CD

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This is Part I in our series entitled, What the Heck? We are looking at America’s current political crisis—fraught with fears, absurdities and paranoia—and wondering how we got here. Perhaps a few human tendencies, and a brief glance at history, will shed some light. To read the introduction to this series, please see this link.

If you love crime shows, podcasts or documentaries (Dateline reigns supreme), you may have noticed a particularly troubling pattern: An entire herd of friends, neighbors, co-workers—even family members of the victim—offer adulation for the one who turns out to be, you guessed it, the ungodly murderer. 

Common assertions of innocence may include: 

• She’s such a nice person… she couldn’t have done it!

• She used to babysit my kids, I trust her completely.

• There’s no way she did it, she’s an angel.

• I went to high school with her… she was the Homecoming Queen.

• I will never believe she murdered her husband, she’s one of my best friends!

  
  

Of course, lucky for crime podcasts everywhere, this makes for great theater. The adoring housewife—who would have guessed?—is actually the perp.

This predictable narrative also makes for a nice segue, affording the opportunity to introduce Dateline’s favorite psychological term: Cognitive Dissonance (CD). You’re likely familiar with the phrase. It’s the concept of simultaneously holding two conflicting beliefs—beliefs that make you profoundly uneasy (the delightful, attractive wife is… a raging monster).

Without cognitive dissonance, a Dateline mystery is like solving a puzzle with only one piece. No mystery, no quandary, believable but dull. With cognitive dissonance—cleverly compelling you to doubt your own perceptions and intuitions—Dateline can repeat the same storyline hundreds of times, effortlessly creating a puzzle that gnaws at the intellect and the soul. Mysterious, perplexing, quite unbelievable. “How could that nice, loving, wonderful, kind, sweet Homecoming Queen… stab her husband 27 times?” Significant cognitive dissonance.

It’s the same sensation many post WW II Germans experienced when they were told the Nazis had gassed millions of Jews. Largely influenced by propaganda, believing a reality which had been absurdly misconstrued, many German civilians couldn’t wrap their minds around the horrors of the holocaust. For some, it took years of survivor testimonies, the Nuremberg Trials,  photographs—even psychologists—to convince them otherwise. Some never believed. Too much cognitive dissonance. The Nazis were the good guys, right?

Outside of a nice murder mystery or historical narrative, who wants cognitive dissonance in their personal life? NO ONE. Personal CD—say, supporting a political party and consequently, finding oneself supporting genocidal murderers—may make one profoundly uneasy. To avoid these feelings, we humans play all sorts of mental gymnastics. Rationalizations, denials, blaming others, downplaying the importance of our beliefs, or justifying others behaviors (just to name a few). Unsurprisingly, psychologists call this, Cognitive Dissonance Avoidance (CDA). 

The depth of our avoidance (CDA) is often directly proportional to the depth of our trust. That is to say, the greater our confidence in the trusted-entity, the less likely we are to believe errant behavior or disturbing truths... and the more we seek to avoid realities that suggest otherwise.

As humans, trust is one of our most endearing and troublesome qualities. We seemed to be hard-wired to trust. We want to see no evil—at least, from the people and institutions we believe in. That’s usually a good thing. Trust is the bedrock of a healthy society; without trust—believing others have our best interest in mind—societies flounder. In a trustworthy culture: you give a mechanic half your monthly salary, trusting he will repair your car; you order a pizza, trusting the cook (a complete stranger) won’t poison you; you swipe your credit card, trusting a massive, invisible institution will not rip-you-off. Trust only becomes problematic when criminal minds, manipulative tyrants—or occasionally, political parties and media outlets—attempt to exploit us. 

There’s one other troubling feature of trust: In eroding societies—say, the United States of America—where trust is taking a nose dive, CDA intensifies. That is to say, the human tendency to avoid profoundly conflicting realities escalates. An American way of stating this phenomenon? When societal trust collapses, humans circle the wagons. The few individuals or institutions we trust receive elevated, almost cultish levels of see-no-evil-confidence. Conversely, the individuals or institutions we come to distrust, receive EVIL status—rather than see no evil, we see only evil. 

To bolster this argument, I’d like to remind you of the Rwandan genocide of 1994. A brief, over-simplified summary follows. 

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The Rwandan President has been assassinated. Political instability is high, trust is low. An extremist element within the Hutu government has placed the blame on the Tutsi tribe, a minority ethnic group of Rwanda (later investigations revealed the extremists, hoping to rid their country of Tutsis, were likely behind the assassination of their own president). A Hutu radio station (RTLM), intent on placing blame, has begun broadcasting a wild and deceitful tale. “The Tutsis are planning to murder all the Hutus! ACT NOW! Defend yourselves. Purchase a machete and on the designated day, kill all your Tutsi neighbors… before they kill you first!” RTLM, uncensored by the Hutu government, announced this message every day for over a year. Trusting the radio propaganda amid all the chaos, and being fed a constant barrage of hatred and distrust toward their Tutsi neighbors, Hutu civilians woke up on April 7th, 1994, ate breakfast, brushed their teeth, and gladly roamed the neighborhood, butchering all the Tutsis they could find. When the slaughter ended—neighbors hacking neighbors to death—over 800,000 civilians had been brutally murdered. 

