Because they work, and they have a long history of success with them. Lee Atwater started twisting the truth when Regan ran for President.

What else do they have? this is a rethorical question

Because they can.

Probably some of them actually believe they are telling the truth. They rewrite history in their minds, or listen to someone else who has, and carry forward the message.

Ignore the politicians and do something more fun. Life is too short to spend time on politics.

I blame religion. Broadly speaking, at least.

Even apart from social issues, there is much in GOP ideology, especially economic ideology, that is “faith based.” We’re supposed to have absolute faith in the invisible hand of the free market. Faith that low taxes always spur economic growth to cover the loss of revenue. That government spending always crowds out private spending. Etc, etc.

The problem with having a faith-based outlook is that you don’t even need to try to piece together facts or worry about consistency. You can simply repeat vague talking points that match the “faith” over and over again. And if facts don’t line up with your faith, you dismiss them.

It’s not hard to see how this quickly becomes deliberate lying. Though like @JLeslie, I’m sure a lot of them simply rewrite or compartamentalize what they “know” in their minds, lying to themselves as much as to everyone else.

Because they work. @marinelife has it right. It’s that simple. People believe what they hear and rarely bother to check the facts, later. It’s too hard to check facts. Takes too much work. And anyway, everyone knows the press lies, too, so you can’t trust them. Oh. Wait. That’s what the Republican politicians say. Well, they wouldn’t lie, would they?

People trust their own guts when it comes to politicians. If the guy feels trustworthy, then they trust what he says. That is how the vast majority of people decide if a politician is trustworthy: their gut.

I believe that Republicans know this and aren’t bothered by their consciences. They’ll do whatever it takes to get elected. They don’t seem to need to tell the truth. The ends justify the means for them. The difference between me and a Republican is that I’ll say “I believe” in front of the rest of this. A Republican would leave that out and state the opinion as if it was the truth.

I used to be a little apologetic about thinking about Republicans this way. It’s kind of dehumanizing. But the more I live, the more impossible I find it for anyone who uses an ounce of brain to find Republican policies to be anything by mean-spirited, anti-social, and venal. They have a view of humanity that is short-sighted and very, very sad. At least, officially. Maybe they behave differently in their personal lives.

Because there will always be a bigger number of Kool-Aid drinkers.

@mazingerz88 A lot of people are hoping there will be fewer and fewer over time.

It is sad that Republicans use propaganda, rhetoric and “big lies” (slime) in order to get elected. I suppose that they are doing it in order to counter the massive amounts slime that Democrats constantly spew. Perhaps the political party generates the most slime has the best probability to win. Most voters are too busy working and living their lives to spend the bulk of their time researching in order to expose the lies. So the party who generates the most slime wins.

The saddest aspect of all in this is that people actually believe the slime that they are fed. After all, if some guy on T.V. said it, or it is written the magazines, internet and news papers, then it most be true. HA!

It is no wonder that the U.S. economy is such a mess.

Because people rarely take time to think over what politicians say. I think politicians mislead rather than lie and fill their speeches with words like freedom, democracy and terrorist that have an immediate emotional impact that by passes the thinking process. The irony in your question is that Joseph Goebbels never made that statement. He always maintained that effective propaganda had to be truthful. This is the third time I have pointed this out on Fluther.

To paraphrase GLaDOS: They do what they must, because they can…

Because they know it will influence voters, who will pay far more attention to the lie than to any rebuttal or even disproof that follows later. They know that the high road is not the shortest route to office.

Indignant, sputtering Democrats are far less interesting news.

I heard a Republican politician acknowledge that to an interviewer on NPR. I can’t even say “admit” because he wasn’t ashamed of it. It was just a practical matter, like saying that it takes a lot of money to win an election.

@gondwanalon, let’s not try to turn this into a “both sides are just as bad” thing. They’re not.

Last I looked, according to Politifact, Republican public figures lie 3 times more often than Democrats.

If you look at all the “Pants on Fire” ratings that Republican primary candidates have racked up in the last few months that ratio is probably even higher now.

let’s not try to turn this into a “both sides are just as bad” thing.

