The Project on Ethics in Political Communication sends regular notes - roughly weekly, more or less - with what we’re reading and what we’re watching for. Sign up to receive these updates in your email inbox.
April 23, 2024
What We’re Reading
Violent Rhetoric and Political Violence
A 2018 Politico headline summed it up well: Yes, Political Rhetoric Can Incite Violence. The piece’s author, Prof. Nathan P. Kalmoe of Louisiana State University cited a study in which he found “…mild violent metaphors multiply support for political violence among aggressive citizens, especially among young adults.” Other studies have come to similar conclusions that in some cases violent political rhetoric can lead to political violence.
US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) recently encouraged people to “take matters into their own hands” when confronting pro- Palestine protesters. In Arizona, Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake said supporters should “strap on a Glock.” And of course former President Trump has a long history of violent rhetoric.
In calmer political times it might not matter. Politicians have long used violent imagery to make their case. But we are not in calm political times. That Civil War, the dystopian movie about America’s immediate political future, led the box office its opening weekend says it all.
There are real and serious disagreements about important issues. Candidates, elected officials and pundits need to find ways to talk about their differences on these issues without promoting violence.
What We’re Watching
Will Governing be Punished?
At the end of last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) worked with Republicans and Democrats to advance several important bills. The legislation is now in the Democratic controlled US Senate, where it will likely pass. President Biden will then sign the package into law. One of the bills, aid to help Ukraine fight Putin’s invasion, passed 311-112. All 112 of the ‘no’ votes were Republicans, as were 101 of the yes votes. The bill passed with a minority of the majority.
In other words, Speaker Johnson governed. Politics, as they say, is the art of the possible. Given Democratic control of the Senate and White House, and a deeply divided Republican conference, the Speaker was never going to get everything he wanted. His options were to get what he could get and promote US national security and the security of our allies, or he could get nothing thereby weakening national security and hurting our allies. The Speaker chose the former, he did the possible.
As a result, he may lose his job. US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told Fox that “Mike Johnson’s Speakership is over.” She and her supporters would rather make a point than make policy. For them, the art of the possible comes second to partisan purity. We are watching to see if Rep. Greene and her allies will punish the Speaker for doing his job when Congress returns from its latest break.
April 16, 2024
What We’re Reading
Media Coverage of Political Violence
Peaceful protest and voting are important ways in which Americans participate in the political process. Violent protest and electoral violence have also been with us from the start - the US was founded after a revolution, violence isn’t new here. Political violence is also newsworthy. It is out of the norm, and makes for much better visuals than people calmly talking around a table or quietly waiting in line to vote.
A challenge is that media coverage of political violence can normalize it. News media and pop culture can help determine what is socially acceptable. Some research finds that if news media cover civic or electoral violence as outside of the norm, viewers may see it as atypical. But when the coverage treats the violence as normal or expected, it may become normal and acceptable.
Reports of support for political violence may be overstated, but there is a deep academic literature on media normalizing far right, populist messages. The research on media effects on violence is mixed, but some research concludes “…the average overall size of the effect is large enough to place it in the category of known threats to public health.” How media portray violence certainly worth paying attention to.
Pop culture has helped normalize designated drivers, and a lot of people have written about the impact of the television series Will & Grace on public attitudes toward homosexuality. The logic of pop culture making something normal also applies to electoral violence. For example, Kristen Grimm, founder of Spitfire Strategies, recently wrote “…we want to de-normalize violence in civic spaces. This movie [Civil War] might do the exact opposite.”
The challenge for news organizations is how to cover civic violence responsibly, without exacerbating that violence.
What We’re Watching
Trump Trials
Of course we’re watching the Trump trials. They are important politically and socially, and they make great drama. In addition to the political theater and speculation about the impact on Trump’s electoral chances, we’re watching to see if the media coverage reinforces or undermines democratic norms.
Making the trials grand theater, about Trump raising money and selling t-shirts, might make for good ratings, but it probably makes for bad democratic discourse. The media have a chance to reinforce and strengthen democratic norms in their coverage of the Trump trials. They can also blow it, and prove to the American people that good ratings matter more than democratic ideals. We’re watching and hoping for the former.
