In his 1971 song, Reason To Believe, singer Rod Stewart, a sentimental sap, laments the relationship he has with his unfaithful girlfriend.
“If I listened long enough to you,
I’d find a way to believe that it’s all true
Knowing that you lied, straight-faced, while I cried,
Still I look to find a reason to believe.”
Too many people believe not because of facts, but because they want to believe. And, once they’ve publicly invested in a belief, they are reluctant to disbelieve, because they’ll lose face; it’s human nature.
The world is awash in conspiracy theories, urban legends, superstition, fact-less gossip, etc. The reality is that it is easier to believe than to know. And, discerning the truth is discouraged by individuals who traffic in dissembling and misdirection.
Pastors and politicians, today’s Pied Pipers, are experts in manipulating belief to their own ends. People fight and die over religious faiths that are not supported by facts but, rather, myths that have been contrived to seemingly make sense of things. The “truth” they’re peddling is what they want you to believe.
Religious leaders traffic in the use of guilt to manipulate their flocks. They want parishioners to believe that their sinful ways are causing retribution from God, and that they can cleanse their guilt by attending church, praying, going to Confession, and…putting money in the collection plates. After all, you’re in “God’s house”, and He needs your help in spreading His word.
It is human nature to need someone to blame for bad things that happen to oneself. Belief that your ill fortune was caused by Jews, Mexicans, Muslims, African-Americans, or the Devil, rather than your own bad choices, doesn’t take much convincing. It’s the easy way out and makes one feel better; it’s not your fault, by the way…the deck has been unfairly stacked against you.
As Voltaire said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Picture a lynch mob grabbing one of the “usual suspects”. Evidence be damned; the citizens need to let off some steam. And, they’ve been led to believe (by some hothead) that they’ve got the right guy. So, it feels right.
A salesman’s job is to get you to purchase something that you don’t need for more than it’s worth. His stock in trade is to suspend the potential customer’s disbelief and accept his pie-in-the-sky pitch as the factual, “Honest to God” truth. “It’s a one-time offer!”, “Sale ends today!”, “New and improved!”, “The last one at this rock-bottom price!”, etc.
A great salesman is said to be able to “sell ice cubes to Eskimos”. How does he do it? He flatters, he exaggerates, he misrepresents, he lies, and he convinces the customer that he’d be a damned fool not to take the deal. By the end of his pitch, the customer is so turned around that he believes he is pulling a fast one over on the salesman. “Can I buy two?”
Not without reason, a Czech proverb advises: “When you go to buy, use your eyes, not your ears.” Your eyes see what they see, but the human brain can invent what might seem to be reality.
Of course, pastors and politicians are sophisticated salesmen who would rather you adhere to the idea that “Some things have to be believed to be seen.” That way, they can manipulate you with lies and misdirection to distrust what you’ve actually witnessed. Once they’ve sold you on that lie, your ass is theirs.
One historical example:
The “Lost Cause” was a public relations campaign that succeeded wildly in changing attitudes and beliefs about the Civil War.
The “Lost Cause” was an organized effort by Southern writers, historical societies, and politicians after the War to re-imagine the cause of the conflict, to put the Rebel states in a better, more honorable light. Lost Cause proponents stated that slavery was not the issue that drove the conflict; rather, it was “states’ rights”. And, those Confederate leaders and soldiers weren’t traitors: they were heroic figures.
This is what they wanted people to believe.
Of course, the statements of leading Southern political figures at the time of secession from the Union, and during the War itself, confirmed that the cause was absolutely about slavery…they wanted to keep it going, no matter the cost. In fact, the Vice President of the Confederate States of America, before assuming his office in 1860, stated that slavery was the “cornerstone of the Confederacy”.
The gentleman changed his tune when the Union prevailed.
Then, the ex-Vice President said that the War was all about “states’ rights”. In fact, he and other Lost Causers began calling the now-ended civil war “The War Between The States”. (Another common Lost Cause aphorism was “The War of Northern Aggression”, which is the term that was used commonly in the South during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.)
This, despite the fact that the South had initiated the Civil War by firing on Fort Sumpter.
It is difficult for me to fathom how the Lost Cause pseudo-historical, negationist ideology was successfully sold to the American public. But, somehow it was, finding support in, of all places, President Woodrow Wilson’s Administration.
