics

“The language of a highly polarized and populist politics forces the question: What are the ethics of political communication? Peter Loge, founder and director of the unique Project on Ethics in Political Communication at the George Washington, has brought together a rich and timely compendium of professional and scholarly wisdom to answer that question from a variety of disciplines, experiences, and viewpoints.”

— James A. Thurber, founder, Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, American University

”If ever there was a time we needed considerations of ethics in political communication, it is now. Peter Loge and his contributors provide a comprehensive and contemporary analysis of political communication ethics. This text is essential in understanding the essential role of ethics in the theory and practice of politics in a democracy."

— Robert E. Denton Jr., Virginia Tech

RSVP Here

Panel Discussion - Digital Campaign Ethics in Theory and Practice - July 30

On Thursday, July 30 at noon (EDT) join us for a conversation about digital campaign ethics.

Digital and tech entrepreneur and best-selling author Cheryl Contee, digital campaign veteran Bradley Engle, and political communication professor at Emerson College and Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières Vincent Raynauld join Project director Peter Loge to talk about digital and online campaign ethics. Contee and Raynauld co-authored chapters in the forthcoming Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice.

The event is free and open to the public.

RSVP Here

Upcoming events - Digital Ethics and Book Launch

Digital Campaign Ethics - Theory and Practice

Thursday July 30 Noon - 1:00pm EDT

Digital and tech entrepreneur and best-selling author Cheryl Contee, digital campaign veteran Bradley Engle, and political communication professor at Emerson College and Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières Vincent Raynauld join Project director Peter Loge to talk about digital and online campaign ethics. Contee and Raynauld co-authored chapters in the forthcoming Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice.

The event is free and open to the public.

RSVP Here

Book Launch - Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice

Thursday August 6 6:30 - 8:00pm EDT

Emmy Award winning journalist and former CNN Washington Bureau Chief Frank Sesno interviews Project director and School of Media and Public Affairs professor Peter Loge and SMPA student Anthony Thomas about Loge’s new edited book Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice.

From the publisher: “Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice brings together scholars and practitioners to introduce students to what, if any, ethical responsibilities political professionals have. Chapter authors range from a Trump advisor to an Obama appointee, from leading academics to top digital strategists, and more.

As a collection of diverse perspectives covering speechwriting and political communication, advocacy, political campaigns, online politics, and American civil religion, this book serves as an essential resource for students and scholars across many disciplines.”

Advance Praise for Political Communication Ethics

“The language of a highly polarized and populist politics forces the question: What are the ethics of political communication? Peter Loge, founder and director of the unique Project on Ethics in Political Communication at the George Washington, has brought together a rich and timely compendium of professional and scholarly wisdom to answer that question from a variety of disciplines, experiences, and viewpoints.”

— James A. Thurber, founder, Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, American University

”If ever there was a time we needed considerations of ethics in political communication, it is now. Peter Loge and his contributors provide a comprehensive and contemporary analysis of political communication ethics. This text is essential in understanding the essential role of ethics in the theory and practice of politics in a democracy."

— Robert E. Denton Jr., Virginia Tech

RSVP Here

A Philosopher and a Candidate Walk Into a Campaign

On Friday, June 26th at 2:00pm EDT join George Washington University philosophy professor Joseph Trullinger and Maricopa County Board of Supervisors candidate Jevin Hodge for a Zoom conversation about ethics and the realities of running for office. The discussion will be moderated by Project director Peter Loge. Email ploge@gwu.edu for more details and to RSVP.