April 9, 2024
What We’re Reading
Semi Partisan Media
The Courier news organization is back in the press. The outlet “is a pro-democracy news network that builds a more informed, engaged, and representative America by reaching audiences where they are online with factual, values-driven news and analysis.” The company has 10 local outlets, with an 11th on the way. The outlets focus on local news and have a liberal perspective. For example, the Cardinal and Pine - “North Carolina News You Can Use” - has headlines praising Biden administration accomplishments and criticizing “far right groups." It also has features on NC State basketball and the best bowling alley in North Carolina.
Local news needs all the help it can get. Local news is good for democracy, and also in a lot of trouble. Anything that helps local news seems like a good idea.
But.
Notus, which is run by the Allbittron Journalism Institute, writes that “key facts about Cardinal & Pine and its parent company, Courier Newsroom, go undisclosed. Courier does not disclose that the newsroom is run primarily by former Democratic operatives…It has received funding from groups like the pro-abortion rights Planned Parenthood, which gave $250,000 to Courier Newsroom between June 2021 and June 2022, the year it was promoting content about what the election means for abortion access.” The Courier doesn’t hide its bias, but it also doesn’t fully disclose its funding and politics.
As Notus notes, the outlet “is testing the limits of what a newsroom can be.”
What We’re Watching
Incentives
One of my go-to lines when talking about politics is that people behave their incentives. If scaring the bejeebers out of people raises more money than less alarming ways, then campaigns will send emails that say the world will end at midnight unless you send them $7. If primary voters, who decide a lot of elections, punish elected officials for working across the aisle, then elected officials will be less likely to work across the aisle.
The question, then, is what incentives candidates and elected officials have to behave ethically.
This Friday I will be talking to US Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-WA) about the incentives to be ethical. I have also asked half a dozen others active in politics to offer their written perspectives. You can register for Friday’s conversation here, and I will share the complete packet next week.
April 2, 2024
What We’re Reading
Rhetoric and the State of Congress
Last week the Congressional Management Foundation released its State of Congress 2024 report. Congress, it will come as no surprise to anyone, is broken.
According to the report, two thirds of Democratic staffers and three quarters of Republicans, frequently get "direct insulting or threatening messages or communications." Getting marched on and shouted at comes with the job in politics. Like many who have served in senior staff positions in Congress, I’ve gotten death threats and hate mail. But those numbers have gone way up in recent years. In 2016 the US Capitol Police investigated 902 threatening messages, according to The Hill. In 2017, one year later and a year into Trump’s first term, the US Capitol Police reported nearly 4,000 threats. In 2023, that number is down to 8,000 from its 2021 high of nearly 10,000. In 2016 the US Capitol Police investigated 902 threats. In 2021 the number was 9,625. In 2023, the number was 8,008.
The threats usually come from the outside. But the awful rhetoric too often comes from Congress itself. More than four in ten Republican staffers, and half of Democrats, said the are "considering leaving Congress due to heated rhetoric from the other party.” More alarmingly, three in five Republican staff “are considering leaving Congress due to ‘heated rhetoric from my party.’” The same is true for 16% of Democrats.
More Republican staff say that they are considering leaving their jobs because of what fellow Republicans say than because of what Democrats say.
Over the top partisan political rhetoric, especially on the political right, encourages similar rhetoric from outside the halls of Congress. That rhetoric encourages threats to the lives of elected officials and their staffs. That rhetoric is driving staff - especially Republican staff - out of public service. Rhetoric has consequences for lives, livelihoods, and our democracy.
(As a matter of full disclosure, I have given a couple of management training talks for the Congressional Management Foundation).
What We’re Watching
Campaign Money
The first quarter of 2024 is officially over. Candidate and campaign reports for the first quarter are due on April 15 (y’up, the Ides of March). Over the next two weeks we will be watching to see who is funding whom. We will also be be watching to see who is using the reports to score political points. Political money as, and as tool of, political speech can have a lot to say.
