19 May 2025
I hear a lot from my friends that Trump followers are stupid. They ask the justifiable question, ‘How someone can possibly believe what trump says since most of it is obviously ridiculous hyperbole, improbable lies, or contradicts what he said before’; ‘How can people think that spewing hate toward gays, transgender, and immigrants is consistent with Christian thinking’. I always have a physical reaction against the idea that they are just stupid.
We are constantly told we live the information age. This is true in the sense that information is now a commodity. It is not a commodity in the sense of informing the population but a commodity in the sense of targeting narrower and narrower portions of the population with self-serving motives. Corporations use information to target advertising to make the spending of ad dollars more effective and ultimately to retain their customers or increase their profits. Politicians use it to target their ads and tailor their messages to the audience they are hoping will vote for them. Governments and policy makers use information to justify policy that will keep them in power or increase their popularity or increase their jurisdiction’s desirability for investment of various kinds.
It is true, thanks to the internet, that information is more obtainable. But is it used? I say, no. One reason information is not used in the daily lives of people is there is too much of it, another reason is hyperfocus, and finally wishful thinking.
We have been taught our entire lives, since 1945, to consume. We need stuff, we deserve stuff, if we do not have stuff, we are somehow inadequate, no one will like us, if we do not consume, we are un-American. Some advertising examples: Viagra ads, because men need to have sex—later they thought to have the women make the sales pitch and now it is people in their thirties making the pitch; we now have body spray that we are to spray down our pants because, obviously, women come up to me and try to get in my pants without warning and my parts must smell good when they do; there is a drug for every possible occasion and I am sure some are in fact useful—god help doctors who have patients wanting drugs because of the ads with no actual understanding of their use, consequences, or actual need. The government pushes the idea that economies must constantly grow. With all this consumption needed people are in constant need of money, easy credit began in the 70s, and consumption took off with a buy now underlay.
But how do we maintain this? One requirement is for both men and women to work. Another is the encouragement of debt, instant gratification. This creates the failed state as technology downgrades the quality of jobs available and those with power seek to gain more power even when ultimately contrary to their own self interest–but that is another topic.
How is this relevant to the information age? We are so busy trying to live in a consumer society that we have no time for anything but the 10 second sound bite. We do not have time to join, to get together, to sit and talk. We are all ‘short on time’, ‘too busy’, ‘run ragged, ‘swamped’, etc. etc.
This is our daily grind. We get up, we shower, we brush our teeth, we get in our car for our 30 minute commute, we work, we get in our car for our 30 minute plus commute to go home (average in US and Canda is 50 – 60 minutes round trip), we eat while we watch TV, we go to bed, we start over the next day. There is little energy or time to follow news in detail, little energy, time, or money to join a club, read a book, or meet friends and share life with the community. And the news is always depressing—if it bleeds, it leads. People cope with this daily grind. They shut out everything to maintain routines. One-way people cope is hyperfocus.
Hyperfocus
There is a reason horses wear blinders. Horses are skittish animals, easily distracted. A friend’s horse got spooked by a truck going by, jumped, and was killed by the truck. Before that, all was a peaceful walk along a road. In this information age, the amount of information is overwhelming. The time and energy needed to discern good information from bad, expert from expert, conspiracy from fact, is too much. So we start to hyperfocus as a self-defence. We do feel we should know things, we should ‘be informed’, but the time and energy needed is a constant burden on our psyches.
We put on our blinkers and only see what is immediately in front of us. We may have a topic or a favorite news program and this makes us feel informed. But even with these we narrow our focus so to avoid the overwhelming amount of information and other topics and the information about them.
Many of my oldest friends are conservative Christian evangelicals. When Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority in 1979 as a reaction against Jimmy Carter doing an interview with Playboy, he created Christian hyperfocus. The issues that became all consuming to Christians were abortion, anti-gay rights, prayer in schools, and anti-women’s liberation. The latter two have mostly gone by the wayside—trump 2 is bringing them back via Project 2025.
