Lies, damn lies, and the lying liars that tell them. They are exhausting. But beyond that, they can so corrupt institutional thinking and processes that the institution cannot survive (see Putin's Russia). And the last six years, lying from the right has gone far beyond our quaint notion of political lies as to more closely resemble the alternative reality of a totalitarian state. The shear quantity and absurdity level of lies has become so great, that we have exhausted ourselves as we try to refute each one. I believe this calls for a change in strategy. Our focus has been on the content of each lie, when we should be focused on the act of lying itself. In fact, the act of lying in and of itself should disqualify someone from holding or aspiring to hold a position of public trust.
Let’s leave the morality of lying aside for the moment, and simply look at what happens when public officials lie. If you say and act one way in private, yet say and do the opposite in public, it begs the question, “Who are you serving?” Are you really serving the public interest? Or are your public words and deeds in service to private parties? If your public words and deeds are in service principally to private parties even if that party is just yourself (I’m looking at you, Joe Manchin) or to some sub-group of the public such as Republican candidates (as in Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell), you are NOT serving the public interest and therefore are not a public servant. You are a servant of private interests. By definition you have violated the public trust of your office.
And actually, you are probably not very good at serving private interests either through your deceit. Because the problem with liars is that they cannot be trusted. Not even if “he’s my liar.” How can you have an honest debate or negotiate with a liar? You can’t. You never know if your argument will be faithfully conveyed to others in the body. You don’t know if they will lie to the public about your position in the discussion. You don’t know if their promised compromise will ever be fulfilled. Will you be wasting your energy trying to assure someone that their concerns will be met when they are lying about what their concerns truly are? This is the sort of faithless discussion that leads people to think they can conquer a country in three days. If a purported public servant has a propensity for lying in service of private interests, do they also lie in private such that you can't even know if the liar’s private interests are truly aligned with your own? How can you support the liar “because he’s on my side” when you don’t really know whose side they are on (Donald Trump)? As a result of all this, even if they “are on my side,” they will be less effective than someone known to be honest and trustworthy in negotiation and debate. You would do far better with an honest person whose publicly stated socio-political views match your own.
The act of lying itself calls into question motive and simultaneously adversely affects one’s ability to be an effective public official, regardless of their socio-political leanings. So the argument can and should be made at every opportunity that lying is a violation of a public trust. And those who consistently lie about important matters in the public sphere should not hold public office.
When documented lies on serious matters are exposed, as with the Kevin McCarthy and Margaret Taylor Greene revelations of the past two days, we should go on offense. We should not waste energy on evidentiary refutation of the content of their lies, for the evidence is clear. Rather, we should mass our forces to call out the liar, to explain the effect of lying on our civic discourse and illuminate the impact the act of lying has on the person’s ability to hold their office in an effective manner. Simply put, shift the burden of proof to the liar by stating that they are lying, and that such practice makes them unfit for public office. And legislators should not fret about a lack of "collegiality." Collegial relationships are built upon respect, and liars are not deserving of either.
But what of the lie itself? The content of the lie is important only so far as “assessing the damages” that result from the act of lying. And there are laws on the books for that sort of thing. We should not be afraid to use them where necessary. But we should also expose the origins of the lies that issue from the authoritarian playbook of political hypocrisy. Provide historical context for the tactics and strategy behind such lies. Draw the connections from lies like the “pedophile groomer” attacks made by far-right politicians straight back through QAnon and the Alt-Right to its antecedents in Putin’s attacks on his rivals. Expose the process of the lie.
We also need a succinct message for people who are not steeped in day to day politics. It may be sufficient to simply call into question the motivation of the liar. "It is a lie and they know it is a lie. Why do you think they lie to you like this?"
The short of it is this: Don’t waste energy making liars defend the lie. They will only lie some more. Make them defend their lying.