I wonder if this is a “both sides are just as bad” thing.

@Charles, I think it’s very easy to say both sides are just as bad. In fact it takes no effort whatsoever. You don’t have to look at what their positions are, what they’ve said, how and when they’ve contradicted themselves or lied.

You can just sit up on your little pedestal and pat yourself on the back for being “above the fray” while you cast a pox on both the houses below you.

@Qingu Please…..Please….

Well I don’t know why I came here tonight,
I got the feeling that something ain’t right,
I’m so scared in case I fall off my chair,
And I’m wondering how I’ll get down the stairs,
Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you.

I refuse to answer prejudiced questions

I think I’d bashed Republicans more than @ETpro did on sodahead, and it didn’t make me very popular on there. What I find ironic is the fact that the ‘moral values’ Republicans are more likely to lie than any other political group. It doesn’t surprise me that the politicians who play the religion card do lie the most, but yet because of blind faith and ignorance from their followers, they usually get away with it. Yawn.

I think it has to do with religion. The republicans know that if they can hit the right religious notes in their “speechifying” that right-wing conservatives will automatically fall in line with what ever lie the are currently feeding to the media circus. I have often wondered if any of the various Republicans truly feel the way they portray their beliefs. If they do, it is chilling to realize just how little their fellow Americans mean to them. One of the things that bother me the most is their constant harping on soc.sec. benefits as “Entitlements” & they almost spit out the word Entitlements. This is not what soc.sec. benefits are, soc.sec. benefits are actually Earned Income, paid for by the taxes paid during the workers life time of working. If the decision had not been made to lump the soc.sec. taxes in with the rest of the tax income (so it could be spent more easily), the soc.sec. benefits would not now be in the current strained circumstances that it is. The Republicans seem to be focused on totally gutting the various social services programs that have defined America’s response to its citizens who are most in need, all the while they are making certain to try to maintain the Capital Gains taxes at a low enough point to ensure that they keep making money hand over fist. I truly do not understand how Republicans can look at themselves in the mirror without blanching or throwing up. The only thing I have been able to come up with is that they must actually be Sociopaths who have no conscience, no heart, & no ability to feel empathy for anyone else.

@marinelife Yes, they do work, but most political organizations in the free world shun the tactic. I keep coming back to what Joseph Goebbels said about the Big Lie strategy. It is used to get something done the public wouldn’t support if they knew the truth. So I guess what I am really trying to ask is what hidden agenda are the Big Lies covering for?

@ragingloli There are crushing problems facing America today, and yet they use Big Lies to push policies deliberately designed to make those problems worse. They certainly could have a set of policy initiates designed to fix what’s wrong. And so this begs the question, what real agenda are the Big Lies meant to cover up? That’s how I should have worded the question. Sorry for being obtuse.

@JLeslie & @HungryGuy There is the old joke about the guy standing on a street corner banging himself in the head with a hammer. A passerby stops to ask him why he is doing it, and he answers, “Because itfeels so good when I stop.”

People can do all sorts of things. They can claim they are Wylie Coyote and can walk on air as long as they never look down. People don’t do things just because they can. They do them either because they want to—they expect to gain something from doing it—or they are insane. Mass insanity isn’t a reasonable answer. So they are telling Big Lies because they expect to gain something they want by doing so.

There are two types of people that make up the far right today, Authoritarian Leaders and Right-wing Authoritarian Followers. Read more on the psychology of both by downloading the free PDF from Dr, Robert Altemeyer’s site. You are right, most authoritarian followers do believe whatever their Authoritarian Leaders tell them. They are reminiscent of Darth Vader’s “I must obey my master.” But the authoritarian leaders know what the truth is. They would not be so adept at crafting bumper stickers and talking points to attack and demagogue the truth if they had no idea what truths testified against their Big Lies.

@Charles I’m old enough I can probably ignore politics and be just fine. But I have 3 kids (2 surviving) and 11 grandchildren. I care a great deal about what sort of world I leave behind for them to survive in. And if I am right about my guess as to what Republicans are hiding behind their Big Lie strategy, I can’t just ignore it.

