Or something like that, I haven’t really been able to come up with a clear and concise title to handle this hypothetical. Anyway, on to the hypothetical.
Candidates lie. We all know this. But, it’s often about stupid stuff they did when younger or that they really, really hate abortion as opposed to only really hating it. I was curious about what would happen if a candidate lied during the campaigning portion of the election to hide a secret only for it to come out post-election. The first one that came to mind is atheism.
While I fully believe (and assume) that an open atheist can be elected to certain levels of public office, I still assume that an open atheist couldn’t be elected President. Knowing this, candidate X, an atheist that hasn’t been overly vocal about this belief, runs for President all while professing a belief in God and giving the normal lip service to “God bless this country”, etc. Post-election, people notice a subtle change in his speeches. No more closing off a State of the Union or press conference with “God Bless America”, no photo ops in churches.
When pressed, President X say, “Yeah, I’m actually an atheist. I knew that stance would keep me from being elected so I hid that facet of my personality. But, I’m here now so judge me on my job, not on my atheism.”
In essence, I think this boils down to a couple of questions I’d be interested to hear your takes on (and remember, atheism is just my example. Feel free to fit in whatever belief or stance you wish). If this elected official managed to pull off this effort, would he have a chance at re-relection? Would you, as a strident opponent of the newly disclosed belief view the elected official as awful regaredless of whatever other things you may agree with him on? As a person that fully embraces atheism, would you feel cheated or let down that a representative of your belief system resorted to something like this to get elected, or would you jut be happy that he’s in place and can perhaps do some good for your cause?
Well, if he swore by God or Allah or Amerterasu or whoever and then professed his atheism then he’d have perjured himself and the oath would not be valid, would it?
The most recent survey data I’m aware of would back you up on that one.
An atheist? No. There would probably be pressure from within his own party to step aside, too; anything to lessen the fallout. If you’re just using atheism as an example, I’d have to say it depends on what the secret is. If the secret is so politically hurtful that he had to keep it quiet or he would’ve lost the election, it would probably be a real problem for the President to reveal it.
I reserve the right to be very unhappy about it. Even people sympathetic to the disclosed idea would probably not totally overlook the fact that the President had lied.
I think people in that situation might be the only ones who continued to support the President. I for example would be sympathetic to an atheist who felt he had to remain in the closet to be elected. But people who lie to protect themselves generally lose sympathy as a result. Even if the secret didn’t affect the President’s ability to do his job, I don’t think most voters would overlook an admission like the one you propose. It reads as “I lied to you to get elected and now you can’t do anything about it, so there.”
Is this a set-up for you to tell us about Lincoln?
My question is how much he was “professing a belief in God.”
If he says “God Bless You” at rallies and later says it was just standard rhetoric, and he’s an “I don’t think so but respect those who do” atheist, I’d accept that. If was says he reads the Bible for guidance, etc. and then later says he’s always been dead-solid sure religion is all bushwah, then he’s a damned liar.
More to the point, I’d start questioning his competence. It’s unlikely a president would ever be “pressed on the issue,” – it’s damned easy to mouth something vague and change the subject. The president described in the OP sounds like he’s almost doing it just to issue a “neener-neener I fooled you” to the electorate.