Campaign falsehoods contrast with post-election reality

With the new Congress in session, it is instructive to compare and contrast the 2022 campaign’s avalanche of disinformation, conspiracies and fear-mongering with truth and reality. Last fall’s electorate concerns emphasized gasoline and food prices; violent crime; abortion, gun restrictions; and democracy’s peril.

Consider gasoline pricing. A Middle East cartel unilaterally controls global crude oil output and prices, effectively establishing global gasoline prices. GlobalPetrolPrices.com ranked America’s October gasoline price 26th lowest among 167 nations and commented, “As a general rule, richer countries have higher [gasoline] prices. … One notable exception is the U.S. which is an economically advanced country but has low gas prices.” And, gas prices today are lower than a year ago.

Nobel Laureate economist Paul Krugman commented, “It’s hard to think of a worst metric for judging a president and his party. … yet gas prices may sway a crucial election, a fact that is both ludicrous and terrifying.” This also applies to food prices.

The COVID pandemic weakened the global economy. But, when it rebounded, the revival phase lacked the pre-COVID era’s fully-functional labor force, raw material stockpile, supply distribution system and production capacity. And, when global demand for goods and services overwhelmingly exceeds production rates necessary to satisfy consumer demand, prices increase. Accordingly, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted global agricultural markets and worldwide drought, heat waves and floods reduced global food supplies. But, considering such realities, how well did the U.S. economy perform prior to the election, relative to other Western developed nations?

The October European Union inflation rate was 11%. The U.S. rate of 8.2% was lower than in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom, Sweden and Belgium, but higher than in Canada, Australia, France and Norway. On a yearly basis, the European Union’s food cost increased 16%, Britain 14% and the U.S. 11%. Germany’s bread price increased 18%, six nations of Eastern Europe 30%, and the U.S.15%.

European Union and American flu epidemics caused tens of million poultry deaths, creating chicken and egg shortages. A large decline of U.S. meat-packing workers due to COVID and an E. coli cattle breakout created severe meat shortages. Also, consider 650 million and 6.6 million global COVID infections and deaths and America’s 100 million infections and 1 million deaths. But most shamefully, while the Economic Policy Institute reports America’s annualized inflation rate from mid-2020 through 2021 increased 6.1%, “over half of this inflation increase (53.9%) can be attributed to record profit margins,” profiteering benefiting investors.

Thus, America’s economic achievements have been obscured by deceitful business practices and deceptive political-based messaging, likely contributing to the president’s less-than-50% approval.

Also, consider Republican charges of Biden failing to reduce crime. The highest 2020 national homicide death rates were in Republican-controlled states of Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana and Alabama. Krugman reports, in 2020, Republican-controlled Oklahoma “had a murder rate … almost 50% higher than California’s, almost double New York’s. … Homicides and violent crime as a whole are generally higher in red states.” And, from 1989 to 2022, 99% of $50.5 million gun rights contributions went to Republican political candidates.

So, what’s up with America’s irrational mindset of selective avoidance or fervent rejection of truth and reality? Nobel Laureate psychologist Daniel Kahneman suggests “a puzzling limitation of our minds: our excessive confidence in what we believe we know and our apparent inability to acknowledge the full extent of our ignorance and the uncertainty of the world we live in.”

This also sheds light on intentions and conduct of Capitol insurrectionists; 2020 election deniers; anti-mask, anti-vax advocates; and, those assuming religious ethno-cultural superiority while denying moral rights and freedoms to others not like them.