March 27, 2024
Save the date
Incentives for Politicians and Elected Officials to be Ethical
An interview with US Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-WA), former co-chair Congressional Modernization Committee
Friday, April 12
8:30 - 9:00am
Zoom
Details and registration here
What We’re Reading
AI Continued
AI continues to grab political headlines. Punchbowl News, a must-read daily email for Congress watchers, just launched AI Impact. The biweekly series includes a podcast and will touch on a range of issues. Yesterday Politico published its own analysis of AI with two stories - one on policy and one on a “little known AI group that got $660 million.” Last night I moderated a conversation on AI and campaigns with a leading Republican and Democratic consultant and a student in my political communications ethics course. I’m confident that more big think AI pieces will be published between the time when I hit ‘send’ on this missive and when you read it.
The more I learn about predictive and generative AI, and the more I talk to campaign professionals about how they are using it, the more convinced I am that the new questions AI raises are really very old questions. AI is very good at very quickly figuring out what people want to hear, and then giving them something that sounds compelling regardless of whether or not it is true or good. The former is rooted in Aristotle, and the latter is basically Plato’s critique of the sophists. Like everyone else, I’m trying to keep up with AI news and developments. And as I read the latest, Plato’s Phaedrus is never far out of reach.
What We’re Watching
NBC, McDaniel and the Political Entertainment Complex
As Politico pointed out this morning, former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel’s brief stint at NBC paid her about $500 every second she was on air. The network rightly got slammed - often by its own on air talent - for hiring a political operative whose last gig included trying to invalidate a democratic election. I understand NBC’s logic. McDaniel might have attracted new viewers and could have helped pay the bills, something media outlets are struggling to do. But politics as entertainment by other means diminishes both politics and entertainment. Smart and engaging analysis doesn’t have to be done by political celebrities looking for a platform and steady paid speaking gigs. I know plenty of smart political analysts who can turn a clever phrase and look good on TV.
We are watching to see if more media outlets (not just broadcast) refuse to pay people who tried to subvert democracy. We are also watching to see if they bring on more political scientists, communication scholars or ethicists (you know how to reach me).
March 11, 2024
What We’re Reading
AI and Election Information
While much of the public attention on AI in politics is focused on candidates, Politico is reporting on threats to elections themselves. It is relatively easy to generate fake emails, calls or videos about elections (as the Biden campaign learned in New Hampshire). Voters who may be skeptical of digital or TV ads might not apply the same level of skepticism to messages that seem to come from trusted election sources. The results can include people trying to vote on the wrong day, at the wrong place, or not voting at all.
Such attempts aren’t new - automated phone calls (“robocalls”), phone banks and even direct mail lying about changes to election day, rules, or polling locations have been with us for a while. But AI puts these efforts into overdrive. As Politico wrote:
Election officials say they’re already used to battling misinformation…Fontes, the Arizona secretary of state, recalls a colleague calling AI “the same poison, it’s just in a different bottle.” But Fontes amends that: “I would say it’s the same poison, but this is a swimming pool.”
As I have argued elsewhere, the new threats posed by generative AI are really old threats but much, much more so.
In addition to the obvious threat of people acting on incorrect information or lies, AI enhanced election meddling can further decrease public trust across the board. Democracy cannot survive without a basic level of public trust. If voters aren’t sure they can believe anything they hear about politics, regardless of source or topic, then they might believe anything at all. If elections can’t be trusted, then why bother with democracy?
What We’re Watching
National League of Cities Meeting
The National League of Cities meets this week in Washington, DC. Cities remain one of the most politically productive, and least rhetorically destructive, political venues. Mayors have to solve problems their voters face every day - potholes, garbage, schools. Cities are also increasingly caught in national partisan battles over immigration, crime, minimum wage, and more. We will be watching to see if the public comments coming out of the meeting reinforce problem solving, or if those on whom we count to make our communities work get caught in national political theater.
