Free Speech for Political Campaign Lies?
On Tuesday, November 5, citizens of the United States will vote for who they want to serve as their President for the next four years. They will also vote for federal congressional representatives as well as a host of other state and local government officials.
U.S. political campaigns—especially presidential campaigns—are exhausting. This is in part because they are much longer and more expensive than the political campaigns in many other nations.
Another reason why many have found the last three presidential campaigns exhausting is the sheer volume and brazenness of the lies told by Donald Trump and many other Republicans who have come to mimic his campaign style. Trump’s lies have reinforced partisan epistemology while simultaneously creating epistemic chaos that he seeks to use to his advantage.
He has successfully used lies to undermine public trust in U.S. elections. This is starkly exhibited by the fact that nearly 30% of Americans—including roughly two thirds of Republicans—say they believe that the 2020 U.S. Presidential election was stolen.
The reason that so many Americans believe this patent falsehood is because Trump and his allies have repeatedly told this lie. However, it seems that Trump and his allies don’t really believe it, given that they have been unwilling to make these same claims in court or in other contexts in which they could face legal sanctions for lying.
This is an example of the truth-revealing power of courts. The best explanation for why Trump and his co-conspirators refuse to make these false claims about the 2020 election in contexts where they realize that lying comes with significant legal consequences is that they know they are lying.
If significant legal consequences for lying are enough to stop Trump and his co-conspirators from lying in court, one might naturally conclude that the best course of action might be to create similarly significant legal consequences for lying as part of political campaigning. This is a reasonable thought, but it’s not that simple—at least not in the United States. This is because such a course of action conflicts with contemporary social and legal understandings of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution’s protection of free speech.
