Political reporters should report honestly that Trump’s campaign is based on lies

When one of the two parties is being so deceitful, it’s not right for journalists to treat them alike

Now that the players have been clearly established, it’s time for the political media to turn to the issues.

And when writing about those issues, it’s imperative that journalists point out the most salient characteristic of the Republican platform: That it’s almost entirely based on lies.

This is not hyperbole. Just listen to Trump’s semi-coherent news conference on Thursday (transcript parts one, two and three.) It was lie after lie after lie. The fact checks (by the New York Times, the Associated Press, and MSNBC) barely scratched the surface.

As it happens, the Trumpian vision for the future is most effectively summarized in one handy document, the official Republican platform.

It is a litany of lies -- about the border, immigration, the economy, energy, our international standing, the military, you name it.

It’s one thing when a party makes unlikely campaign promises. That’s normal. But it’s another when the underlying premises beneath those promises is wildly deceitful.

Political journalists at our most powerful news organizations are strongly averse to taking sides in a partisan dispute. They don’t want to be accused of bias. Their bosses tell them to afflict both sides. They consider themselves above the fray.

But when one of the two political parties’ entire argument is so obviously deceitful, from start to finish, it’s not right for journalists to treat them alike.

While the “fact checks” are well intentioned, they aren’t enough. Every article or broadcast segment about where Trump stands on the issues should make it clear that his entire pitch is built on an edifice of lies.

And if those lies are gaining traction in the public sphere, the media has an obligation to correct them. Anything else is dishonest.

This is Not Normal

And let’s be clear: This is not normal behavior for a political party, not even for Republicans.

The 2016 Republican platform, like the ones before, was a more-or-less traditional document, stressing age-old Republican values including a reaffirmation of “the Constitution's fundamental principles: limited government, separation of powers, individual liberty, and the rule of law.”

There was no platform in 2020; the party literally couldn’t find the words to describe Trump’s vision of government, so it just didn’t.

By contrast, this new Trumpified and truncated 2024 iteration is based on 20 all-caps MAGA talking points from “STOP THE MIGRANT INVASION” to “REBUILD OUR CITIES” to “END THE WEAPONIZATION OF GOVERNMENT AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.”

The core argument is here:

America needs determined Republican Leadership at every level of Government to address the core threats to our very survival: Our disastrously Open Border, our weakened Economy, crippling restrictions on American Energy Production, our depleted Military, attacks on the American System of Justice, and much more.

Lie after lie after lie.

Just as with Trump’s stump speeches, the platform is centered around lies about immigration and immigrants:

Republicans offer an aggressive plan to stop the open-border policies that have opened the floodgates to a tidal wave of illegal Aliens, deadly drugs, and Migrant Crime.

But the border is not open. It is “more fortified than it's ever been.” There were an estimated 57,000 illegal crossings in July, down from their all-time high of 250,000, marking the lowest monthly figure since 2020. There is no wave of migrant crime. And the vast majority of fentanyl is smuggled into the country not across a porous border but through official ports of entry.

Similarly, despite one day of concerning news this week, the economy is not “weak”. Inflation has not “crushed the middle class”. Indeed, as CNBC reported in June, “Americans have seen their buying power rise for a year amid falling inflation and a strong job market.” The U.S. economy is far outpacing its peers.

There are no “crippling restrictions” on American energy production. For better or worse, domestic oil and gas production are at a record high – as are profits for oil companies.

The platform lies about the U.S.’s international standing: “The Biden administration's weak Foreign Policy has made us less safe and a laughingstock all over the World.” It’s Trump who made the U.S. a literal laughingstock; foreign officials -- at least those from allied countries – are freaked out about the possibility of his return.

Our military is hardly “depleted” – the U.S. spends more on its military than the next nine countries combined.

And some of the lies are worse than just lies, they are projection – accusing the Biden administration of doing precisely what Trump himself wants to do going forward. This is most obviously the case in the platform’s commitment to “stop the Radical Left Democrats' Weaponization of Government and its Assault on American Liberty.” It’s Trump who has promised “retribution” should he regain office; his platform vows to “hold accountable those who have misused the power of Government to unjustly prosecute their Political Opponents.”

Finally there are the lies of omission. The word “abortion” appeared 35 times in the 2016 platform (h/t CNN). It only appears once this time around, and includes language that at first glance would leave decisions about abortion to the states:

We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights.

But as the 19^th News reported, the platform actually “supports states establishing fetal personhood through the Constitution’s 14th Amendment,” which “would have the practical effect of prohibiting abortion at all stages of pregnancy.”

A Campaign of Deception

Trump and the Republican Party aren’t so much trying to persuade as they’re trying to deceive. These are not disputes about policy. These are deceptive incitements.

Indeed, there is very little in terms of actual, detailed policy proposals in the platform – or in Trump’s stump speeches -- just broad strokes with no details, based on lies.

And yes, it's all still operative. “I haven’t recalibrated strategy at all,” Trump said at his news conference on Thursday. “It’s the same policies: open borders weak on crime.”

(Violent crime is actually near a 50-year low.)

Journalist Joe Conason, author of the new book The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism put the lies in context in a recent interview with the Washington Monthly, saying:

Deception is central to the contemporary right for two reasons. One is that they’ve discovered, over a long period, that it is highly profitable to mobilize people’s fears and resentments around mythical issues. You can pull in vast sums of money from the right-wing base. The second reason is that facts don’t work for them. It is very hard, at this point, to make arguments on behalf of their positions that are fact-based.  They push lies, conspiracy theories, fantastical inventions that support their ideological positions. To take one example, there is an idea that the minimum wage costs jobs. Not true. It’s been debunked. No respectable economist believes it. Or if you cut taxes, you’ll generate economic growth. Not true. It’s been disproven over again. So, they rely on falsehoods.

That’s the message that American political reporters should be conveying to the public. Doing anything short of that is journalist malpractice. It’s aiding and abetting liars.