Timely and likely to make an impact on the election in November. Details how lies and misinformation are used to manipulate voters.

Carefully structured, this book is a thorough review of harmful, political lies.

It immediately made me curious. Everyone knows that politicians have been stretching the truth for some time. Yet, with the internet, it’s more prominent and the lies are starting to get blurry. While the book reveals that both sides lie, the data shows that the Republicans do it more.

I had no idea that there was a site that takes a look at what has been said and marks it as the truth, a false statement or somewhere in between. Since 2007, Journalist, Bill Adair has tracked lies from politicians and created PolitiFact that marks what is accurate. It’s a great resource for everyone that tries to keep honesty at the top of the bar.

Four years ago, Adair decided it was time to write this book to share results from years of research. It’s well written as he outlines the patterns of lying, the types of lies and briefly takes a look at presidents who have gone down in history with false statements. Johnson lied about the Vietnam war, Nixon resigned because of the Watergate lie, Clinton had a relationship with an intern, Trump tried to convince people Obama was born in Kenya. And, now there are many more lies in all forms.

This book makes you think about how truth matters in this digital age with information that travels quickly. We need politicians to be accountable with subjects like the climate crisis, public health issues, social security and international relations.

Adair takes readers into the lives of a handful of people that have been personally affected by lies that have been told. He asks: why do politicians lie and what are the consequences? He makes suggestions of a better way of communicating.

I applaud Adair for writing this book and hope everyone reads it. There are several quotes from sources that make you think about how lies make people distrust the government and how it threatens our democracy. Even if you don’t read political books, this is one that is current and affects us all.

My thanks to Atria Books for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book with an expected release date of October 15, 2024.

Thank you, Atria Books, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I just finished Beyond The Big Lie: The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans Do It More, and How It Could Bring Down Our Democracy, by Bill Adair.

The author is the creator of PolitiFact, a fact checking website, and cofounder of the International Fact-Checking Network.

PolitiFact tracks the number of lies for each individual and the data proves that Republicans lie much more than Democrats. But, when asked about that on C-SPAN, the author had to lie and claim they didn’t keep track since he knew that Republicans would just cry about that and tell people not to trust them.

Among the highlights of this book was a look at the work of Nina Jankowicz, who headed a DHS project to expose disinformation and the Republicans’ reaction to that, as well the Lying Hall of Fame.

The chapter on ideas on how to deal with the problem presented a bunch of ideas that could work. That was also a big strength of the book.

I give this book a B+. Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a B+ equates to 4 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews

Mr. Book originally finished reading this on July 19, 2024.