Andrew Weissmann in his book, Liar’s Kingdom, argues that existing law is inadequate to deal with candidates and elected officials who knowingly make false statements of fact in order to obtain or retain political power. He proposes legal reforms intended to address that problem.
His concern is legitimate. Deliberate falsehoods about verifiable facts can threaten the integrity of democratic government.
The Problem Is Real
Politics has never been a genteel profession. The Framers of the Constitution understood that political campaigns would involve exaggeration, personal attacks, partisan arguments, and occasional falsehoods. But at the time the Constitution was adopted, politicians could lie only as fast and as far as existing methods of communication would allow. Falsehoods spread slowly in newspapers, pamphlets, and speeches to audiences who were physically present.
The Internet changed that forever. Today a false statement can be transmitted around the world in seconds. It can be repeated thousands of times without attribution. It can be amplified by algorithms to maximize engagement rather than accuracy. It can reach millions of people before any effort is made to verify whether it is true.
The scale of the problem would have been unimaginable to the generation that drafted the First Amendment. The American tradition of free speech and freedom of the press developed in a very different communications environment.
The Return of the Big Lie
The “Big Lie” became one of the defining techniques of Nazi propaganda, helping bring Adolf Hitler to power and contributing to the conditions that ultimately produced the Holocaust.
Anyone can lie about anything and have that lie amplified, targeted, and distributed to millions of people at virtually no cost.
Today the Big Lie does not require a government ministry of propaganda. It does not require a newspaper empire. It does not require a radio network. It only requires a temporary Internet connection.
Why Laws Directed at Candidates May Not Work
Even if Congress enacts the legislation Professor Weissmann suggests making it unlawful for candidates to knowingly make false statements about verifiable facts, political consultants, political action committees, campaign surrogates, Internet influencers, anonymous contributors to social media, and foreign actors would make the statements for them. The lie would continue to circulate while the candidate maintained plausible deniability.
Legislation directed solely at lying by candidates and elected officials could encourage even more lying by unofficial surrogates and anonymous sources. The lie would survive. Only the identity of the liar would change.
Edward Bernays Is Alive and Well
Long before the Internet, public-relations pioneer Edward Bernays demonstrated that public opinion could be engineered because most people do not carefully investigate political, economic, or social issues for themselves. They rely upon trusted intermediaries, emotional appeals, repetition, and social pressure.
Public opinion, Bernays argued, could be shaped and directed by those who understood the mechanics of mass communication.
His techniques were originally developed for advertising, public relations, and political persuasion and proved remarkably effective. Similar methods were later adopted by propagandists throughout the twentieth century, including the architects of Nazi propaganda in Germany.
The Internet has transformed Bernays’ methods into a tool available to virtually anyone who can obtain even a temporary Internet connection.
Influence campaigns can be conducted by political organizations, corporations, advocacy groups, foreign governments, intelligence services, and even private individuals. Social-media platforms provide immediate access to millions of people. Algorithms identify receptive audiences. Artificial intelligence can generate targeted content in unlimited quantities.
Bernays demonstrated that public opinion could be managed.
Modern technology has made it possible to industrialize the process.
The Real Battlefield
The fundamental problem is no longer individual politicians who lie. It is the information ecosystem surrounding modern politics which facilitates lying by political surrogates and anonymous actors.
Millions of Americans now receive political information through Internet-based media that have little or no editorial oversight. Anonymous accounts can spread fabricated stories. Artificial-intelligence-generated content can be presented as authentic reporting. Foreign intelligence services can masquerade as ordinary citizens. Coordinated influence campaigns can operate behind layers of anonymity that make identification almost impossible.
The result is a political environment in which falsehood enjoys structural advantages that truth does not.
Truth requires evidence and verification based upon investigation. A lie requires only an Internet connection.
The Unfinished Debate
The Internet has created a communications environment in which political falsehoods can be manufactured, replicated, amplified, and distributed on a scale unprecedented in human history.
Professor Weissmann’s book is best understood not as the solution to the problem, but as the beginning of a much larger discussion.
Even if Congress enacted the legislation Professor Weissmann proposes, the lies would continue to circulate and multiply. The problem today is not simply that candidates and elected officials may lie about verifiable facts. The problem is that modern communications technology allows armies of surrogates, anonymous actors, foreign influence campaigns, and artificial-intelligence systems to manufacture, amplify, and distribute falsehoods on an industrial scale.
Professor Weissmann has performed an important public service by forcing Americans to confront the danger posed by deliberate political falsehoods. His book deserves to be widely read and seriously discussed.
But the challenge facing democratic government is even larger than the one he describes.
The Internet has fundamentally changed the economics of deception. Falsehood can now be manufactured, replicated, amplified, and distributed on an industrial scale by networks of actors operating entirely outside the formal political process.
That reality demands more than a broader national conversation. It demands action.
Lawyers, legislators, journalists, educators, technology companies, and citizens must begin confronting a question that did not exist when the First Amendment was written and did not exist when modern free-speech doctrine developed:
How does a democratic society preserve freedom of speech when technology has made the mass production of falsehood cheaper, faster, and more effective than the dissemination of truth?
Democracies have survived dishonest politicians before.
What no democracy has ever faced is an information system capable of manufacturing and distributing falsehood on an industrial scale.
That is the problem America must solve.