@“Qingu”: & @wundayatta That’s certainly true for the Authoritarian Followers. My concern is not so much about the sheeple, but where their corrupt shepherd is leading them. And it’s clear their shepherd worships the god “Mammon”;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammon.

@mazingerz88 Interestingly, all the Kool-Aid drinkers that followed the new risen Christ, Rev. Jim Jones are now dead. So is their authoritarian leader, Jones. Goebbels was quite right in warning that the Lie can be maintained only so long. The truth always wins, because it is, after all, the truth. Tht which is. That which is not is not.

@gondwanalon I absolutely reject the commonly floated trope that all politicians are equal. Big Lie politicians spread that manure to grow generation after generation of voters who will believe that there is no reason to think about messages, and that all political agendas are equally corrupt. Even a moment’s critical thinking debunks that Big Lie. To believe it, you must accept that Adolph Hitler and Winston Churchill were exactly the same. Stalin was the equal of FDR. Kim Jong Il was every bit as progressive as the leadership in South Korea. You know that’s utterly ridiculous. Whether you want to take the time and effort to think about it or not, who leads your country and what they lead it into it makes a great deal of differenbce to the ordinary citizens, you included.

If you really believe that Democrats are the major source of Big Lie politics, then you will need to document that claim to be accepted. Argument by assertion is a well-known logical fallacy used to advance claims that the claimant knows are false. You assert that the GOP has no choice but to resort to Big Lies to counter all the Big Lies Democrats campaign on. But you give no evidence to counter that which I provided for GOP Big Lies. If you want to have this debate, you will need to do better than just making unsubstantiated claims.

@flutherother Yes, politician fill speeches with emotional appeals like “Yes we can.” and “Drill baby drill.” Some of these are difficult to nail down to specific actions. But the OP exempted that sort of rhetoric. Granted both sides use it, and it’s mostly harmless. The OP refers to deliberate bald-faced lies.

“The stimulus created Zero jobs.” Conservative estimates by non-oratisan groups put the number at 2.7 million private sector jobs. Thjat’s 0.7 million more in 3 years than George W. Bush managed to create in 8 years. And after Bus drove the economy into the ditch, we were losing over 700,000 jobs a month on his watch.

“Government can’t create jobs.” But if you elect us, we will. This idiocy uttered by people who have government jobs. Government created THEIR jobs.

“Obama is the Food Stamp president. He;s put more people on Food Stamps than any other president.” This is a racist appeal to white southern voters. It is floated as of a black presidfent wants to give food stamps to all of llkacj America. Lie #1; Nearl;y 84% of food stamp recipients are white. Lie #2; the economy crashed on George Bush’s watch due to dunderheaded policies he instituted. He put those people on food stamps, not Obama. And the people claiming Obama is the Food Stamp president want to take all Bush’s misguided policies that crashed the economy, and double down on them. They are saying the meal we last served you made you violently ill because you just didn’t eat enough of it. This time, try twice as much.

Big Lies. Not little white lies.

@Jeruba Interesting. I do note that the Democrats have a longstanding characteristic of facing such outrages like a bunch of wussies. I sure hope they do better this time. Truth always wins in the long lens of history. But my sense is that the Greedy Oligarch Pigs who orchestrate the GOP today are closing in for the kill of America as we have known it. Unless we want to become another banana republic like Haiti, we better forcefully expose the Lies and not snivel about them.

@Qingu Good point. Regarding Politifact, they go out of their way to indict Democrats for any minor transgression just so they can appear to be non-partisan. The real ratio is much worse.

@Charles As I said in the OP, I am more than willing to debate that with anyone who can provide evidence both sides are just as bad. Simply making unsubstantiated statements to that effect is meaningless.

@gondwanalon That answer seems unresponsive to the question. Is this another attempt to claim that all parites are equal, and therefore you should select the one that’s the best?

@DrBill Aha. You answered this one to claim you refuse to answer it. No proof it’s prejudiced, I invited rebuttals, but this one’s pretty pathetic.