After these horrific events, as one would expect, the international community was deeply disturbed. How could common citizens—many with university degrees and professional backgrounds—be convinced to murder men, women and children in cold blood? If you’ve been paying attention, you know the answer.

By eroding trust in their Tutsi neighbors (and intensifying trust in the veracity of their cause), Hutu extremists encouraged their fellow Hutus to circle the wagons. Hutus were persuaded to see evil in ALL Tutsis (murderous demons, worthy of death), and to see NO evil in homicidal advice (butcher innocent people). Cognitive dissonance—that quizzical feeling that something isn’t right about hacking a neighbor to death—was silenced in the face of extreme distrust in Tutsi neighbors and extreme trust in Hutu facts (or as Tutsis might call them, alternative facts).

It’s also worth noting: Hutus weren’t forced to murder their neighbors. They volunteered. 

Could the genocide have been avoided? Absolutely. Along with rationalizing behavior, humans can also avoid cognitive dissonance by simply, paying attention to facts. We call this critical thinking—analyzing conflicting data and making an informed decision based on logic and reasoning. Rather than do the difficult work of sorting fact from fiction (“Really, ALL Tutsis are evil?"), the Hutus chose to go with the message they were being fed (Tutsi = Evil). The results were hell.

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This gruesome tale reminds us of one clear, common sense truth: cognitive dissonance, and how humans choose to avoid it, is SERIOUS business. In case you’re having trouble connecting all the dots, let’s review. 

• Cognitive dissonance (CD)—holding firmly to conflicting beliefs—is followed by cognitive dissonance avoidance (CDA). 

• CDA often involves justifying, denying, blaming, downplaying or rationalizing behaviors; particularly for those entities we trust. 

• When trust is eroded, humans not only avoid conflicting realities, we tend to relinquish our own perceptions of reality to a few trusted entities. Consequently, really bad things can happen (like robotic zombies, we may systematically execute our neighbors). 

• Critical thinking helps humans (me and you) resolve cognitive dissonance, pointing us to reality (the Homecoming Queen is a murderer, the Nazis slaughtered Jews, Hutu leaders used deceit to destroy their enemies).

Bottom line: When trust is eroded, we may start believing, and acting on, LIES. When critical thinking comes into play, REALITY often surfaces.

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Fade to 2024. If you’ve read this far, please be assured the contextual information supplied hitherto will now be applied.

Declaimer: The following paragraphs contain references to political parties and politicians (I apologize). Please recall, I bear no political preference. Registered as an Independent Voter, I usually vote for people who never get elected. Never-theless, to minimize the potential annoyance of my narrative—some folks get rattled if you betray an opinion that differs from their political persuasion—I shall refer to political parties in nautical terms (Port and Starboard) and politicians by fruit (Orange and Apple). Hopefully, readers prone to offense will be so confused by correlations, they’ll keep reading.

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If it weren’t so terrifying, the current political climate in the U.S. could easily be a dark comedy. 

Orange—a former reality TV host, felon, serial womanizer, bankruptcy specialist, habitual fibber and prognosticator of doom, who, impersonating a narcissist, suggests only he can save the nation—is the presidential candidate for the Starboard party.

After concerns of dying on the job, the Port party has given up on its octogenarian, and instead, chosen Apple, someone who seems rather qualified (but owns an irritating laugh).

Threatening violence and retaliation (for perceived wrongs, and for choosing a candidate with an irritating laugh) the Starboards harp on the considerable disparities between American values vs. Port values. Meanwhile, the Ports—wrestling with issues like pronouns, gender identity, sexual preferences, and equal opportunities for illegal immigrants—are having a difficult time rallying to their side any of the 100-million Starboards who don’t seem to mind public killings. While sentiments on taxes, government spending, the economy, climate change, health care, foreign policy, gun control and crime occasionally spark minor brush-fires of meaningful parley, Port and Starboard conveniently douse any significant dialogue with their 50-year firehose, abortion.

The situation is exceptionally pea-brained, brutally unproductive, and observed from any other nation on the planet, dreadfully absurd. Many Americans are embarrassed by the whole shipload (another nautical reference) of childish behavior.

Unfortunately for all involved, the entire predicament is un-laughably serious... and nothing less than dangerously corrupt. 

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Let’s be clear. Since the idea of governing popped into someone’s head, corruption came along for the ride. All governments, to some degree, are corrupt (the temptations of power, personal gain, influence, familial perks and free limousine rides are too much for the human soul to resist). America’s Founding Fathers understood this. To minimize corruption (and build trust) they established checks and balances. The idea was that certain features of government—the executive, judicial and legislative branch; separation of powers; a public vote; free speech; a decent constitution; and a principled system of justice—would somehow keep corrupt tyrants at bay.