Save the dates
Upcoming Events
Ethics in Political Communication: Navigating a Shifting Landscape From Digital Outreach to AI
Tuesday, March 26, 6:00 - 7:00pm
Streaming and limited live seating
Details and registration here
Sponsored by the The School of Media and Public Affairs and Campaigns & Elections
Incentives for Politicians and Elected Officials to be Ethical
With US Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-WA)
Friday, April 12, 8:30 - 9:00am
Zoom
Details and registration here
March 5, 2024
What We’re Reading
Civil Religion
March 5th is the anniversary of both the Boston Massacre and Stalin’s death. It is also Super Tuesday, which former President Trump and President Biden are likely to dominate. Do with that coincidence what you will. This Thursday the 7th is also President Biden’s State of the Union address, and Congress is likely to avoid a March 8th partial government shutdown - maybe.
All of which bring to mind the idea of “civil religion.” Popularized by Robert Bellah in a 1967 article in Daedalus, civil religion can be defined as the “collective effort to understand the American experience of self-government in light of higher truths and through reference to a shared heritage of beliefs, stories, ideas, symbols, and events.” (Carlson, 2017) Civil religion is a story about who we are as a nation or people. It’s a story we tell to others, and to ourselves, about who we are. It gives meaning to our political existence, something to which we can refer to know our political behavior is good or just.
The idea has a rich history that goes well beyond a few hundred words here - Philip Gorski’s American Covenant is a good overview.
What We’re Watching
Victory, Concession, and State of the Union Addresses
This will be a good week for fans of political speeches. Tuesday will bring victory and concession speeches from the campaign trail (not just presidential - keep on eye on California House and Senate races for example). Thursday is President Biden’s State of the Union Address.
I have argued elsewhere that a humble civil religion is a good grounding for American political rhetoric (and here and here). I hope that the Super Tuesday speeches and the State of the Union (and its response) on Thursday reinforce rather than undermine our shared national ideals. If “the people” are rhetorically constructed, if a nation is its story of itself, then those in politics have an obligation to tell a story that moves us toward our democratic ideals.
March 1, 2024
What We’re Reading
Sociopaths and Ethics
Last weekend, the New York Times ran an interview with a sociopath named Patric Gange. She told the interviewer, “I choose to follow those rules because I understand the benefits of this world...That is different from people who follow the rules because they have to, they should, they want to be a good person.” She asked why it should matter her motives for doing the right thing, as long as she does it.
It can be easy to say that we want our politicians and advocates to be good people (or at least reasonably good people). We want them to believe in democratic ideals and a moral arc that bends toward justice. We also want them to do good things - support individual rights and not promote political violence. But if the point is the action, why do motives matter? Is a well behaved sociopath preferable to an ill-behaved true believer?
What We’re Watching
Next week. All of it.
The next seven days will be quite the adventure in American politics. Tuesday March 5th is the anniversary of the Boston Massacre and “Super Tuesday.” Thursday the 7th is the State of the Union Address. And, if all goes to plan, Friday the 8th is the next budget deadline. Each will roll into the next, and the political pressure will build along the way.
We’re watching for how candidates respond to Tuesday, how both the President and Republican Representatives behave on Thursday, and what it all means for next Friday. It’s going to be quite the week.
February 20, 2024
What We’re Reading
Comms Case Study - Juul
Stat, a leading outlet covering the FDA, biopharma, health care and related issues, recently ran a piece on Juul’s efforts to win policymaker support. The piece is similar to one that ran in the Washington Post a couple years ago on Meta/Facebook’s attempt to curry favor in Washington.
The articles are glimpses into a world that many outside of DC rarely see, but a world that pays the bills for a lot of people in Washington (including me for more than a decade). These are what well-funded, well-organized advocacy campaigns look like. They try to set the agenda, shape how issues are defined and covered, and enlist a wide range of strategic messengers. Direct lobbying - hired advocates talking to lawmakers and staff - is part of the process. But only a part. The process includes federal rulemaking, earned media, grassroots and grass tops organizing, and more. Most of the money that goes into these campaigns is difficult, if not impossible, to trace and most of what they do is legal.