@Paradox25 The Christian Conservative branch are also the nation’s number one consumers of Porn. But that’s for another question to come.

@Linda_Owl Great answer. It’s terribly sad, but so true.

http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2012/01/20/are-you-left-wing-or-right-wing-hopefully-i%e2%80%99m-honest-and-accurate-wing/

The above link was suppose to go to Barry Rubin’s column: Left-Wing, Right-Wing: What Matters is Honesty and Accuracy. The link is found in the left column of the above website. Good read.

@ETpro,

we better forcefully expose the Lies and not snivel about them

The interviewer asked explicitly about exposure of the lies in words more or less to this effect: Why do you think these stories continue to influence people even after they have been exposed and proved false?

The answer, as I recall it, was along these lines: that even if they hear about the rebuttal, what stays with the voters is not rational words and facts but emotions and impressions. They get an impression that someone is a bad guy, and after that the truth is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what kind of response he makes to false charges, even if the facts totally support him. So the lie does the job, and the liar never really has to pay for it.

I’m not especially naive, but the matter-of-fact way in which this Republican politician openly delivered his cynical view appalled me.

I wish I could furnish names and dates for you. I heard this interview while I was driving on the freeway, heading for an appointment, so I couldn’t follow up by nailing down names of participants, time of broadcast, etc., and then I forgot about it until much later. I don’t think I could even bracket the month now, much less the show, but it was sometime within the last three months of last year.

Because they are desperate.

@bkcunningham That is a good read. That’s kind of what I was getting at in :this question”:http://www.fluther.com/137627/isnt-bragging-about-being-the-most-conservative-candidate-tantamount-to-boasting/. I could just as easily said bragging about being the most iberal, but aside from a tiny handfull of intellectuals, nobody does that.

@Jeruba If you do find a link, please do post it. That woiuld be interesting.

@mattbrowne True.

Sorry, @ETpro. I’ve done my best, combing my calendar for late-2011 appointments and checking out NPR’s archives for the shows that would have been playing at the times when I should have been driving. I can’t find it. But I didn’t make it up, honest.

@Jeruba I understand. Don’t you hate when that happens.

Well, using lies doesn’t seem to be the only Republican strategy. How Unamerican is it to be able to speak French?

http://www.fluther.com/138631/newt-gingrich-and-mitt-romney-how-unamerican-is-it-to-be/

@mattbrowne Je ne t pense que c’est Unamerican à tout.

@ETpro, me either!

C’est bien vrai ça !

Of course I don’t have the time (who does) to research everything the politicians say to determine how much is truthful and how much isn’t. And then tally up all of the lies of democrats and republicans to determine which party is the biggest perpetrator. Also how do you determine what untruth rises to the level of a “big lie”? Dose an X number of small lies equal one big lie? I suppose as President Clinton said, “It depends on what the meaning of the words ‘is’ is.” Some would say that committing perjury in Federal grand jury testimony would be a big lie.

No one tells the absolute truth all the time including politicians. Unfortunately, as anyone who is married knows, if you express yourself honestly and with all your heart, then you get into trouble. The same is true with politicians. A politician’s career wouldn’t last long if he/she told the complete truth all of the time about everything.

Any way you look at this, we are all SOL in the long run.

@gondwanalon I gave links to what the Big Lie strategy is all about in the question details, so to quibble about it now, and dismiss it as impossible to determine seems to me disingenuous. I have to wonder if it doesn’t indicate that you already know which political party relies heavily on deliberate lies to sell its agenda, and you want that fact to be covered up. But just in case, here is an acceptable definition for the sake of this discussion.

I am pretty sure that if you had two companies wanting to build a house for you, and in checking what each told you, you found that one occasionally said things that were subject to interpretation or somewhat distorted; but the other told you things that on fact checking proved to be wild distortions and often the exact opposite of the truth; you could eventually figure out that one contractor was relatively honest and the other could not be trusted as far as you could throw him.

Since the invention of the video camera and cell phone equipped with video, it is amazing how many things can be fact checked and determined to be a bald-faced lie just by listening to the liar’s own words when addressing audiences with different priorities. Other claims are easily debunked by checking public records.