Liar’s Kingdom and the Industrialization of Falsehood
June 19, 2026 | Propaganda and Persuasion
Andrew Weissmann in his book, Liar’s Kingdom, argues that existing law is inadequate to deal with candidates and elected officials who knowingly make false statements of fact in order to obtain or retain political power. He proposes legal reforms intended to address that problem.
His concern is legitimate. Deliberate falsehoods about verifiable facts can threaten the integrity of democratic government.
The Problem Is Real
Politics has never been a genteel profession. The Framers of the Constitution understood that political campaigns would involve exaggeration, personal attacks, partisan arguments, and occasional falsehoods. But at the time the Constitution was adopted, politicians could lie only as fast and as far as existing methods of communication would allow. Falsehoods spread slowly in newspapers, pamphlets, and speeches to audiences who were physically present.
The Internet changed that forever. Today a false statement can be transmitted around the world in seconds. It can be repeated thousands of times without attribution. It can be amplified by algorithms to maximize engagement rather than accuracy. It can reach millions of people before any effort is made to verify whether it is true.
The scale of the problem would have been unimaginable to the generation that drafted the First Amendment. The American tradition of free speech and freedom of the press developed in a very different communications environment.
The Return of the Big Lie
The “Big Lie” became one of the defining techniques of Nazi propaganda, helping bring Adolf Hitler to power and contributing to the conditions that ultimately produced the Holocaust.
Anyone can lie about anything and have that lie amplified, targeted, and distributed to millions of people at virtually no cost.
Today the Big Lie does not require a government ministry of propaganda. It does not require a newspaper empire. It does not require a radio network. It only requires a temporary Internet connection.
Why Laws Directed at Candidates May Not Work
Even if Congress enacts the legislation Professor Weissmann suggests making it unlawful for candidates to knowingly make false statements about verifiable facts, political consultants, political action committees, campaign surrogates, Internet influencers, anonymous contributors to social media, and foreign actors would make the statements for them. The lie would continue to circulate while the candidate maintained plausible deniability.
Legislation directed solely at lying by candidates and elected officials could encourage even more lying by unofficial surrogates and anonymous sources. The lie would survive. Only the identity of the liar would change.
Edward Bernays Is Alive and Well
Long before the Internet, public-relations pioneer Edward Bernays demonstrated that public opinion could be engineered because most people do not carefully investigate political, economic, or social issues for themselves. They rely upon trusted intermediaries, emotional appeals, repetition, and social pressure.
Public opinion, Bernays argued, could be shaped and directed by those who understood the mechanics of mass communication.
His techniques were originally developed for advertising, public relations, and political persuasion and proved remarkably effective. Similar methods were later adopted by propagandists throughout the twentieth century, including the architects of Nazi propaganda in Germany.
The Internet has transformed Bernays’ methods into a tool available to virtually anyone who can obtain even a temporary Internet connection.
Influence campaigns can be conducted by political organizations, corporations, advocacy groups, foreign governments, intelligence services, and even private individuals. Social-media platforms provide immediate access to millions of people. Algorithms identify receptive audiences. Artificial intelligence can generate targeted content in unlimited quantities.
Bernays demonstrated that public opinion could be managed.
Modern technology has made it possible to industrialize the process.
The Real Battlefield
The fundamental problem is no longer individual politicians who lie. It is the information ecosystem surrounding modern politics which facilitates lying by political surrogates and anonymous actors.
Millions of Americans now receive political information through Internet-based media that have little or no editorial oversight. Anonymous accounts can spread fabricated stories. Artificial-intelligence-generated content can be presented as authentic reporting. Foreign intelligence services can masquerade as ordinary citizens. Coordinated influence campaigns can operate behind layers of anonymity that make identification almost impossible.
The result is a political environment in which falsehood enjoys structural advantages that truth does not.
Truth requires evidence and verification based upon investigation. A lie requires only an Internet connection.
The Unfinished Debate
The Internet has created a communications environment in which political falsehoods can be manufactured, replicated, amplified, and distributed on a scale unprecedented in human history.
Professor Weissmann’s book is best understood not as the solution to the problem, but as the beginning of a much larger discussion.
Even if Congress enacted the legislation Professor Weissmann proposes, the lies would continue to circulate and multiply. The problem today is not simply that candidates and elected officials may lie about verifiable facts. The problem is that modern communications technology allows armies of surrogates, anonymous actors, foreign influence campaigns, and artificial-intelligence systems to manufacture, amplify, and distribute falsehoods on an industrial scale.
Professor Weissmann has performed an important public service by forcing Americans to confront the danger posed by deliberate political falsehoods. His book deserves to be widely read and seriously discussed.
But the challenge facing democratic government is even larger than the one he describes.
The Internet has fundamentally changed the economics of deception. Falsehood can now be manufactured, replicated, amplified, and distributed on an industrial scale by networks of actors operating entirely outside the formal political process.
That reality demands more than a broader national conversation. It demands action.
Lawyers, legislators, journalists, educators, technology companies, and citizens must begin confronting a question that did not exist when the First Amendment was written and did not exist when modern free-speech doctrine developed:
How does a democratic society preserve freedom of speech when technology has made the mass production of falsehood cheaper, faster, and more effective than the dissemination of truth?
Democracies have survived dishonest politicians before.
What no democracy has ever faced is an information system capable of manufacturing and distributing falsehood on an industrial scale.
That is the problem America must solve.