Living in an Alternate Reality!

America needs a healthy dose of Communist-style discipline to teach its science-denying, semi-literate, Confederacy-devoted, opioid-addicted, gun-toting red necks a lesson! They seem to know their freedoms alright; but do they know their civic responsibilities as citizens?

Trump happened!

On the TV news most nights, you see these obese men in shorts and tees, multiple chins wagging, getting in the face of some poor little salesperson (often an immigrant woman) in a convenience store who’s asking them oh-so-politely to put on a face mask, and they’re spitting at her and cursing her out. What happened to this country? We all know the answer to that! Trump happened!  

Obama’s election was an anomaly! 

But first Obama happened! Looking back, you can see - with 20/20 hindsight - how and when the seeds of today’s dysfunction were sown. Obama’s election was an anomaly! We were lulled into a false sense of “American exceptionalism” that did not pan out! A black man in the White House for eight long years was more than half the country could bear!  

Evil was just lurking out there waiting to rear its ugly head: the evil of rampant racism, police brutality against people of color, rising inequality, and the marginalization of the poor. 

This is not new!

Don’t be fooled! The America of today is not new; it’s how it’s always been. You need top notch leaders like a Washington or a Lincoln or an FDR - or an Obama - to keep negative forces (somewhat) in check! Even a cursory look at U.S. history bears this out! 

The Founding Fathers were no saints: they bickered and fought among themselves, slandered each other in partisan newspapers of the era, justified the keeping of slaves, and fought duels to the death! Emancipation and Reconstruction were followed by the Ku Klux Klan, lynchings, and Jim Crow. Landmark Civil Rights legislation was followed by Supreme Court reversals of the Voting Rights Act. It’s a weird dance: two steps forward, three steps back!  

Conspiracy theorists

Today, America is a bitterly divided nation. What do the naysayers believe? They are the ultimate conspiracy theorists: to them, the government is hiding terrible truths about UFOs, 9/11, and more.

When I first came to the U.S., I remember being taken aback to hear that a third of the country believed in Creationism as opposed to Evolution! That was then! Darwin disbelievers have now jumped to over 40 percent of the population, according to a 2014 Gallup poll (see Weblink below). Think about this for a minute: four in 10 Americans do not believe they’re descended from apes!

Nor do they believe in science or global warming. Climate change, to them, is a hoax perpetrated by scientists, the government, and the liberal media. Climate deniers are more than 50 percent of Americans! 

It’s all a hoax!  

According to a 2013 survey (see second Weblink below) by Public Policy Polling, 28 percent of Americans believe that a secretive power elite is conspiring to rule the world through a New World Order; 11 percent believe that U.S. officials were complicit in the 9/11 attacks; 29 percent that aliens live amongst us; 20 percent that vaccines cause autism; and 13 percent that Obama is the anti-Christ! 

Not part of the poll but a small group of rabidly conservative right wingers adhere strongly to the belief that Donald Trump is the Second Coming!

But all this is old hat! The current conspiracy theory roiling America is about Covid-19. Many believe that scientists and the mainstream news media are wildly exaggerating, even fabricating information on pandemic-related infections and deaths; that everyone is lying through their teeth: the medical establishment, the CDC, the Democrats in Congress; and that it is all part of some wickedly devious political agenda! 

Lewis Carroll world!

Reality and truth are under attack. We’re living in a Lewis Carroll world!

Being American seems to mean believing in anything one wants. Digital technology has made this worse; it empowers the creators of political and religious fiction! Before the internet, crazies had a hard time finding traction; now their fantasies are all over the web. Americans today feel they are entitled to their own facts and alternate reality...

Hence they choose not to believe the medical experts that wearing face masks will protect themselves and others from Covid; that their right not to wear a mask is more important than science! They ask: what’s the payoff for my discomfort; why should I protect others? The debate is being framed as a balance between personal rights and collective wellbeing with the demand for mandatory mask wearing impinging on their freedoms! 

Heaven help us if this kind of extreme selfcenteredness continues...

Ludi Joseph

Washington, D.C.

July 19, 2020

NB: the U.S. is not alone! Check out below Daily Mail story about an Aussie folk singer comparing Melbourne’s mandatory mask wearing to Nazi Germany! 

https://news.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx

https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/polls/democrats-and-republicans-differ-on-conspiracy-theory-beliefs/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-8539963/Folk-singer-Ziggy-Alberts-claims-Melbournes-mask-rules-strips-Australians-basic-rights.html

Anti-Mask Protests

Anti-Mask Protests