I repeat my offer. If you want examples of verifiable Big Lies, I will be happy to post the list and the underlying facts that debunk the lie.

@ETpro, I would actually like to see that list. I have friends whom do not understand this, who think that the lies they are fed are true.

@GracieT The third paragraph in the Question Details has a list of links, all of which detail various lies in current use this election cycle, and debunk them.

Butsince you ask for more, let’s add three big ones that are perennial favorites.

1—The Press (Main stream media, lame stream media, librul media elites, etc, etc.) is biased toward the far left and distorts everything it reports to make the right-wing look bad.

The truth is that there is very little true left-wing media olive today. A handful of vast multinational corporations own almost all the mainstream media, be it print, TV or radio. Far from being leftist, socialist, Marxist biased; they are biased toward the right and laissez-faire capitalism. They just are not so partisan that they will report falsehoods routinely as the truth, which right-wing media routinely does. Fox is the only major news organization to have ever gone to court to defend their right to fire a reporter for refusing to knowingly lie. In any real newsroom, if a journalist or reporter discovered a story was false and brought that to management’s attention, he would be rewarded for the catch, and the story would be corrected. Fox wanted the story aired even after it was pointed out to them it wasn’t true. They fired the reporter for refusing to lie. Fox is a propaganda wing of the RNC, not a news organization. And Fox is far more honest than other right-wing media outlets such as the Washington Times, The Drudge Report, Rush Limbaugh or [shudder] Michael Savage

2—Cutting taxes always increases revenue.

The truth is that if tax rates are inordinately high, that does depress the economy and a modest cut will unleash enough economic growth to stimulate the economy and produce higher overall tax revenue. But it doesn’t take a math whiz to realize that this won’t work forever, and you can just as easily damage an economy by setting taxes too low as by setting the too high. If anybody really believed that cutting taxes always brings in higher revenue, we should immediately set the tax rate to zero and acheive infinite tax revenues.

The lie comes from the Reagan Revolution and his trickle-down Voodoo Economics. Reagan slashed the top tax braket on income over $¼ million a year from 70% to just 28%. It is true that there was a modest recovery and some jobs were created. The 70% rate may have been outdated at that time. We had retired most of the debt we ran up to win WWII. But you can only give economic theories honest tests when you change just one variable at a time. Reagan not only slashed taxes, he blew the lid off of government spending. The net result was Reagan tripled the National Debt.

Most likely, Reagan’s boom came from the “Just Spend” part of his Republicanism, not the Don’t Tax” GOP ideology. Bill Clinton raised taxes, and he presided over the biggest boom since the end of the Post War Boom. His administration added 23.1 million new jobs compared to Tax Cutter Bush’s 3 million and Don’t Tax, Just Spend Reagan;s 16 million jobs.. And far from increasing revenues, Bush’s economic policy doubled the already heavy National Debt.

3—We can’t raise taxes on the job creators.

The truth is the capital gains tax was relatively high under the Reagan and Clinton Administrations, when millions of new jobs were created, and George W Bush cut it from 20% to 15% in 2003. You see his abysmal job creation record above. When there is no demand, job creators don’t create jobs here. They may invest somewhere where there is a market for goods and services, but not where there is very soft demand. US Corporations are sitting on $2 trillion in cash reserves right now. Cutting spending on infrastructure, research and education so we can give billionaires more omeny will not produce an explosion in jobs, it will drive up the debt and further weaken our ability to compete globably because we will starve the economic engine of fuel by cutting investment in what drives it.

I was born in 1970, so I’ve only really been paying attention since Carter. Was Regan really that inept? I remember my parents didn’t really care for him. OK, they despised him. But since I was still a kid when he was elected, I didn’t know that he was all that different.

@GracieT He wasn’t inept at looking out for the billionaires and major corporations. His rhetoric and ability to sell crap and make people believe it smelled like perfume aren’t traits of an inept man. He was more like a Darth Vader. Very ept at carrying out policies that helped a tiny handful of people, but set the USA on a course toward decline.