Progressive Groups Lie Because Lying Works

Implausible catastrophization from climate and child care and health care advocates doesn't convince the broad electorate. But it's useful for in-group competition.

Dear readers,

Jerusalem Demsas of The Atlantic, Rachel Cohen of Vox and Matt Yglesias have all written pieces in recent weeks about progressive advocacy groups spreading what Yglesias calls “elite misinformation”: overblown claims about social problems they want to draw attention to. We’ve seen this with maternal mortality (not actually rising in the US over the last two decades, though some advocates get pretty upset when you point out that the data saying otherwise is wrong). We’ve seen it with enhanced child care subsidies (not actually necessary to prevent the closure of a third of American daycares or a resulting “she-cession” from women dropping out of the work force en masse). We’ve seen it with the alleged importance of net neutrality (it was enacted and went away and then came back; did anyone notice?). And we’ve seen it perhaps most of all with climate change (yes, a real problem, though a lot of progressives have become convinced we’re on a far worse track with it than we actually are).

Demsas, Cohen and Yglesias would all like the lying to stop, and so would I. But I don’t think any of the three of them quite put their finger on why these groups lie. The unfortunate truth is that they lie because lying works — and it works because big, bold, scary lies are helpful for these groups as they try to claw their way to the front of the line when governments run by Democrats parcel out our country’s constrained fiscal resources.

As Matt notes, the lies mostly work on people who are already inside the tent:

The problem is that it’s about a million times easier to persuade a highly engaged member of your team of something than it is to persuade a swing voter (who is probably skeptical, cynical, and not that engaged with politics) or a member of the opposition (who instinctively assumes you’re lying about everything). So when you put something out there that’s false or misleading, you’re about a million times more likely to confuse people who are friendly to your cause than to actually persuade anyone worth persuading.

But this is the whole point. While progressive groups that focus on climate change and child care and education and health care are putatively allies — and feel increasingly compelled to make performative statements in favor of each other’s causes, even when that narrows the coalition they can build — beneath the surface, they’re fighting over a limited pool of resources. The budget deficit is large and set to increase over time with rising entitlement spending. Neither major American political party is willing to countenance tax increases on people making less than about $400,000. So when Democrats run Washington, priority setting necessarily happens, even though most Democratic politicians don’t like to admit it and aren’t very good at doing it. So the Groups don’t need to just be seen as having worthy ideas — they’re all trying to be seen as the group trying to address the most urgent problem that must be addressed first.

In 2022, the environmental groups were at the head of the line. After Democrats admitted that a $6 trillion Build Back Better spending package was impossible, Sen. Joe Manchin set his terms for a maximum package size, and a very extensive program of green energy subsidies made it into the bill, while child care and elder care and other priorities of various Groups ended up on the cutting room floor. Back in 2009, it was the health care groups in front, and next time it’s supposed to be the child care advocates’ turn (the idea seems to be that, if they say “care can’t wait” long enough, it will eventually be true). But why were the enviros at the head of the line, even though their agenda is relatively difficult to sell to voters? It’s probably because they had so successfully overcatastrophized the issue in a way that was believed by the in-group. It didn’t matter that the catastrophizing was unconvincing to Republicans or even to the general public, which Pew found last year ranks climate change as the 17th most important out of 21 major political issues. It was the climate groups’ turn, because they convinced the insiders within the progressive coalition that they had the most important project, and that the costs associated with climate change were more proximate in time and place than they actually are.

One reason the lies get believed within the tent is that there’s a lot of social pressure not to point out that they are lies. Demsas and Cohen each focus on specific issues where many experts knew that claims being popularized were wrong but felt compelled to keep quiet out of the concern that rejecting the crisis framing would undermine campaigns for policy change, or would alienate political allies.¹ Demsas writes about the last decade’s supposed surge in American maternal mortality — actually an artifact of a change in data collection methods — and Cohen about the “child care cliff” that never materialized: supposedly, a third of American daycares were supposed to go out of business if COVID-era subsidies expired, and yet, the subsidies expired and the daycares are still operating. Both Cohen and Demsas warn that these lies undermine trust in advocacy groups and their ability to make winning arguments in the future.² And they say lying is not working as a policy change strategy: dire warnings have not led to a major expansion of the American entitlement state, or even to the extension of COVID-era programs, and now that policymakers know the warnings were wrong, they’re less likely to listen to the advocates next time.

I’m not so sure about the last part. The lying has not worked as a political strategy for those interest groups yet — but it does seem to me that painting an unduly catastrophic picture of the climate future has worked as a strategy for climate advocates seeking to get governments to devote resources to the (again, real) problem of climate change. And it’s not clear to me that advocacy groups will be held accountable in the future for past lies. After all, the social pressure remains not to point out when one’s allies are lying. And a lot of people are bought into the idea that lies are fine if they’re for a good cause. It’s probably true that reporters will be more skeptical of claims about child care next time around. But 50 years’ worth of skepticism from reporters and economists about false claims that tax cuts will pay for themselves hasn’t exactly stopped Republicans from getting mileage out of that lie. And I think if a major federal child care entitlement program ever does pass, it will probably come along with overhyped promises about its benefits.

I think the only thing that will stop the lying is a structural change in the progressive coalition that makes lying no longer an effective strategy. And I’m not really sure how that could be brought about. So I just expect that the groups will continue to lie to us and get away with it.

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You may have heard that there will be a presidential debate tonight. I expect it will be a doozy and I’ll have thoughts on it for you tomorrow. I’ll also be participating tonight in one of those New York Times things where pundits give quick reactions and numerical scores about who won and lost and all our faces are placed on a chart — so watch out for that on the Times Opinion site, and I’ll be back with you tomorrow.

Very seriously,

Josh

1. For example, in a prior article, Cohen described a conversation with one child-care policy expert who “said that they knew no one who expected the loss of programs to reach anywhere near 70,000, but did not want to say so on the record for fear of alienating other leaders in their child care advocacy coalition.”

2. They also both note that misinformation about the difficulty and hazardousness of motherhood is harmful to people on an individual level — these incorrect messages about pregnancy and child care stress women out and can make them unduly afraid of having children.