Western Political Lies Signal The End of an Era

The previous article highlighted the incredible amount of lies and falsehoods that Western politicians are spewing on a daily basis nowadays. Unfortunately, it seems to be a sign of the times, in the sense that the prevailing post-modernism makes lying more acceptable generally. And politicians do not have to worry much about any fourth estate determined to roast them over the fire for their dubious and untruthful statements. But there is a political side to this recent surge in mendacity in the high political spheres of the West, which needs to be explored as well.

When Lying is Second Nature

To lie is of course second nature for a career politician, so the conclusions above should surprise no one. In his work The Prince, Machiavelli unsurprisingly condoned lying as a tool of the ruler. In the current context, the Machiavellian message is that a successful ruling minority must be flexible, pragmatic, and unencumbered by morality in order to stay in power. The political elite must be willing to break promises and lie without hesitation when the political situation demands it, in order to avoid ruffling the feathers of the ruled majority.

This is in line with Hillary Clinton’s infamous statement in a private banking meeting that was then leaked and published by Wikileaks, that as a politician “you need both a public and a private position”. In other words, the idea is that politicians need to lie. The fact that this touched a nerve with the public shows the naivety of the US population about politics generally.

Ideally, the public and private positions of the politician should, of course, diverge as little as possible. Not only because it is the morally correct position, but also because the democratic process can only serve as a stabilizing conduit for public opinion, if conditions of transparency and openness exist in society. As Italian historian Gaetano Mosca wrote in his masterpiece, The Ruling Class (1923):

“The electoral function is a means by which certain political forces control and limit the action of others, when it is exercised in good social conditions.

This in turn can facilitate the necessary “circulation of elites” that all societies need, regardless of political system.

A diagram of Machiavellian thinking about society. The terms “foxes” and “lions” are not addressed here but is a Pareto term that refers to types of leaders within the ruling minority.

The ruling minority is constantly confronted with a dilemma it doesn’t always recognize; namely that its potential long-term hold on power in society depends, paradoxically, on its power being successfully challenged to some extent. In other words, in order to prevent its decadence and its loss of control, it needs to be subjected to a “circulation of elites” that it instinctively would like to avoid. But this requires, among other things, that the ruling minority exercises sufficient self-restraint to limit the lies to the public. Political lies are eventually counterproductive because they destroy the “good conditions” of openness and transparency that this renewal of the ruling elite requires.

The ruling elite… and everyone else

Further, and even for purely selfish reasons a politician would prefer not to lie than to lie, all else being equal, because lying eventually undermines personal trust in him (or her). Sooner or later his credibility is tarnished if he lies too much or too blatantly, so it is in a politician’s interest to limit, if possible, the number and the boldness of the untruths he tells.

The Sun Sets in the West

Seen in this light, the litany of lies coming out of the mouths of Western politicians reveals two important points: firstly, how dire the current political situation is for the Western financial and political oligarchy that its public-facing representatives (the politicians) must lie so egregiously, even though this is undermining the position of this elite. Secondly, this also reveals their need and desire to cling to power at all costs, even as conditions deteriorate all around them.

As the sun sets on the dream of a unipolar world, the Western ruling minority is struggling in vain to keep the sun above the horizon. There is desperation and panic just under the surface.

The sun is setting on unipolarity

The West has become an “Empire of Lies” because telling the truth would break the spell under which the naive Western publics live, and this would precipitate a crisis. The Western oligarchy understands that the naked truth would be so politically damaging, because it would expose the long glorified “Western values” as a sham facade, behind which is barely hiding a corrupt and power-hungry group of globalists. Instead of addressing their deeper fundamental elite interest to limit the lies, so as to create the conditions for the renewal and revitalization of this ruling minority, these people are now caught in a vicious circle of decadence and incompetence that is feeding on itself and threatening social instability.

Vincit Omnia Veritas

Western politicians should start to tell the truth for the long-term self-interest of the ruling minority of which they are part, even if that would hurt them in the short term (by ending their careers). But they cannot even bring themselves to do that, because in their incompetent lack of clarity, they fail to fully grasp this. They have completely lost any moral compass or compassion they may have had for their follow man, or just for their voters. They need to change their behavior, start telling the truth, and act accordingly; but they cannot and will not. Those who are the most truthful are those, not surprisingly, who do not belong to the “club”, like V. Orban and R. Fico in Europe, and T. Massie and R. Paul in the US.

(In this case, the truth is that the Western ruling elite is now definitely on the wrong side of History; it is breaking international law continuously, which is leading to enormous suffering the world; it has advanced plans to control populations; it is actively protecting the supremacist Zionist regime and supporting the genocide in Palestine; it is contributing to the destruction of Ukraine because it cannot accept Russia’s looming, inevitable victory. The truth is also that this ruling elite has, through boneheaded bloody-mindedness, seriously undermined both Europe and the USA and brought the West close to economic disaster).

Gaza and Ukraine will be the graveyard of the Wester-led world “order”

In such a situation, this Western elite will find any lie acceptable, if it can postpone for some time the fall of the existing world order centered around the West. This is precisely what is at stake for this elite: the survival of the long Western domination over world affairs that has lasted five centuries and that is now inexorably coming to an end.