With the exception of a few hiccups—The Whiskey Ring, Teapot Dome, Tulsa Race Massacre, Watergate, Iran-Contra, Enron, seven insurrections, and on-going campaign finance scandals (there’s more, but who’s counting?)—the system has sort-of worked. Unfortunately, we’re facing another hiccup. A particularly menacing hiccup.

Fears, paranoia and absurdities abound. Why? (Remember, I’m sharing five reasons).

Reason #1: National Cognitive Dissonance (and how a wide swath of Americans are responding to it).

Thanks to a progressively corrupt bureaucracy, democratic foundations have been undermined. Despite checks and balances, trust is on the decline. A few abbreviated details of our democratic implosion:

• The Executive Branch, once considered the inspirational-arm of democracy, worthy of our best citizens, is currently populated by misfits.

• The Judicial branch, historically considered a bastion of non-partisan ethics, is compromised. A not-so-subtle favoritism has emerged.

• The Legislative Branch, always an argumentative lot but traditionally willing to negotiate, is currently bad-tempered and subsidized to be so. Congressman point fingers and scapegoat. Hatred has replaced meaningful dialogue. Special interest groups pay for the performance.

• Separation of powers, the boundary lines intended to prevent tyranny, have been blurred.

• The veracity of the public vote is intentionally undermined (as I write, the Starboards are already claiming election fraud—in September).

• Free speech, a stop gap for thwarting corrupt tyrants, has morphed into a weapon for conspiracy theorists, media moguls, social media and scheming politicians. Lies, half-truths, deep fakes, propaganda and skewing of information— all in service to party agendas—are the norm.

• The Constitution, our national bible, has been undermined by loose and contradictory interpretations.

• Principled justice, enforced by courts loyal to the constitution and reality, have crumbled under changing cultural norms and relativism (Truth?… what’s that?).

• Much of the American public seems oblivious to the threat, content to ignore the impending extinction of the eagle in the room (the dismantling of the rule of law).

The erosion of our democracy hasn’t materialized overnight. Orange—the purported champion of alternative facts and trust-erosion—is not an aberration. He is more of an accumulation: the amassing of a long, cluttered, Costco-warehouse of American dysfunctions and my-way-or-the-highway, gun-toting, greed-oriented sentiments (what some Starboard Americans call, freedom). 

Meanwhile, Apple—accused of disordered priorities, sketchy economic policies, and confusing speeches (a traditional politician)—may represent a different sort of long-haul erosion. The kind that cancels opposing viewpoints, champions questionable morals, embodies government overreach, mushrooms debt and encourages a form of socialist dependence.

One could argue, from either viewpoint (Starboard or Port), democracy is on the decline.

These developments have created a massive wave of cognitive dissonance for Americans:

• Apple or Orange. Is this the best America has to offer?

• Should we believe the television commercials? ("All Starboards—and Ports—are morons").

• Are the Ports trying to tank the economy or is inflation a capitalistic contrivance of the Starboards?

• Can we trust the rulings handed down by our courts?

• Should we follow the lead of our politicians, stoking hate and fear?

• Should we be loyal to political parties who seem to betray their own values?

• Can we trust our election process?

• Should we believe what we see in real-time or trust what we hear from the media?

• Can we really trust our current form of self-government?—eroded as it is—or has the time come for a more "enlightened" form of rule?

• Are immigrants eating pets, or are we just now discovering the real contents of SPAM?

As, hopefully, my protracted essay has illustrated, the attempts to erode our democracy (and the resulting CD) are less consequential than our response. That is to say, how we RESPOND to CD is of more consequence. Abraham Lincoln—the man who held our democracy together through one of it’s darkest chapters—would concur.

How’s America handling its cognitive dissonance? Are we blaming others for legitimate concerns? Denying realities? Rationalizing behaviors? Downplaying questionable ethics? Justifying behaviors to match our beliefs? Circling the wagons?

Or are we facing cognitive dissonance with critical thought; analyzing conflicting data with logic and reason, avoiding emotional-charged conclusions, and seeking to preserve our democracy?

To answer these questions, I’ll leave you with a quote from Lara T. (Orange’s daughter-in-law). Speaking at the recent Starboard National Convention, she declared with unequivocal fervor, “What we have going on in this country right now is not [Starboard] versus [Port] or left versus right. It’s good versus evil.” 

Fears, paranoia, and absurdities abound.

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Common Sense Reminder: Got Cognitive Dissonance? Think before you vote. Avoid reading and listening to biased, manipulative echo chambers. Fox News (Starboard leaning) and MSNBC (Port leaning) come to mind. Instead, locate media more interested in facts than propaganda (Reuters, BBC, Associated Press are representative). Your brain, and your country, will appreciate the refreshing approach.

Next time, Reason #2.

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