25th August 2025
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There are storytellers, and their stories will be told.
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Many – rightly -emphasise the lies told by illiberals, in particular the lies of President Donald Trump.
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“More than 7 years ago.”
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These lies are often in the service of things Trump’s supporters want to hear.
The lies are (false) versions of the reality that Trump supporters want to experience, accounts to help them make sense of the world.
The lies are, in essence, stories.
Trump is a storyteller, and his stories will be told.
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Some say that Trump has no sense of truth, that he is a post-truth politician.
This is a similar view to Trump being an anti-constitutionalist, that he wants constitution-free politics.
A closer view reveals that it is a lot more one-sided.
Trump has a keen sense of truth, when it suits him: he knows what things to say which make liberals uncomfortable about the facts, from “her emails” to “sleepy Joe”.
Similarly, Trump has a keen sense of what immunities and protections he has under the constitution of the United States.
Trump is a charlatan, not a nihilist.
For Trump, truth and constitutionalism are akin to a valve: they go one-way, and always the way which benefits him.
And if truth and constitutionalism do not benefit him, he lets them go.
Some of Trump’s stories are true, most of them are not true, and he tells whichever story is to his advantage.
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But there are other lies in politics, other than the thousands told by Trump.
This is a painful passage about UK politics in a recent post by Sam Freedman:
“[…] the state often isn’t very trustworthy and its failings are much more transparent than they used to be. If you’ve worked around government the differences between the cover-ups we’ve seen around the post office scandal, Grenfell or the grooming gangs and some of the wackier conspiracies, like the idea covid was an intentional plot or 9/11 was an inside job, are clear. In the first set of cases there were major institutional failures leading to people higher up the chain trying to cover themselves. They made some sense in terms of protective self-interest even though morally bankrupt. But there is no reason to try to poison the entire population with a vaccine, or to replace white people with non-white.
“It’s hardly surprising, though, that people already prone to distrust authority, confronted with regular scandals, find it hard to draw these lines, especially when they are getting affirmation from a likeminded group all the time.
“Nor is the issue just cover-ups. The establishment has been repeatedly caught off guard over the last few decades – whether in the false assumption that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, missing the spectacular vulnerability of the global financial system in 2008, or initially implementing the wrong plans in the face of the pandemic.”
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No wonder that people prefer the stories they want to hear.
And it is no wonder that they prefer the politicians – Trump or Farage or so on – who will tell them those stories.
Few politicians – and certainly few political parties – have an absolute claim to what they say corresponding with what they will actually do.
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A recent book on the presidency of Joseph Biden sets out in convincing, accumulated detail how the White House set out to mislead the American voters about the mental health of the president.
Of course, in any and all circumstances a Biden presidency was preferable to a Trump one.
But.
Even that whataboutery does not take away that the stories the Americans were told about the infirmity of Biden did not correspond with reality.
Those in the Biden White House were storytellers – often to each other as well as to voters, and their stories were told.
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Looking at politics from the court room, where parties are placed on oath (or affirmation) and have to tell the truth on pain of perjury, the many lies in politics seem perhaps odd.
If only we could put politicians – and the media – under the same duty of honesty as witnesses in a legal case, everything will be ok, is the common thought.
And only if we could expose the lies, continues this thought, the voters will prefer the honest positions and not the dishonest positions.
Yet voters prefer the lies – even when they know (or should know) that they are lies.
Voters like stories.
Voters even like stories which go against their own material self-interest, or even against their own objective sense of reality.
Voters like the stories that affirm their view of the world, and of themselves and of other people.
Voters actually do not want to put politicians – and the media – under the same duty of honesty as witnesses in a legal case, even if they say they do when asked in an opinion poll or a vox pop.
Voters instead like the storytellers, and so they demand that stories will be told.
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The challenge for liberal and progressives is to go beyond exposing the lies of illiberals – and to go beyond telling their own lies.
The exposure of illiberal (and liberal) dishonesty is necessary, but it ain’t sufficient.
Liberals and progressives also need to have better stories about the world, and about how voters should see themselves and other people – stories of kindness and solidarity, rather than stories of cruelty and division.