Hyperfocus has led to Christians eliminating thought about the consequences of anti-abortion implementation. The following list is actually in no particular order: First, they do not consider that most of them are not going to be affected by this policy (It is easier to make laws that only affect other people), abortion only affects about .03% of the population and most Christians use contraceptives or marry if they do get pregnant; Second, they don’t think about the agony of the decision to have an abortion; Third, they do not consider the economic issues that often cause women to consider this agonizing decision, most women who have abortions are poor; Fourth, they do not think women who get pregnant out of wedlock deserve help; Fifth, they do not believe poor people deserve help; Sixth, they do not consider abortions will happen even if illegal, often in unsafe conditions, and that women denied them may die; Seventh, they do not consider that abortion is a very broad term that can be used to describe may types of pregnancy related situations—everything from cysts on the uterine wall to full on removal of a fetus. All of these complex items are not considered by the Christian right movement because they are complicated, the solutions are hard to fathom, and they have been taught that only one thing matters and that is unborn fetuses must live.
This all sounds bad, like these people are blind, but we are all prone to hyperfocus. Life is complicated, we need to limit our exposure. Social media claims to inform but what it actually does is limit us and increase hyperfocus by using algorithms to narrow what we see. We like it this way—well–we are stimulated this way. Most of our ‘friends’ on social media agree with us too. We can deceive ourselves about being ‘informed’, doing ‘research’ but really, we are letting a math problem decide what we see and what information we use to make decisions. Like all good advertising we get just enough information to feel we are making the best decision, our own decision, and we ignore the manipulation of the ad, or algorithm, that lead us there.
We also watch news programs that tend to agree with us. Mainstream media has one purpose–to make money. This results in media outlets that cater to specific segments of the population. Fox Entertainment to the right wing, MSNBC to the left. There are those that are in the middle, PBS New Hour for one, but these have lower ratings because of the blinders we apply to make our lives easier. I am one of those people who like a contrary opinion but often the unreality of the contrary news program is too much for me. To avoid screaming at the TV, I watch shows that I believe show more of both sides but still lean to the left. This is self-preservation.
In short: we work, we raise kids and this is exhausting; we go home we turn on and tune out; we may watch the news but it is easier to watch what we agree with or what distracts us from our daily grind; we feel some guilt about this but the work and time to change it seems overwhelming; we let the ideal fix stop us from any fix—more on that later.
Wishful thinking
The largest problem in America today is the combination of wishful thinking and hyperfocus. The myths of the American Dream; some aspects worth mentioning. First, Americans are taught that we live in the land of opportunity. That anyone can become rich. We want desperately to believe this even though the land of opportunity ended with the 1960s. Since then, middle class incomes have not kept up with inflation. In fact, for the first time since the 60s the middle class saw an increase in wages above inflation during Biden’s last year in office. This did not register in the media on either side of the spectrum. The right has weaponized the idea of the land of opportunity to create an atmosphere of blame and hate. The right uses the lack of success in fulfilling the American dream by a large portion of the population to blame non-white people for ‘stealing’ white jobs. This is a blatant falsehood, but it lets the poor white off the hook for not fulfilling the American dream and gives them someone to hate for their lack of success.
But their lack of success is not actually their fault in the first place. With the shrinking middle class—shrinking, means, becoming lower class—due to the lack of increases in pay, increased cost of living, the need for higher education that is also increasing in cost, the middle class is losing the American dream even while it wants to believe it still exists. Most poor people work multiple jabs to keep ahead, but these have no future, jobs hanging from like the cat at the end of the rope.
We are taught that anyone can become President, though only two Presidents since 1921 had a net worth less than one million dollars (This net worth puts them in the top 1% of the population), the poorest president ever was Harry Truman (1945-53). Anyone can become President has always been a lie but, to be fair, this was more about the lack of obstacles to possible success than about riches. History shows one must be rich before winning the Presidency–another false American dream.
One reason why trump is liked by the right is this wishful thinking. They believe that he is a self-made man. He inherited most of his wealth and has bankrupted many companies on his own. Hyperfocus allows them to continue to believe he is self-made. Trump then is what they aspire to, he claims to care about them, their media outlets tell them he does and do not show where he does not, they do not have time to explore other outlets and so cling to their wishful thinking of fulfilling the American dream.
