Yes that's a good point. Like you I am used to promises being broken, but definitely still not used to blatant lies about historical fact. Since the advent of 'alternative facts', anyone can just refuse to accept media evidence as biased or media lies. There is no longer any agreed objective historical record. Even something like Hansard gets debated and reported as if it cannot really be trusted. I've seen quotes on the BBC with phrases like "Hansard apparently has no evidence of this claim" rather than "The politician was found to be lying".clv101 wrote:The other big difference is that the Brexit lie was about something they said they were going to do, then didn't, today's lies are simple factual lies about the past, not campaign promises.
I'm not convinced that people now only care about "what the man does". I'd actually come to a slightly different conclusion, that people now only care about the sort of person the man is, for good or bad, and what they actually do is not relevant, because they can convince their followers that whatever they have done is the best thing, regardless of any reality. Hence Johnson can claim that his Brexit deal is the best deal and because his followers think he's the reincarnation of Winston Churchill they will believe it.
I don't think anyone is immune to this. I have my favourite politicians and I'll generally judge their actions by whether I think they're good people (according to my educated middle class Christian values), because it's almost impossible to judge their actions. We don't have the information. But I can tell I don't like Johnson or Swinson, and that I do like Lucas and Sturgeon and Mhairi Black, and Corbyn leaves me cold, and I'd love to have a beer with Farage.
