It has recently been shown that Joe Biden has not always been honest with his stories. He had been telling people for years that he went to Afghanistan to pin a Silver Star on the Navy captain but after researching, Washington Post journalists uncovered that he was bluffing. When questioned about his actions, Biden simply blamed his mishap on following Trump's behavior, quoting "Details are irrelevant". However with the campaigns already starting for the next election, and Biden hoping to spend another four years in the White House, this time as President, he must be careful with his words, especially since the reason he is in the running is to not let Trump get re-elected. According to the article, Trump has misquoted at least 12,000 facts, therefore Trump's tendency to create fake news should be what Democrats are going after.
In my opinion, the future candidates who are standing against Trump should contradict his most public views. Because Trump puts many of his statements on Twitter, everyone has access to the message he is trying to get across. Which means it is also very accessible for journalists to evaluate if what he is saying is true. If Democrats want to win the White House back they should be transparent with the public because when incidents like this are revealed, it creates a level of mistrust towards to the candidate, giving them a slimmer chance to actually be elected.
Questions:
1. Do you think Joe Biden has ruined his chances of becoming the Democratic Party's main candidate through this statement and what it stands for?
2. In your opinion, should there be a strictly enforced law that holds political figures to the truth so they cannot manipulate stories and incidents? What would be the terms of the law?
3. Should the public be more receptive to the news to hold political figures to the truth? If so, how could we amplify the news so it reaches everyone?
9 comments:
I don't believe that Biden has ruined his chances of being the Democratic Party's candidate, however, I agree with Riddhi that by glossing over this statement, Biden has worsened his credibility. As a competitor against Trump, I don't believe that it was wise to side with Trump by stating that details are irrelevant; even if his competition glosses over things such as his tax returns, Biden should not be following in his footsteps. I think that by avoiding discussion about his past, Biden is decreasing his credibility and trustworthiness as a candidate. But just because he ignores discussion of a certain topic involving his topic, a law requiring him, to tell the truth, would not only fail in its effectiveness, but it would be violating the 1st amendment to freedom of speech. Unfortunately, the media is allowed to spread lies and manipulate the facts due to the freedom of speech; similarly, all should be allowed to speak freely or not speak on a topic, even politicians. I think that morally, it is inappropriate for Biden to avoid the topic, but it is not illegal and should not be illegal.
As previously stated, I don’t think Biden ruined his chances of becoming the Democratic Party’s main candidate through this statement but he did become less reliable to the public. People may trust him less now that they see he lied about one thing, he could be lying about other things. He should not blame Trump, instead he should be different from Trump and fix his future behavior. In regards to question two, honestly, if there were a strictly enforced law that held political figures to tell the truth so that nothing can be manipulated, it would be impossible. When it comes to stories, everybody has their own version of the truth and everyone has their own perspective on things so little details may become twisted or changed. No one would know that they are avoiding the truth or lying.
I don't necessarily think it ruined his chances, mostly because the general opinion of him hasn't adjusted to labeling him as a liar, particularly due to the lack of media coverage of his statements. If anything, his downfall will be his poor attempts at campaigning and his lack of a solid healthcare plan. However what he said certainly doesn't help his credibility. Monkey see, monkey do, Mr. Biden. It's not exactly helpful to blatantly repeat the same transgressions you've criticized your opponent over. Just because the President did it, doesn't amount to any sort of excuse to sink to that same level. I don't think a law prohibiting and actively punishing lying would be easy to implement however, particularly because it's an occupation often considered to be rife with deception, and when such power is involved, fairly monitoring the political landscape would be incredibly difficult. Instead I think that politicians need to be punished through means of public perception. It seems to be almost expected that politicians will lie, but I don't think taking it so lightly is healthy for politics as a whole because it gives way to people like President Trump and Mr. Biden to openly use such deception to their advantage without much repercussion. We need to hold our politicians to higher standards, because unless we do, many of them will continue to look out for their own self interests at the cost of transparency and honesty.
I agree with the three previous statements that Biden has not ruined his chances. Take Trump during the 2016 elections for example: despite all of the misinformation he was speaking and negative claims that were being made about him, his reputation managed to survive the elections, eventually bringing him into the presidency. With this election, despite Biden's lie, Biden's reputation will most likely maintain through this drama. While he hasn't ruined his chances, he may lose his spot as front runner, simply because of the large number of democratic candidates running with stronger arguments. And although Biden's lie preys on the gullibility of citizens, I don't believe this is a calling for stronger truth law. Like Sam mentioned earlier, experiences are subjective, so measuring those stories to one formula is too narrow. Also, trying to create reasonable government consequences for lying would be too restrictive. I think that the best solution now would be to increase media coverage on presidential candidates that are blatantly lying.
I do not believe Biden has ruined his chances because multiple politicians have said lies, like Trump, and made it. I don't think there should be a strict law that prohibits politicians to say the truth and nothing but the truth because that would make politics really boring. In addition, it would make things way too straight forward. If politicians couldn't lie, how would they get their point across and attempt to get everyone to vote for them? Often, they say what people want to hear. I agree with Shirleen's point that Biden has survived 4 years under Trump, so he knows what he's getting himself into. Although it is ideal that political figures should tell the truth, it would be too hard to figure out what is true and what is a lie. Take Trump for example, as you stated in your summary, he has a twitter account and posts whatever is on his mind. We don't know what is true but the public reads his tweets and interpret them in their own way. In my opinion, it seems as if the media would go crazy because lies that are told by public figures create drama, and drama creates money.
I believe that despite past politicians saying multiple lies like Trump, Biden;s lies have significantly hurt his chances towards the presidency. Many, Democrats in particular, have seen Trump's misinformation in the office and have grown to more vehemently oppose these lies. By mirroring Trumps misquoting as a potential opposing candidates, he certainly isn't helping his case by making himself look like the same type of president as Trump. While trying to make sure everything the President says is completely correct is ludicrous as all people misquote facts from time to time, it's necessary to make sure what the President says is most of the time correct. The President is the figure of our country, so having that type of figure lie about things that have serious effects on the country could cause serious misinformation throughout the country. Obviously we can't make lies illegal, but through public pressure we can hold important figures to higher standards in fear of public outcry.
I don’t believe Biden has ruined his chances at becoming the Democratic candidate, however I do think that it was an imprudent statement that many will frown upon. Justifying a mistake by pointing fingers and essentially saying “He did it, so I can do it too” seems childish and not something I would personally looking for in a president. Biden should have owned up to his mistake and taken accountability for his actions. While in an ideal world, all candidates would speak truthfully, it’s simply not plausible. People will say what they want to say, and there are a million different ways to twist the truth, especially in the realm of politics. It’s been almost ingrained in politics that politicians will say or do what aligns with their interest and end goal, regardless of that hit to their integrity; however, that being said, it’s important for the public to hold politicians accountable.
This comment thread seems to firmly believe that Biden has not ruined his chances because many people still have faith in him. Though this story may be a big headliner hardly any people actually know about it. I agree with everyone that the media should cover stories like this more to show the American public who they are actually voting for. Many people don't have much time to actually look into all the nooks and crannies of all the candidates pasts' so they just go off of the media. The media is a huge influencer on the minds of the American public so if they are able to show the true colors of all the candidates the American public will gain a clearer view of their representatives.
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