An example of how this nasty combination of wishful thinking and hyperfocus is a problem: My dad, retired Colonel in the US Army, now deceased. He was an all-out trump worshiper. Convinced trump loved the military as did my dad. Trump was so successful in this that my dad could not admit that trump was ever wrong. This is common among Trumpers. Their thinking is something like this: If trump is wrong, I may have to admit he is wrong in other areas, I may be wrong in other areas, and then I have to evaluate what I think of my beliefs, I do not have time for that and do not want to change my beliefs anyway, so, I do not admit trump is ever wrong due to the ease and comfort I gain from hyperfocus. My dad went so far down this road that he would even attack Colin Powell and John McCain, two decorated veterans, and republicans themselves, because trump did. Throwing away all his military ‘band of brothers’ concepts in order to hang on to his wishful thinking that trump would make a strong military.
This is true of the Christian right also. They ignore all of trump’s serial sexual assaults, his three wives, two obtained through adulterous affairs, his sex with porn stars and payoffs of same, because they believe trump will stop abortion. Everything about trump’s life is contrary to their beliefs but their hyperfocus and wishful thinking keeps them worshiping trump. The fact that trump has always been pro-abortion (one could say as a lifestyle necessity) does not register with them at all and their media outlets do not mention it either.
Keep in mind the left has their own (our own?) wishful thinking and hyperfocus. Hatred of Trump leads the left to ignore the right’s complaints some of which are justified. One example is the idea of politically correct (PC) speech: the left does not allow for some speech, as much as they claim to believe in freedom of speech. They will fire people from jobs even when the speaker being attacked was not using the word in an offensive way. I highly recommend John McWhorter’s book, Woke Racism, on this and other left ideas that are wishful hyperfocus issues. This being said, the right’s Trumpian response is to just add rudeness to counter PC speech and now trump is removing speech that criticizes him which is a contradiction in concept. Another example is the complaint on the right (The poor of the right since the leaders of the right are mostly ivy league graduates making their complaints disingenuous at best) that the left worships the ivory tower and ignores the worker. This is true. The left lost much of the idea that politics is local several decades ago exacerbating the disconnect between left and right, rich and poor, highly schooled and not highly schooled, rural and urban, segments of our population. Our society in general does not give blue color workers their due. We no longer respect our elders; we no longer respect our plumbers and car mechanics either. We no longer respect experience because we are fixated on higher education as the only answer. It is not!! Then, the environmentalists. They believe that making it harder for cars to drive will lead everyone to public transit. They believe that just ending gasoline usage will change the society and all will be good. They believe that closing mines, ending gasoline production, ending oil exploration will cause everyone to just get different jobs. This is complete wishful thinking and focuses only on their lives and not the changes needed in the lives of most Americans and how they would change. The disconnect of the left should be pointed out by the right—though not in the hateful, rude, cruel ways Trumpism does.
The solution
Talk to our neighbors. This is the only way to force ourselves into loosening our hyperfocus. Humans are a diverse group; we should encourage that—we don’t. Even when we disagree with each other we help loosen our hyperfocus. For the most part our neighbors are in the same socio-economic class as us, they usually have similar education. But not exactly the same. That is the point. One does not have to dive into politics, religion, or anti-Trumpism right off the bat. Talk about the weather, learn what their background is, skirt the more difficult issues. You will find out what these are of course but one does not have to pound on the differences. The very idea that we know there are differences is a benefit to opening our hyperfocus. We may like them while completely disagreeing on their politics or religion. That idea alone causes us to widen our hyperfocus and allow in a jot of self examination without having to do a mea culpa right off. They will be doing the same. I guarantee you this will widen your viewpoint on issues, and you will learn things. You may learn a new recipe for peach cobbler, or a new source of information on first nations drilling contracts in northern British Columbia, or that your neighbor grew up down the street from you when you were kids but moved away, or that they voted for the same local member of parliament you did. Differences in opinion, disagreements, compromises, self-examination, must happen in any society and especially a democratic one. Without this we have no way to get to the greater good which is where we all believe we are heading though down different paths.
Hark 