The first motion picture ever screened in the White House was “Birth Of A Nation”, which was based on a book, The Clansman, written by a racist, Southern Baptist minister. In the movie, the Lost Cause narrative is promoted and heroic Ku Klux Klansmen are tasked with putting the Negro scourge in their place. The movie was a box-office smash.
Another blockbuster movie, “Gone With The Wind”, hit the screens in 1939. It, too, retold the Civil War story from the Lost Cause standpoint, puffing up the gallant plantation lords, the gracious Southern belles, and the brave Rebel soldiers, picturing the slaves as a happy, respected lot, and extolling the virtues of the local Clansmen who are protecting their womenfolk from rape and mayhem.
The American public seemed to want to believe the Lost Cause mis-direction, which somehow blamed dark-skinned humans in captivity, who had no freedom, for the War… which the South started, and resulted in its inability to continue the forced labor of slaves. So, the Lost Cause propaganda went, those dang Negroes are at fault for all the destruction, death, and misery. “Believe you me, it was those Black folks that caused it!”
Americans at large, not just the bitter, defeated Southerners, bought into the deceit: they wanted to believe that some people other than their Caucasian brethren in the South were responsible for the National calamity.
As justification, of a sort, Jim Crow laws were instigated throughout the ex-Confederate states to harass the lives and limit the political power of the freed Negro slaves. Home of ex-slaves were burned, African-American would-be-voters were intimidated at the polls, and Black men were lynched routinely. Public facilities were separated by race.
The Federal government, which is responsible to the people of all of the United States, cooperated with the Jim Crow laws, and those state laws lasted for fifty years in the South until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
During all that time, the American people knew what was happening, but wanted to believe that it was, somehow, appropriate. The Lost Cause campaign had succeeded, probably beyond the expectations of its proponents.
Generations of white Southerners have apparently been taught that the ex-slaves and their progeny are lesser human beings than they, and many apparently believe to this day that African-Americans are fair game for discrimination.
Unbelievably, blatant “voter suppression” schemes abound today in many ex-Confederate states, over 150 years since the Civil War, to hinder or deny Black Americans’ right to vote. Politicians espousing this intent have been elected to the highest public offices; the public seems to believe that this is fair, that God wants it that way, etc.
Our current President and the Supreme Court have, thus far, not opposed these voter suppression schemes, indicating that they believe in the Lost Cause racist ideology.
How can that be? Those millions of African-Americans are citizens of the United States!
To reiterate, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
Belief and trust are intertwined concepts.
“Trust” is the belief in the reliability, truth, ability or strength of someone or something. As I used to tell my young sons, trust is a finite thing that, once lost or abused, is hard to regain. In graduate management school, I learned that it costs a business $1 in marketing to gain a new customer but $10 to re-gain them, once they’ve left the fold.
Trust is something no one wants to squander; one’s reputation is their bond.
Our country is now grappling with it’s role in a world-wide viral pandemic. President Trump didn’t cause this medical emergency to occur, but, as our leader, it is his responsibility to keep Americans healthy and shepherd the Nation through this jittery economic patch.
The man seemed to enjoy his role when things were going smoothly, as recently as a month ago, confidently steering the ship of state. However, now we’re finding out how he manages in a crisis.
Unfortunately, during Mr. Trump’s first three years in office, he has blatantly lied to the public approximately 7,000 times (according to FactCheck). His credibility with many Americans is low, so trust is minimal.
In typical fashion, during the past month, when the coronavirus poop hit the fan, our President has lied to the public repeatedly about the spread of the epidemic, its mortality, its probable duration, the availability of testing kits, the need for a prompt public health system response, and has pooh-poohed medical experts warnings and recommendations.
“It’s a hoax”, “It’s just the flu”, “It will go away by April”, etc., he tweeted to his followers on Twitter and commented on Fox News.
Last night, in a televised public address to the Nation, the President delivered a prepared speech intended to spell-out what his Administration was doing about the pandemic and allay concerns. He delivered his speech in a monotone and appeared bored by its content, fidgeting with his hands and fighting to keep his eyes open.
Our President didn’t even believe what he was saying…and it was apparent. His message was, “We’ve got this!”, but the details of the Administration’s proposed response were murky and, obviously, self-serving.
It was maybe the worst Presidential televised public address of all time, and I’ve been watching them since TV’s were square boxes with round screens. Professional liar, then V.P. Richard Nixon, in his 1952 “Checkers” address to the Nation, was more believable and sincere.
