Democrats constantly accuse Donald Trump of constantly lying. Journalistic factcheckers, who work for Democratic-aligned media companies, back their claims with statistics. But it’s the Democratic Party that’s facing historically low approval ratings. In poll after poll about one issue after another, voters say they trust Republicans more.

A major contributing factor to the diminishment of the public’s trust in the Democratic Party is the stream of revelations that Joe Biden spent much if not all of his presidency mentally incapacitated. 72% of voters told the May 21^st Rasmussen poll that “it’s a serious scandal that White House staffers were aware of Biden’s declining mental condition but worked to conceal his condition from the public and members of Congress, including 48% who consider the scandal very serious.” Another Rasmussen survey, conducted May 27^th, indicates that Americans think Democrats have also been covering up the truth about the former president’s physical health: “63%…believe it’s likely that Biden has been suffering from prostate cancer since at least 2021, including 43% who consider it very likely.”

We’re waiting for more data about the Biden effect. But you don’t have to be a political genius to suss out that the public doesn’t like being lied to, really doesn’t like being lied to day after day for years, and really really really doesn’t like knowing they’re being lied to. Having your intelligence insulted is more infuriating than being deceived.

When asked about their cover-up of Biden, Democratic pols answer that they’re “looking forward.” Which is exactly the opposite of what crisis management experts—and this is definitely a crisis for Democrats—recommend.

True, refusing to comment is sometimes an organization’s least-bad move. When facts are unclear, it’s smarter to announce an investigation (a “holding statement”) rather than to say something that further erodes trust when that statement later proves incorrect. That’s not the case here, though. To those who paid attention, Biden’s dementia was evident when he ran in 2020.

Candidly admitting fault can increase legal exposure—anything you say will be used against you. Though congressional Republicans are threatening to investigate what Dems knew about Biden’s brain and when, the real risk to Biden’s enablers is political embarrassment, not prison time.

In most crises, it’s best to come clean. Stonewalling makes things worse. Studies of crisis communication strategies, such as those based on Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) by Timothy Coombs, show that refusing to talk about an issue or blowing it off as no big deal—as Democrats are doing now—increases the public’s perception that you’re guilty or irresponsible.

Democrats beware! Your silence is creating a vacuum that will allow your GOP enemies to shape a narrative you otherwise might have helped to shape in your favor. That’s what happened to BP after it deflected and downplayed the severity of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill; environmentalists framed the company as an eco-criminal. United Airlines’ decision to delay its apology to the Asian passenger who was dragged off an overbooked flight made the company look racist as well as cruel. Toyota’s corporate culture of silence cost it dearly after the carmaker pretended that a series of brake problems were figments of their customers’ imaginations.

Better to come clean sooner rather than later. For Democrats, now—with the midterm elections well over a year away—is the least worst time.

The gold standard for crisis management is still the 1982 Tylenol poisoning crisis when a still-unidentified maniac killed seven people in Chicago. It must have been tempting for Johnson & Johnson to deny that it was the company’s fault. After all, it wasn’t. Instead, the company introduced tamper-proof packaging and recalled every single bottle at a cost of $100 million. Transparency and action worked. Within a year, Tylenol had recovered 90% of previous sales.

In the case of the Democratic Party and their media allies, on the other hand, the Biden cover-up is their fault. The smart move would be to emulate what the KFC UK did in 2018, when it foolishly switched to a delivery partner that couldn’t supply enough chickens to hundreds of the company’s restaurants. The company posted updates to social media and ran a funny “FCK” apology ad in newspapers that won PR awards. Share prices and sales bounced back within weeks. Like the Democrats, Southwest Airlines was caught dead to rights, its sin being cheaping out on overdue upgrades to IT infrastructure. When the antiquated system crashed, thousands of flights were canceled. CEO Bob Jordan apologized and promised to invest in upgrades right away. Customers forgave.

If Democrats want to recover their credibility any time soon, they must apologize. Party leaders—Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, Kamala Harris—should hold an hours-long press conference where they repeat a message along these lines: “We lied to you about Joe Biden. We knew he wasn’t up to the job of president, but we covered that up. We were so desperate to beat Donald Trump, so panicked that he would turn us into a fascist country, that we lost sight of what makes American democracy great—the right of a free people to choose its leaders. That choice is only legitimate when the voters know everything they need to know. Democrats don’t win by out Republican-ing the Republicans, and we don’t win by out-lying them. We screwed up. We’ve learned from our mistake. It won’t happen again.”

Throw some people under the bus to demonstrate your party’s willingness to police itself. Pelosi is 85 and semi-retired; she could step down. Harris doesn’t seem to have much of a political future anyway, not least because she had to have known all about what was going on with Biden and abdicated her 25^th Amendment duty to move for his removal. Consider pushing out some of the oldest members of Congress, like Steny Hoyer (85) and Jim Clyburn (84), and definitely get rid of those whose mental acuity is seriously in question, like John Fetterman, to avoid repeats of the awkward spectacle that marked Dianne Feinstein’s final years in the Senate.

Most importantly, take action. Don’t merely cooperate with a Republican investigation, lead one of your own. Establishing the precedent that a president who suffers from dementia should be kicked out could be useful in the near future, considering Trump’s own advancing years (78). Make the party more transparent by, for example, livestreaming all meetings of the Democratic National Committee. Make it more democratic by getting rid of superdelegates in national elections and supporting insurgent outsider candidates if and when they win primaries.

If Democrats want to look forward, they first must clean up the mess they made in the past.

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Never Mind the Democrats. Here’s WHAT’S LEFT.” Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com.)