It’s happening again. For weeks we’ve all been experiencing the seemingly never-ending lead up to the mid-term elections. If you’re like me, you’ve long passed the point where you’re tired of being force-fed political ads filled with lies about one thing or another.
Candidates from every side promise countless things if only you vote for them.
They have no intention of backing up the talk with the walk. Or maybe they do. It doesn’t really matter either way.
What should matter is if they actually deliver on those promises. Because if they don’t, it’s fraud. Plain and simple. Which, if you’re you or me, is illegal.
Let’s say that I promised you I’d do something. With the expectation that I’d do what I promised I’d do, you gave me something you had. Then, I didn’t do the thing I said I’d do. But I kept whatever it was you gave me to do it. Go ahead, read it again. It’ll make sense.
What do you think would happen?
I’ll tell you what would happen. I’d be charged with a crime. It’s called fraud. I’d probably even go to jail.
Now, let’s say I was a politician, and I made a campaign promise. With the expectation that I’d do what I promised I’d do, you gave me your vote. Then, I didn’t do the thing I promised you that I’d do. But I still have your vote.
What do you think would happen?
I’ll tell you what would happen. Nothing.
Now, you tell me, what’s the difference between those two scenarios? That’s right. Nothing. Both are examples of fraud. And that’s a crime. At least it is for most of us.
It’s not a crime to tell a lie. In fact, your right to lie is protected by the 1st Amendment. But it is illegal to benefit from those lies.
The legal definition of fraud is, “the deliberate misrepresentation of fact for the purpose of depriving someone of a valuable possession.” I think most of us will agree that our vote is one of the most valuable things we have.
We hear a lot of talk about election fraud and voter fraud, but nothing about what I’m calling “campaign fraud”. I’m not talking about misappropriation of campaign donations, though I suspect that happens more often than not. I’m talking about when candidates promise anything to anybody to get their vote, without any intention or means to deliver what they promised.
Remember back when Joe Biden was campaigning out of his basement? He made tons of promises and kept claiming that he had a plan. But he didn’t tell anyone what the plan was. He just said he had one and he’d happily tell us what he was planning once he got elected.
Which, if you’re you or me, isn’t anywhere near good enough to get our vote. But it was good enough for a bunch of people, so they abandoned common sense and voted for him.
Shame on them.
But I’m not here to vote-shame anyone, although that would be incredibly easy to do.
I’m here to talk about campaign fraud.
But before I do that, I’m going to pause a bit and talk about pronouns. I’m going to use “he” in this article. Not because I don’t think women are capable, but because it’s easier for me to write that way. And because I’m basically lazy. So, if you’re someone who’s going to get offended because I refer to a candidate as a “he”, please stop reading and unsubscribe from my newsletter.
And…we’re back.
The first step in fighting campaign fraud is to learn how to recognize it when it happens. Let me give you an easy rule-of-thumb to follow. If the candidate is promising you anything, you’re being lied to. Because there is no possible way any candidate can guarantee they’ll be able to do what they say.
There’s an old joke that goes like this: How can you tell when a lawyer is lying? Answer: His lips are moving. Yeah, it’s just like that.
A candidate can say he’s going to try to lower the crime rate, but the moment he promises you he will lower the crime rate, that’s when you know he’s lying. The same thing goes with reducing taxes or getting rid of illegal aliens. Because he can promise that he’ll try to do something, that’s fully in his control. But there’s no possible way he can promise you he’ll be able to accomplish it.
I fully realize that what I’m about to say isn’t going to make any difference. Nobody who can do anything about the problem is likely to be reading this. And besides, the people who would be responsible for getting rid of campaign fraud are the same people using it to their benefit. So, even if a candidate promised he’d fight against campaign fraud, could you really believe him?
Here’s what I’d like to see…
We should prevent campaign fraud by stopping it at its source. And the best way to do that is to make it incredibly painful if someone gets caught doing it.
First, let’s make it illegal. After all, if you’re you or me, fraud is already illegal. I’m saying we should just apply the same rules to everyone, including politicians.
So, candidates can promise anything, that’s protected speech. But, if they get elected and don’t deliver on their promises, that’s when trouble comes a knocking.
Secondly, in the words of Yoda: “Do, or do not. There is no try.” There should be no more “I have a plan and I’ll tell you what it is if you elect me”. Like Joe hiding in his basement, candidates shouldn’t be able to say they have a plan unless they’re willing to tell us what it is.
Politicians should have to present detailed plans for doing whatever they’re promising. I don’t care if you’re promising to reduce crime, increase our border security or “Build Back Better”. Tell me what your plan is. If you have a good plan, you’ve got my vote. If your plan has more holes in it than Biden’s memory, it will be obvious to everyone that it ain’t worth shit.
I think the main problem is that there’s no balance between risk and reward for candidates. There’s no downside in it for them, only upside. There’s no penalty for lying and they’re playing with other people’s money. So, if they lose, they’re not out anything. And, if they win, they’re not required to do a single thing they promised the voters they would do.
What we need is a good old-fashioned reckoning. Every year, anyone holding a public office should be required to present a detailed account of their accomplishments, and that includes how many of their promises they delivered on. And, they should tell us what they’re going to do in the next 12 months. When there will be another reckoning.
When the reckoning comes, unless they’ve checked most of the items off their list, they go to jail. But maybe since we’re having an old-fashioned reckoning, we should also have an old-fashioned punishment.
So, for public officials who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk, we can either send them to prison or hold a public stoning. I’d be OK either way.
I don’t have all or even any of the answers. But something has to change. Because until it does, it won’t be the most qualified person who gets elected. It will be the most successful liar.
