It's simple reciprocation from game-theory perspective: when the other party lies and gains advantage, you do it too. But I feel Republicans are way more untruthful than the Democrats and simply bring down the level of discussion for everyone.

And I don't know why is it, that majority of Americans are so accustomed to lying that they tolerate it from politicians. In Finland if politicians get caught with outright lying, it's career-ending if it's bad enough. Prime ministers have resigned over it, party leaders seen their polls slump. In US if Republicans are caught lying (Democrats too I guess to lesser extent), it's a simple distraction and meh from public. Their supporters don't simply care and I guess are not capable of criticizing their own party.

I've been recently thinking that what US has now isn't that far stretch from a single-party system since the parties in power don't really have to fear losing their support. There are no other options, so they can just pass the ball between each other, putting up a show and doing whatever since people can't really choose anything else. If your only option is picking between two assholes, which one you pick? And when the population doesn't know to demand change, what will happen? Nothing.

Yes there are advantages with two-party system, but what I see it has really rotted the political discussion and ideologies into two boxes that can't possibly overlap. In multi-party systems coalition governments can be bit sluggish but at least they offer people a real opportunity for change, and letting go of the old, obsolete power structures. For a country that is so keen on free-market and unrestricted competition, you are awfully restricted in your choice of political parties.

I know Trump is in a world of his own, but most often the “lies” are not lies to the speaker or the speaker’s fans. For example Obama’s “if you like your plan you can keep it” regarding Obamacare. It turned out not to be 100% true. To Democrats he was well-intentioned and over-optimistic and couldn’t deliver his promise (probably due to Republican obstructionism) while Republicans had always considered that a lie.

If 50% of the country believes something is a lie and 50% believe it’s mostly true, is it really a lie? The truth is most political “lies” are only considered lies by the opposite party.

From what I heard about Obamacare it seemed a quite crappy deal indeed, and not really criticized properly by the Democrats. It's sad that either party can't acknowledge their own errors and have to just tout their own version of reality to make it true for their supporters.

And about lying, there are degrees of lying that can be established. The earth is not flat even though some believe it to be so, to state the opposite is untrue. On the other hand, sure you could say eg that Americans have obesity problem (compared to the rest of the world) or they are just normal weight as "only" 1/3 of the population is overweight. But which is a truth or a lie?

I think the problem is largely a cultural shift in politics where the issues have become secondary to the rhetorical war between the two opposite ideologies. It's not about establishing a truth in a sense than it's trying to beat the other party. Yet there is a consensus that can be established, honesty that could be had when stating facts and acknowledging their up and downsides. It's not just black and white wordplay.

Perhaps we should just get rid of the politicians, have our best scientists (preferably chosen at random from a pool of candidates) run the government and people would just vote on things that they wished to improve (immigration, job-safety, healthcare etc). All results would be evaluated afterwards and their effects measured with meticulous statistics. I know that it could be abused too, but even that would be better than what is the current situation in US government.

Obamacare was hardly what Obama or the Democratic party wanted originally. They arrived on the final system only after two or three years of negotiation in Congress and intense corporate propaganda towards the American public regarding health insurance. I've only seen PR and advertising of that level previously during elections. So of course it wasn't perfect... It was very much a compromise with the powerful and well-funded healthcare industry.

The problem with the political culture in Washington isn't the rhetorical war. It's politicians obsession with being reelected. The culture is that no indignity is beneath you if it's for the sake of reelection. Lindsey Graham was once known alongside John McCain as being a RINO by partisans, 'Republican in name only'. Now he acts like Trump's dog on 99& of issues.

The reason? So he can be more influential on that 1% of issues he cares most about. If he doesn't get influence on that 1% (like we saw with Syria) then he breaks with Trump, because he has a bottom line: the set of issues he wants to influence. This is true for all politicians. They have a political calculus where they are willing to sacrifice legislation or points in certain areas for the sake of being able to affect legislation in most other areas. Functionally this means that politicians do things like accept big campaign donations in exchange for going easy on a certain sector. I believe most politicians want to do what they think is best for America, but that comes with a single constraint--that they're the ones accomplishing it. And that comes with a hefty cost.

I have a hard time believing Obama truly believed a plan could be kept. Given how it works, I just can't imagine how you could reform healthcare in any meaningful way without outright terminating some of the plans as they existed. I don't have a particular problem with it. Which is probably true for most -- they care more if their leader is acting ethically and trying to do the right thing, than how (pedantically) honest they are being. If Trump lied "I support Confederate statues" to get elected, and then led an effort to tear them down, I doubt history would have any issue with his lies.

> "Given how it works, I just can't imagine how you could reform healthcare in any meaningful way without outright terminating some of the plans as they existed."

I'm just spitballing here but... grandfather in all existing medical insurance contracts unless the individual chooses to terminate the contract. Let the insurance industry bank on the fact that the number of grandfathered contracts will only trend down over time.

Maybe it would hurt their profit margins, but how much hurt? Probably not enough hurt to knock down the industry is my guess.

America is huge, it has to rely on the states to fight back.