I won't try to comment here on Runciman's main historical argument. The Afterword gives attention to the 2016 race and discusses the difference in a politician's being perceived as a liar rather than a hypocrite. This is his summary from the close of the main text:
Liberal societies have always attracted accusations of hypocrisy from the outside, because of their failure to live up to their own standards. But seen from the inside, it is clear that the problem of hypocrisy in liberal politics is a good deal more complicated than this. What matters is not whether liberals are worse than they would like to appear, but whether they can be honest with themselves about the gaps that are bound to exist between the masks of politics and what lies behind those masks. This honesty cannot be taken as a given - liberal societies, particularly once they have become bound up with the requirements of democratic politics, are as capable as any others of self-deception. But liberal politics, and liberal political theory, have the advantage that they are able to probe the gaps between political appearance and political reality without either overstating them, or seeking to deny them altogether. This then is one of the resources that a history of liberal political thought has to offer. Armed with a sense of historical perspective, we can see that many forms of political hypocrisy are unavoidable, and therefore not worth worrying about, and that some others are even desirable in a democratic setting, and therefore worth encouraging. But, as Hobbes says, when hypocrisy deprives us of our ability to see what is at stake in our political life, then it still has the capacity to ruin everything for everyone. [my emphasis]An example that we could take would be American or European politicians celebrating the equal rule of law. That is a basic principle of liberal government, and their legal systems are structured so that the law applies equally to all. (Let's leave Hungary and Poland aside for the moment.)
On the other hand, social and economic factors, ranging from access to qualified attorneys to rascist police practices to official corruption and other factors besides, mean that in lived reality the rule of law does not apply equally to all. Labor unions have known since they have existed that formal equality before the law does not make real class factors disappear. But that doesn't mean that the formal equal rule of law should be abandoned. It also means that it is important for political leaders to support the formal rule of law. And they can and should use the principle of equal rule of law to address the actual impediments to realizing it in practice.
In his 2018 Afterword, he discusses both formal research and his own observations of the 2016 Presidential campaign to elaborate differences in public perception of policies who they take to be liars and those they perceive to be hypocrites.
Runciman argues that in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton was probably more damaged by perceptions of her as a hypocrite than Trump was damaged by clearly and obviously being a liar. But he also discusses how voter perceptions of hypocrisy and dishonesty in serving officials is different than for political challengers.
He sees that the Hillary Clinton/Donald Trump 2016 race "was the definitive embodiment of the clash between the honest hypocrite and the sincere liar; and ... the liar won." His concept of "honest hypocrites" refers to those practicing "a form of reserve or holding back in the spirit of avoiding untruths." On the other hand, politicians who are more comfortable with lying about their own positions or feelings can come off more sympathetic, because they are better at feigning empathy, concern, and agreement.
Here I find myself raising a caution. Because this line of analysis is uncomfortably similar on the surface to the lazy American pundits' focus on theater criticism in their reporting of campaigns. Particularly their silly obsession with "authenticity". Our corporate media pundits thought the plutocrat trust-fund-baby George W. Bush was "authentic," because he was "the kind of guy you want to have a beer with." Mark Shields alone must have used that line a hundred times during the 2000 campaign. It was also a weird thing to say about a guy who was open about having had an alcohol problem. The same establishment pundits also ridiculed Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004 being "inauthentic" stiffs.
The pundit version of "authenticity" is painfully superficial. But even today, in a Twitter-and-YouTube political world, the corporate media is still a major influence on how politicians come across to the general public, especially in a Presidential race.
Runciman, though, is making a more focused argument. Clinton had been the target of relentless rightwing attacks since 1992 and a particular focus of Rush-Limbaugh-ish misogyny. And even more substantive commentators like Gene Lyons who were generally sympathetic to her noted with regret that she wasn't a "natural" politician in the glad-handing, "hey, man, how 'ya doing, how's your wife Martha?" mold. Joe Biden is a master of the traditional glad-handing style, e.g., his signature phrase, "C'mon, man!" Hillary Clinton always came off by comparison as a bit of a stiff to those who didn't adore her. And Runciman makes a good observation about her serving as Secretary of State, the chief US diplomat, under Obama: "honest hypocrisy is the diplomat’s calling card."
