The magical thinking of Donald Trump

Jeff Nash, in his recent column “Why we can’t agree,” makes an excellent point when he asserts that the role of universities as dispensers of unbiased knowledge has been severely diminished. Partisan “think tanks” and “institutes” have indeed confused the distinction between information derived from unbiased research and outright propaganda.

The sad fact, however, is that Americans have frequently been susceptible to this sort of deception; recent advances in communication have simply made the problem bigger and the dangers it poses more imminent.

In the 1840s, President James K. Polk’s embrace of Manifest Destiny (a semi-religious doctrine that held it the right and duty of the United States to spread west to the Pacific) provided the basis for a thoroughly avoidable war with Mexico which many, including Henry David Thoreau and Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln, labeled an unjustified and immoral land grab.

The Red Scares of the 1920s and 1950s rested on the largely fanciful and paranoid fear that the Soviet Union had infiltrated American institutions to the extent that the nation was in imminent danger. While these claims were not supportable in either case, they led to the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, played a role in the motivation for Arkansas Elaine riot, which was viewed in part as a Marxistmotivated uprising of black sharecroppers, and the destruction of numerous careers and reputations by the House Un-American Activities Committee. In the latter case, the role now being reprised by Donald Trump was being played by Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Donald Trump has masterfully exploited this American tendency to embrace unreason and ignore facts. In doing so, he gains support from the powerful forces that benefit from the promotion of magical thinking and solidifies the votes of those groups whom he seems to champion, at least in the short term.

There is, for example, no serious scientific opposition to the idea of human activity being a significant factor in climate change, but by ignoring the science and advocating environmentally dangerous policies, Trump at once endears himself to the petrochemical industry and displaced coal miners who desperately want to believe Trump’s ascientific and deeply cynical line. The emergence of a powerful natural gas industry that sells an abundant, relatively cheap, and more environmentally tenable product ensures that promises of bringing back the coal industry are hollow and cruel.

When Trump conjured up the specter of hordes of illegal aliens flooding into the country taking American jobs and disastrously elevating the crime rate, he must have known that none of that was supported by evidence. Immigration rates have been declining for some time and crime rates among immigrant populations, even illegal immigrants, are lower that those among American citizens.

It was so bad, Trump said, that the only solution was a border wall that would even span the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Such an absurd proposition, like much of Trump’s rhetoric, is dangerous testimony to the power of magical thinking—both its danger to the populace and its unquestionable utility for unscrupulous leaders.

When Trump met in a summit with Kim Jong Un of North Korea, he must have known that this was a meeting Kim had longed for and would have had with any willing American president. For good reason there were no takers before Trump. Logic and a modicum of geopolitical savvy would have informed any sensible president of the likely outcome: greatly enhanced international status for North Korea, a way for Kim to potentially lessen sanctions, and no real reduction in the danger posed by the rogue regime.

Evidence since the summit that the North Koreans have not altered their nuclear path and their outright and insulting rejection of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s efforts to begin the process of actual nuclear disarmament graphically demonstrates that what all informed analysts expected has happened.

Even so, President Trump trumpets a paraphrase of Neville Chamberlain’s infamous “peace for our time” remark and takes credit for accomplishments not made, or ever likely to be made, by an administration that has replaced truth with “alternate facts” and actual accomplishment with wishful thinking.