Just as the Devil need not have the best tunes, Trump and Farage and so on do not have a monopoly on politically potent stories.
There are other storytellers, and their stories can also be told.
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If only one could codify the Natural Law that persons of authority have a duty of candour – even if it would be uncomfortable.
Voters don’t actually want candour, they want stories – that is the point of the post.
But what do voters need?
Leadership.
David Lloyd Georges or Barbara Castles do not come along that often, alas.
I think we need some hwyl in a leader.
DLG did not tell stories; he painted pictures with words in a language that said to his audience, we are on the same level, you and I.
I totally agree.
From my prespective, the UK and the world are both not producing suitable leaders. But how can that be changed?
The Guardian printed an article by Dr David Kelly not long before his death.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/aug/31/huttonreport.iraq
It was a nuanced appraisal of the threats posed by Saddam Hussain’s work on chemical weapons and rocketry.
“The US, and whoever willingly assists it, should ensure that the force, strength and strategy used is appropriate to the modest threat that Iraq now poses.”
“The long-term threat, however, remains Iraq’s development to military maturity of weapons of mass destruction – something that only regime change will avert.”
The West made Hussain more than he made himself.
He was testing chemical weapons on fellow Iraqis, on Kurds in Northern Iraq and committing an act of genocide against the Marsh Arabs, but all acts, conveniently for some in the West, within the boundaries of Iraq.
Sadly, Dr Kelly’s professional assessment, tinged by sadness about how friends and colleagues had become embroiled in Hussain’s programmes, fitted in with neither of the opposing strongly held narratives.
I think we need a multiplicity of narratives, but has there ever been a time when we have not?
Thanks for saying this 👏🏻❤️
Let us moor untruths – lies – in the English and Welsh common law and the consequences of deception in English courts. In Takhar v Gracefield Developments Ltd [2019] UKSC 13, [2020] AC 450, [2019] 2 WLR 984, (20 March 2019) – a case in the UK Supreme Court. Mrs Takhar had been swindled out of her small portfolio of properties by her relatives. The seven law lords debated the issue of whether or not the fraudulent deal should be set aside in terms of the extent to which Mrs T had exercised ‘due diligence’ – a term which crops up a lot but which I do not always understand – in detecting the fraud. Two justices – Lord Briggs and Lady Arden – said there should be more flexibility in our common law on this. Generally speaking ‘fraud unravels all’ and so our law should hold they both said. The majority – five justices – said that failure of ‘due diligence’ could be fatal to the claim of a wronged individual.
So says UK common law, often followed in the United States. But what of legislation or executive action – as under Mr Trump? What of lies in the UK political system? Can the result of lies be undone. Much of the Brexit political campaign was based on lies. I pointed out at the time – without the benefit, then, of the Takhar decision – that at common law the result could have been set aside. That it was not set aside shows that – in politics – the majority of this note is worthless. But the possibility to set aside – or rescind – a political assertion or lie which leads to legislative or executive action may very occasionally be worth bearing in mind.
“Trump doesn’t have a strategy – he doesn’t think strategically or geographically. He thinks very much in the present – every conversation he has, he has to win. So if he’s in the room with the president of South Africa or the president of Ukraine, he has to emerge from that conversation as the victor. He doesn’t think about the further implications – his interest is in winning the moment and in creating chaos that he can then use to manipulate people for his political and financial benefit. It’s really hard to get people to understand that that’s what the US president is doing.”
Anne Applebaum
After Donald Trump told the world he knows more about grass than anyone in the world, we may need a refresher on how easy it is to remove a malfunctioning President of the United States of America, assuming one is inclined to do so.
Not very, especially when:
(1) his Cabinet is full of sycophantic incompetents – there goes the 25th Amendment route; and
(2) both houses of Congress are majority Republican and those Republicans are, if not loyal to Trump, are at least scared of going against him – there goes impeachment.
This is such a thought-provoking essay.
Stories are everywhere.
Sometimes they are obvious and we see them as such.
Sometimes it takes more effort to see the narratives that have been woven to advance a particular argument or cause. And, if we have too much going on in our lives we take a little time to see them for what they really are.
And sometimes, the biggest story we tell is about ourselves and what we really believe and, more importantly, feel.
