The decision to lie can be reduced to something like a point system: If I tell this lie, will I score enough support and attention from my voters, my party leaders, and my corner of the media to outweigh any negative consequences? Tim Miller, a former Republican operative who left the party in 2020, pointed out that gerrymandering, particularly in red states, has made it so “most of the voters in your district are getting their information from Fox, conservative talk radio … and so you just have this whole bubble of protection around your lies in a way that wouldn’t have been true before, 15 years ago.” If politicians lie because they believe they’ll score more points than they’ll lose, we have to change the calculus.