But legal isn’t always ethical. Which issues to which policymakers pay attention, how those issues are defined, and what results from those definitions all matter - in part because of what is not on the agenda, what is not talked about, and what it therefore left undone.
What We’re Watching
FEC Filings
The Federal Elections Commission has several important filing deadlines in the next several weeks. We will be watching to see which candidates and committees report who is donating to whom. You can’t tell everything about a campaign from FEC reports, but you can tell a lot.
February 8, 2024
What We’re Reading
Machiavelli
It is easy to read the last decade in American politics as a case study of Niccolo Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy.
More people talk about Machiavelli than have read his work, and most who have read his work did so because they were assigned The Prince in college. His lesser known, and arguably more important, Discourses is worth revisiting (or at least John McCormick’s 2001 American Political Science Review piece “Machiavellian Democracy: Controlling Elites with Ferocious Populism” is worth reading). McCormick argues that Machiavelli offers “a theory of democracy in which the populace selects the elites who will hold office but also constantly patrols them through extraelectoral institutions and practices, such as the tribunes of the people, public accusations, and popular appeals.”
In McCormick’s analysis, elites inevitably self-deal. A good republic is structured in such a way as to keep those elites in check and churning. That means elections, but also that the “people should despise and mistrust elites, and they should actively confront the injustice that elite governing inevitably entails.”
The question on the table for the Project on Ethics in Political Communication is “what, if any, ethical obligation do those in political communication have and to whom or what do they have them?” What if the answer is “none” - that the only obligation we have is to keep elites in check so they don’t completely wreck everything?
What We’re Watching
Immigration Reform Politics
A bipartisan immigration bill is failing in the US Senate as I type this. There are broadly speaking three reasons to oppose the bill: It’s too liberal, it’s too conservative, and it would help Biden in the fall. There are legislators in the first two camps - and a whole lot in the third.
The situation at the US - Mexico border is a mess that voters increasingly view as a crisis. One of the reasons we have a government is to clean up messes and resolve crises like this. The kinds of solutions the government comes up with depends on who is in power, so it is not surprising (or even necessarily always a bad thing) for partisans to put off solving a problem until the politics are more favorable for their side.
But policies can get lost in the politics - the politics can become an end in itself. When politics, gaming crises for electoral advantage, become the point people can get hurt. This is one such case. Among many other things, the situation along the US - Mexico border is a humanitarian crisis.
Ethical political communication advances causes or candidates that can do whatever your definition of good is. But at some point you have to do something, there is a time to stop campaigning and start governing.
We are watching to see if we’ve reached that point on immigration. We’re skeptical.
January 30, 2024
What We’re Reading
AI Ethics in Comms
Generative artificial intelligence - tools from companies like OpenAI, Google and others - is one of the many things that has candidates and election observers on edge this year. Advocates and observers have been failing to agree on a code of ethics for AI since at least 2018. Since GPT-3 exploded just over a year ago, a lot more people have tried.
The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) is one of the many organizations suggesting rules for the ethical uses of AI in public relations and political communication. Several weeks ago, the PR ethics podcast Ethical Voices talked to two PRSA national leaders about the standards. In the political world, the American Association of Political Consultants issued a statement condemning the use of AI in political ads last spring.
The list of organizations making statements on the broader issue of AI includes private companies, interest groups, and everyone else from the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to the United Nations. Do an online search for AI ethics and you get an alarmingly long list (better yet, ask OpenAI or Bard - each summarizes the lists reasonably well).
What We’re Watching
Regulating AI in Politics
Codes of ethics are important, but without enforcement mechanisms or other incentives to follow the rules, they have limited power.
Various government agencies at various levels are trying to regulate the rapidly changing tool. The New York Times recently highlighted some state efforts. According to the Washington Post, the Federal Elections Commission is scheduled to weigh in by early summer.