We hide our fear of being ordinary, whether as an individual, or a nation, behind a wall of bluster and belligerence and braggadocio.
But ordinary people being ordinary together can and do achieve huge things.
Its not that only voters but human beings in general that like a story they like
It’s not as if politicians need to lie much. Reform UK has demonstrated how facts about asylum and migration can be laced with misinformation, together with omissions, to create a story totally divorced from reality. Social media magnifies the effect to create poll leading results.
We aren’t yet at the stage that the USA is, where power is held by authoritarians masquerading as freedom loving patriots. But if Reform UK was to win the next General Election we could be.
Jane Austen knew full well how irresistible story is. She captivates us, the readers, by her characters’ captivation by their own stories of others – Elizabeth of Mr Darcy, Emma of Harriet, Edmund of Mary Crawford, Catherine Morland’s of the General and Northanger. On the journey to Northanger, itself part of Austen’s own storytelling, through Henry Tilney, she, and he, play on Catherine’s, and our, Gothic imaginings. He concocts a horror fantasy of the Abbey and Catherine, albeit terrified, clamours for more.
” ….. but scarcely have you been able to decipher ‘Oh thou, whomsoever thou mayst be, into whose hands these memoirs of the wretched Matilda may fall’—when your lamp suddenly expires in the socket, and leaves you in total darkness.”
“Oh, no, no; do not say so. Well, go on.”
I’ve believed for decades that people demand the lies which confirm their prejudice.
If there are truthful stories which can be told, they need telling before the prejudice is established as I have never found that reality has the power to change the set state of the hard of thinking.
MD’s column in this week’s Private Eye reminds us that scientists are constantly changing their minds as new information emerges. We need to train all our children to be scientists in thought if not in profession.
Plenty of “if onlys” here, so I’ll add another: if only voters could have history lessons!
Early in my business career, I was present at a meeting when CEO of a public listed company, forced into a corner during an argument, uttered the immortal lines:
“Don’t confuse me with facts”
Has stayed with me… and guided me
Of course, here is a streamlined and edited version of your comment that is ready to post.
I very much enjoyed reading this post 🙏🏽
There are two follow-up thoughts I had, and I would benefit from a broader view:
Would people care if they knew the statements were intentionally misleading or not true?
More broadly, am I right in thinking that the value system(s) previously promoted by religious doctrines (which made lies wrong) is being replaced by personal economic doctrines, in that a lie is only a lie if it does not profit me?
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.
Rudyard Kipling’s “Just So Stories” were so-called because they had to be told just so in order to lull his daughter to sleep. A single wrong word would disturb her. As we prepare for sleep, we review the day, and especially the state of our important social relationships, and any deeds left undone, any obligations unfulfilled will keep us awake. The bedtime story assures us that everything is as it should be, and we are secure and safe, and we can sleep well.
But I have always thought that it is important that children are given stories that are disturbing, even stories that risk nightmares. I remember watching the Doctor Who story The Pyramids of Mars when it was first broadcast, and one moment gave me a terrible nightmare, the moment when, right after the Doctor said that nobody could possible invade the Tardis, Sutekh did just that, and the safest place in the universe was unsafe. In my nightmare, the walls of the Tardis fell away and I was about to spin off into space when I woke up terrified, but also exhilarated.
The safe space that we want to preserve is not just a physical environment – it is the community that we belong to and our own sense of self that must be preserved. The serpent in Eden is a part of us.
This is why Original Sin was such an important book. The Democratic establishment listened only to lullabies and as a result, their worst nightmare became real, and all of us are facing the result. My one concern is that the narrative that emerges focuses the blame on Biden’s immediate family and a very small inner circle. The mere fact that the book was published and has been widely read is not sufficient to banish the dark spirits. The real test will be whether, during the next presidential primaries, Democratic candidates are grilled about what role they may have played in the debacle that resulted in the last election. It would be nice if at least one party could engage in some honest storytelling.
Are you sitting comfortably? Maybe you shouldn’t be.
Ian Dunt wrote a brilliant narative of how liberals have made this wonderful modern world.
The book is called “How to be a Liberal”.