In a democracy, truth is not optional. It’s the foundation. Without it, nothing else holds. But in politics today, truth is treated like an inconvenience—something to dodge, distort, or destroy if it gets in the way of winning.

Politicians lie. We know that. But the big lies—the ones that scar a nation, divide families, and poison trust—aren’t slips of the tongue. They’re deliberate weapons. And we’re living through another one right now.

Republicans claim Democrats are keeping the government shut down because they want to hand out free health benefits to people who are in the country illegally. That’s the line—repeated by Speaker Mike Johnson, Vice President JD Vance, and echoed across right-wing media. It’s a lie.

Federal law is clear. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for Medicaid, Medicare, or Affordable Care Act coverage. The only exception—emergency care—was created decades ago by a Republican administration. It’s a matter of public safety, not immigration policy.

So what are Democrats actually doing? They’re trying to extend subsidies that make healthcare affordable for working Americans—citizens, veterans, and lawfully present immigrants who already qualify. Nothing in their plan provides new benefits for the undocumented. Nothing.

Fact-checkers from the Associated Press, PolitiFact, and the Kaiser Family Foundation have all debunked the claim. The data doesn’t lie—but the politicians do. And yes, Democrats have lied too. But not this time. The record shows Republicans are the ones spreading this falsehood.

This isn’t about healthcare. It’s about manipulation—about fear. When a party can’t defend its policies with facts, it reaches for scapegoats. Immigrants are the easiest target. They can’t vote. They can’t fight back. But they make a convenient villain for those who need someone to blame.

When leaders trade compassion for convenience, democracy starts to decay. What’s happening now isn’t a disagreement over policy. It’s a test of integrity. And the result so far is shameful.

Truth has become the casualty of political warfare. The lies are so constant that many Americans no longer recognize truth when they see it. That’s not by accident—it’s by design.

We’ve seen this before. From Nixon’s cover-ups to Bush’s false intelligence and Trump’s business model of lies, each deception chipped away at the one thing a democracy cannot survive without: public faith in truth.

But politicians lie because it works. They lie because voters let them. They lie because too many in the media still hide behind false balance instead of calling out falsehoods.

For too long, newsrooms have treated “both sides” as sacred. That principle made sense when both sides respected facts. But when one side invents its own reality, giving equal weight to both only amplifies the lie. Journalism’s duty is not to balance truth and falsehood—it’s to tell the truth, full stop.

Hannah Arendt once warned that the most dangerous consequence of political lying isn’t the lie itself, but the destruction of our ability to tell truth from falsehood—“the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world is being destroyed.” That warning wasn’t for one nation or one time. It was for every democracy that forgets its moral duty to remain anchored in reality.

And the public’s duty is no less important. The only way to stop politicians from lying is to stop voting for politicians who lie. It’s that simple. If we continue to reward deceit with power, we will get more deceit and less democracy.

So check the facts. Read the sources. Ask questions. If a politician lies—and you know they lie—withdraw your vote, your support, your silence. Because silence, too, is a choice.

George Orwell once wrote, “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” He was right then, and he’s right now. We are long past the point of pretending that lies and truth deserve equal time. There is no both sides anymore. There is only accountability—or complicity.

The health of our democracy depends on whether we still have the courage to tell the truth, to demand it, and to punish those who betray it. The truth doesn’t need spin or strategy. It just needs defenders—and we must be among them.

This is an opinion column and does not necessarily represent or reflect the opinions of the Alabama Political Reporter, its editors, or its reporters. The opinions are those of its author. For information about submitting guest opinions, visit our contact page.