AI goes far beyond political campaigns of course. The White House issued an executive order in November, there is a House Artificial Intelligence Caucus, and legislation is stacked like planes at La Guardia on an August afternoon. The Brennan Center has a helpful tracker for federal legislation and the National Council of State Legislatures has a state tracker. The Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP) offers a good global view and provides regular updates on AI.
As federal and state legislatures and regulators dive into a busy spring, we are watching to see what - if anything - they do about AI.
January 23, 2024
What We’re Reading
Consequentialism and Deontology
Two popular approaches to ethics are consequentialism and deontology. Consequentialism is a version of utilitarianism, which says the right thing to do is whatever provides the greatest good for the greatest number (think the trolley car problem, brilliantly explained on The Good Place). Consequentialism, as the name implies, says people should consider the consequences of their actions in deciding the most ethical path. Deontology (also brilliantly explained by The Good Place) says you should do the right thing, no matter the consequences. For Kant, that meant going so far as to let someone into the house who wanted to murder your brother who is hiding upstairs, because lying about whether or not your brother is home - even to someone who wants to kill him - is wrong.
When we argue about what candidates or campaign, courts or regulators, should do, we are often arguing about the difference between balancing possible outcomes and an absolute standard for action. Is a little bad now OK to prevent worse later? We can mostly agree that the perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of the good, but should the worse be the enemy of the bad?
How we view ethics, and how committed we are to our principles, should inform our actions.
What We’re Watching
Democrats in Republican Primaries
Punchbowl News flagged that the Pennsylvania Democratic Party is running an ad attacking a Republican primary candidate for not being close enough to Donald Trump. As Punchbowl put it, “The ad aims to create discord among the GOP base and stir up negative feelings toward [Republican candidate David] McCormick.”
This is not a new tactic. Democrats promoted Trump-aligned candidates in a number Republican primary races in 2022. Former US Senator Claire McCaskill bragged about spending $1.7 million to support a Republican primary candidate who she (correctly) thought she could beat in the general election.
Today’s Punchbowl News notes that some House Freedom Caucus members are supporting primary challengers to incumbent Republicans. These races could be places where Democrats pour more money and resources, hoping to drive wedges in the Republican electorate and nominate candidates who would easier to beat in a general election.
Such tactics may work - a high risk/high reward approach - but they raise ethical questions. Is it OK to meddle in another political party’s primary for your own electoral advantage? Does promoting ideas a political party finds reprehensible increase the reach of those ideas even if it hurt candidates? Is that inherently unethical, ethically gray, or just how the game is played? The answer may depend on how you feel about this week’s readings.
We’re watching to see what Democrats - and voters - do next.
January 16, 2024
What We’re Reading
Building Trust
Spitfire Strategies has a new report out on building trust. The report is aimed at civil society leaders, and comes from a progressive firm, but is worth checking out regardless of your politics or position. The report is also the subject of a piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and the authors wrote about it for the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
The report is in the form of a workbook you can use with your organization. Not all the areas may fit your circumstance or politics, or make sense in your context, but odds are good parts of it will hit home and be helpful. The authors offer three pieces of advice: walk your talk; put your best foot forward; and don’t step in it.
As a matter of full disclosure, I’m one of the many who read early drafts of the report
What We’re Watching
State of the States
This is State of the State address season. Governors typically use these occasions to make the case for themselves and their state. These addresses are also an opportunity to promote democratic values and norms.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) opened his Jan. 11 address with the fall elections and made a case for Georgia’s success in contrast to Washington’s failure. His speech also highlighted bipartisan policy work in Georgia (in contrast to Washington) and focused on shared ideals. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) on the other hand opened his State of the State address by attacking President Biden by name and essentially delivering a presidential campaign address. Others, like New Jersey Democratic Governor Phil Murphy’s address delivered a more traditional mix of “we’re great” speeches that highlight issues favored by the governor’s party - partisan without poison - and that call out local leaders by name.
We’re watching to see how many governors follow Gov. Kemp’s lead and use the State of the State address as an opportunity both to brag about their success, and also to reinforce democratic norms and values.