Accordingly, the stock market, which had been bouncing around for a week or two while Nero fiddled, took a precipitous dive: Wall Street wasn’t buying what super-salesman Trump was peddling.
The Dow Jones Average this morning stands at around 21,000, having lost almost one-third of its value in the past month. The 10-year Treasury note is now selling at an all-time, record low rate of 0.65%, which means that the old money, super rich, conservative billionaires who buy these things are parking their money long-term in a safe haven, foregoing any appreciable monetary return.
All I can say is… when the Park Avenue folks don’t believe in the economy, start looking for a bomb shelter.
Political deal-maker Donald Trump made a bargain with his MAGA coalition when he ran for election in 2016: he promised gun rights activists that he would protect them; he promised religious leaders that he would back their efforts to overturn abortion laws, ease taxes on religious organizations, and support “prayer in school” efforts; he promised his racist supporters that he would defend their nefarious activities and “build a Wall”; and, he promised to bring American soldiers home from the Middle East.
Trump promised to do these things in exchange for the authority, once elected, to run the Nation’s economy as he saw fit. His supporters wanted to believe that their billionaire candidate was an economic genius…as he confidently bragged.
Immediately upon election, his Administration loosened regulations on businesses, diluted the oversight responsibilities of agencies that monitor the financial industry, gave huge tax breaks to corporations and the richest 1% of Americans, and ran up huge budget deficits in the process.
In essence, he “goosed” the economy into a super-charged state.
His supporters believed that this was a good thing, and that this kind of steroid-induced “prosperity” would last forever. The stock market surged, and President Trump bragged about it.
Investors, as they always do in Bull markets, got greedy, and stocks became over-valued. When the “bubble” seemed about to burst, the President goaded the Federal Reserve into lowering its “prime rate” to further encourage borrowing and speculation.
Everyone, it seemed, wanted to believe in the unbelievable: unlimited growth and prosperity. However, as my father often reminded me, “If it seems to good to be true, it probably is.”
As is often the case when the stock market craters, some extraneous matter brings investor thinking into reality, speculators begin to jump ship (or out of buildings), and the economy ends up holding a bag of shit. In this case, it was the coronavirus which toppled the lined-up dominoes.
In the grand scheme of things, the coronavirus will come and go, as these epidemics do, but the lasting impact of the whole mess could likely be the inept leadership displayed by President Trump.
His instincts, in the past month, have been blatantly self-serving, whether it be to proclaim that the Covid-19 was a “hoax” or an effort by the Democrats to embarrass him in an election year. He scoffed at epidemiologists and said, publicly, that he knew more about things like this because his uncle was a doctor. “Trust me”, Trump said, “It’s nothing; it will pass.”
Last night, as the Titanic was taking on water, our President boasted that our economy was “great” and that our financial institutions are “fully capitalized”. In reality, our economy rests precariously on a banana peel, and our banking system is over-leveraged, just like it was in 2008.
I don’t want to believe that we will revisit that calamity, but it is apparent that our economy (and, the world’s) is in for an “adjustment”. Hopefully, it will not be a severe one.
The President’s approval rating has never topped 50 percent since he was elected, which means that most Americans didn’t believe or trust him from the beginning. He has now soiled himself in his first crisis, and it will not surprise me if his approval ratings, in an election year, plummet in the next few weeks.
And, yet, in the midst of this unfortunate turn of events, our leader persists in putting Donald Trump before the Nation. Little noticed in last night’s speech was the curious exemption of the United Kingdom from the President’s list of countries that are banned from airline travel to/from the United States.
Curiously, I say, because Covid-19 virus is working its magic in the U.K. just like everywhere else on the planet; in fact, the country’s Health Minister has a confirmed case, herself.
Of course, Donald Trump, as a private citizen and entrepreneur, owns three golf course resorts in the U.K., all of which have been struggling financially. (Travelers are still welcome there, pandemic or not.)
And, yet he wants Americans to believe his schtick…to trust his judgement, his wisdom, his Honest-to-God pitch that he’s got this problem well under control, and that the best interests of all our citizens are utmost in his mind.
“If I listened long enough to you,
I’d find a way to believe that it’s all true
Knowing that you lied, straight-faced, while I cried,
Still I look to find a reason to believe.”
Uh, not me.
(UPDATE: Today, 3/14, the Trump Administration un-exempted the U.K. from the travel ban, meaning that Mr. Trump’s three golf course resorts over there will have to feel the pain like everyone else.
Nice try, though!)