Back in the 1950’s and early 1960’s when I was growing up, things were much simpler, particularly when it came to determining fact from fiction.
If President Eisenhower or Walter Cronkite said it, there was no doubt that it was true. The same went for doctors, teachers, and scientists Even people in the financial services sector were reliable: “If you can’t trust your banker, who can you trust?”
Of course, liars have always been with us, people like politicians, criminals, con men, televangelists, and the jokers who work on Madison Avenue. Does anyone besides me recall the Congressional testimony, under oath, by the tobacco industry back in the Fifties and Sixties that cigarettes absolutely DID NOT cause cancer? Or parents lying to their children about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny? “If you can’t believe Mom and Dad, who can you believe?”
And then the Digital Age arrived.
One would think that, with every scrap of human knowledge available on the Internet and readily available to all of humanity, the truth would be easily discerned. However, pretty much the opposite has occurred: there is so much misinformation floating about, eagerly passed on by “friends” and connivers, that everyone seems to be in the fog.
Shocking information (usually untrue) is the coin of the realm on social media and on some network “news” broadcasts and individual podcasts. Anything goes, including bald-faced lies, when it comes to obtaining Facebook “likes” or YouTube clicks. No one seems to care if an assertion is valid, conspiracy theories abound, and a situation has developed where many people trust no one.
A disturbing phenomenon that has emerged in the 21st century is the effort by demagogues to delegitimize aspects of American culture like education, science, democratic elections, foreign relations, and civility.
History teachers in some school districts have been warned not to discuss the institution of slavery in America. In some cases, textbooks have been “whitewashed” to skirt uncomfortable historical facts, while in some Southern states children are taught that “States’ rights” and “honor” were the real reason that the Confederacy was born. Similarly, the genocide of indigenous peoples in North America is similarly, by policy, soft-pedaled. In some States, curriculum steers students toward the belief that “White people” are solely responsible for making America great. And sex education is anathema to Bible Belt school boards.
Home schooling is increasing in popularity, as many parents distrust the motives of professional teachers, typically for religious and political reasons. “Can’t trust those pointy-headed intellectuals!”
Scientists, our searchers for truth, have become vilified by demagogues because some scientific findings run contrary to popular political party dogma on such topics as epidemiology, vaccines, climate change, evolution, and religion.
Conspiracy theories, absent facts, have caused millions of Americans to distrust the electoral process. Ex-President Trump, all by himself, has knee-capped the belief that elections are fair and accurate… despite the fact that recent elections have been found (by Democratic and Republican states, alike) to be virtually free of any fraud. Despite that evidence, and the fact that Trump lost by 7 million votes in 2020, a large portion of Republicans voters still assert (in 2023) that the election was “stolen”.
Our elected politicians, for the past several decades, have delegitimized the democracy they serve by acting like school kids shooting spitwads when they should be working together for the benefit of the citizenry. Both political parties have participated in gerrymandering political maps so that they have an advantage over the opposition. Political parties in some states have instituted laws to disenfranchise otherwise eligible voters by making it very difficult for them to vote.
We have become a democracy that, somehow, detests democracy.
The United States likes to think of itself as “the greatest Nation in the World”. However, we have stopped being great, at least in comparison to our previous version.
In the past, America sided with democracies against tyrants, treated our economic trade partners with respect, and supported our military allies in peace and in wartime. In recent years, we have insulted our allies, slapped tariffs on goods imported from trade partners, and made laudatory comments (during the Trump Administration) about dictators in Russia, China, North Korea, the Philippines, and Turkey.
We have squandered a half century of goodwill around the world, angered former friends, and created new enemies, particularly in Muslim countries.
What does the world think of the United States? Does it matter?
The recent coronavirus pandemic is an interesting case study. When the crap began to hit the fan in early 2020, most nations treated it seriously, imposing travel restrictions, masking, quarantines, and business shutdowns to halt the spread of the disease. No one knew the lethality of the new virus and they didn’t want to take chances. Not so in the United States, where some conspiracy theorists (who had the ear of the President) pooh-poohed Covid-19, the government was slow-footed in response, and great political debate and violent protests ensued when State and local governments tried to contain the spread of the virus. The President, his close White House advisors, and Republican politicians elected to downplay the danger, refused to wear facemasks, and blamed the pandemic on the Chinese. They delegitimized science and America’s trust in doctors.
While the American ostrich hid his head in the sand, the scourge was contained in most countries, and the U.S. went on to suffer the most Covid-19 cases and deaths of any country. Almost 1.2 million Americans died from Covid-19, while India (the most populous Nation with five times the population of the U.S.) had half as many fatalities from the virus.
Not a good showing at all for the supposed “Greatest Nation on Earth”.
It is a shame that, in this terrifying emergency, our leaders chose to believe and act on crackpot advice rather than the suggestions of professional epidemiologists. Even now, with the emergency fading into the rear-view window, our Nation is caught up in political finger-pointing rather than learning from our mistakes. With vaccines now available for Covid-19, there are still millions of Americans who will not take them… sort of a solidarity test for macho men and conspiracy nutjobs.
How can the United States be considered “great” when it is heavily populated by citizens and leaders who don’t want to accept facts but who’d rather live in an alternate, “fake” reality that they choose to believe in?
Interestingly, our former President is now caught up in a nightmarish legal cobweb (of his own making) involving several State and Federal prosecutions, each of which involves lying to achieve political or personal financial objectives. There are serious crimes involved, with lots of factual evidence at prosecutors disposal. Not surprisingly, our ex-President has decided that his best option is to loudly delegitimize the courts, the judges, the prosecutors, the witnesses, and in some cases, the grand juries that brought the charges… in essence, trashing the rule of law in America. All of the cases, in all the various jurisdictions, are simply a “witch hunts”, according to the head of the Trump cult.
Lots of great empires have existed in world history and all of them have eventually faded out. The American “empire” of the past couple of hundred years will follow suit, sooner rather than later, particularly if it decides to put its stock in beliefs rather than facts.
“Faith: not wanting to know what is true” (Frederich Nietzsche)