Clinton’s cool demeanor, her tireless attention to detail and her persistence made her an effective advocate for America’s interests abroad. But these same qualities came back to haunt her as a presidential candidate. Two incidents from her time in office - her use of a private email server and her conduct during and after the attack at Benghazi - left her fatally exposed. It did not matter that she was able to defend herself effortlessly when a Congressional select committee tried to nail her over the Benghazi affair during eight hours of testimony in 2015. On that occasion she came across as better informed and smarter than her critics. But on the campaign trail her attention to detail seemed like nit- picking, and nit-picking is not far from covering your tracks, which in itself is tantamount to having something to hide. [my emphasis]On the other hand:
Above all, Trump could claim to be something other than a politician. He had the authenticity [!] that came with being an outsider to the game that Hillary had been playing much of her adult life. He was not, of course, an outsider to the elite social circles in which the Clintons moved (Bill and Hillary had both attended his wedding to Melania in 2005). But in public he used a kind of language— blunt, crude, impulsive, vicious— that was wholly alien to their manner of political performance. Trump often spoke on stage as though he were not on stage at all. It made his performances all the more compelling. Above all, Trump lied. He lied repeatedly, carelessly, with abandon. Hillary Clinton edged around the truth. Bill Clinton twisted it. Trump didn’t seem to care about it at all. [my emphasis]He makes an argument that strikes me as counterintuitive but plausible. He argues that:
... lying is for many people less offensive than hypocrisy. As I argued in this book, hypocrisy is such an affront in democratic politics because of the implied tone of superiority that comes with it. The hypocrite seems to be saying that some things can only be discussed among the grown- ups, who do not include the voters. So what the voters get is the patronizing brush-off, dressed up as a solicitous concern for their welfare. They are treated like children. The essence of Clinton’s weakness was her inability to shake the impression that she was doing the real business of her politics behind the scenes. There is a kind of honesty to this: after all, that is where the main business of politics has always been done, even in a democracy. But it is fatal not to be able to give a different impression. Trump was the master of giving that impression. Everything about how he presented himself seemed to say: what you see is what you get. He did not try to hide the fact that he didn’t care about the truth. There was something transparent about his evasiveness. [my emphasis]But he also explains that not trying "to hide the fact that he didn’t care about the truth" plays differently for Trump as President. Because, in Runciman's view, "the liar cannot govern without becoming a hypocrite." And Runciman was writing over two years before the COVID-19 pandemic:
Trump’s presidency has exposed the limits of his approach to politics, because as president he has made a mockery of the institutions of government that he leads. This is what I called second-order hypocrisy: Trump’s personal authenticity as a non-thinking non-politician might win him the campaign, but to govern in those terms is to operate at a far deeper level of inconsistency. The non-politician trying to do the real business of democratic politics - building coalitions, maintaining them, and ultimately passing legislation - risks getting nothing done. [my emphasis]In other words, actual experience in politics and government counts for a lot in a President!
Trump’s hypocrisy does not lie in the fact that he said he was one thing and then he turned out to be something else. He is what he purports to be, a chancer and an opportunist (he has lied about who he is - successful businessman, doting family man, friend of the poor, etc. - but that’s what makes him such a chancer). The destructive hypocrisy of Trump’s presidency is that he said he would do things in office that he has no idea how to do, certainly not within the bounds of democratic politics. He pretends democracy is one thing - bombast and bullying - when it is in fact something else. As I have argued, hypocrisy in democracy is both inevitable and in many ways essential. But hypocrisy about democracy can be fatal. Trump is the second kind of hypocrite, which is the worst kind of all. [my emphasis]
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