Belief

Someone you can believe in

Anderson Cooper told President Obama many people in this country believe the President wants to and is laying plans to seize their guns. The President reacted by saying that was absurd and there is plenty of evidence to the contrary, not the least of which is after 7 years, he has not done it, or attempted it or even shown the slightly indication of laying plans. 

To which Cooper replied, well, but people think you are thinking it. How do you prove what you are not thinking? Some people want to believe this, for, as Mr. Obama suggested, political reasons (it plays well to the crazies) or financial reasons (it spikes gun sales.)

People also believe:
1/ The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) has been a "disaster." 
2/ The Holocaust never happened.
3/ President Obama plans to send in the black helicopters and seize control of the nation, declaring marshal law.
4/ President Obama was born in Kenya.

I'm now watching "The World At War."  What strikes me is the capacity of people to believe in things, large numbers of people, despite evidence to the contrary, despite significant evidence which a reasonable person should find convincing. 

We believe in the flag, the Fatherland and the Furher

So Germans were told by public broadcasts, even as Russian troops were on the outskirts of Berlin, the war was still winnable, that a wonder weapon was being held in reserve to save them, that they could throw back the hordes. When films of concentration camps liberated by the allies were shown, people believed they were hoaxes. American soldiers felt they had to bring Germans to the camps in person to convince them. 

Of course, Germans also believed the Jews were the major source of Germany's economic problems before Hitler came to power that Germans were a "Nordic race"  and as "Aryans"  they were the master race, destined by God to have dominion over the lesser races. 

Japanese believed the Emperor was a god. 

Hitler sold Germans on a lot of belief in no small part because things improved when he came to power for so many of them:  Farmers found they could thrive financially; work camps were organized where rich merchants worked and ate side by side with peasants and, for a weekend or a week, a  sense of community welled up; Hitler youth marched through the woods singing happy songs; infrastructure was built, providing work for the previously unemployed and a huge highway system was built; low cost automobiles (the Volkswagen--the "people's wagon" ) were built and sold on the installment plan. Hitler actually drew sketches of the Volkswagen beetle and claimed authorship of this boon to the middle classes. 

After the first World War, which left Germany in economic ruin, Germans wanted to believe, as the song in "Caberet" said, "The Future Belongs to Me." 

With all this positive stuff going on, why not believe everything Hitler and Goebbels  said?

But here in 21st century America, we have large portions of the population who believe the worst, even in the face of good news. "Obamacare is a disaster" is a battle cry from Republicans despite all evidence to the contrar: millions who now have insurance, pre existing condition exclusions vanquished, costs plummeting. 

How can this be?

In part, it's our public media system: Ted Cruz or Mitch McConnell are shown decrying the failures of Obamacare on the floor of the Senate without a picture of Elizabeth Warren decrying the lie.  Our media are good at presenting the accusation but they dreadful  at presenting the reply. The accusation if the story; the refutation is just not sexy. And we are trying to sell our stories, in commercial journalism. 

The only news program which regularly presents both sides of any argument is the PBS New Hour, which I have to watch alone because it's "boring" according to my family.

The New York Times described a study in which Republicans were asked if they thought the economy was doing well during the tenure of a Democratic President and they said "No" in high percentages despite all indicators of robust economic indicators, whereas they said "Yes" in the face of poor indicators when the President was a Republican. Democrats did the same--evidence be damned, I don't want to believe it.

The trouble with evidence is there is always other evidence or something about the evidence you suspect. The jury in the O.J. Simpson murder case didn't believe the evidence. They were Black and they didn't want to believe the police.

"The Serial" presented a series about a murder in Baltimore which left you wondering. There was no clear message to believe. It was frustrating and felt incomplete. 

Belief, for whatever else it may be, is comfortable. It makes you feel in control. Doubt is uncomfortable.  

I believe in the flag.