Over the July 4the weekend, 160 people died from gun violence in America. One was a six-year old in Philadelphia, another was an eight-year old in Atlanta, and a third was a 15-year old in New York. Chicago saw the worst of it with 17 people fatally shot including two children. Sixty-three others were wounded. And that’s just the count for the holiday weekend.
Research conducted recently by the University of California/Davis revealed a link between the rise in violence in the country and a surge in gun-buying since Covid-19 began, with over two million more guns sold in a three-month period this spring.
Given the continuing lack of gun safety legislation, and the increasingly public displays of white supremacy, the increase in gun sales shouldn’t come as a surprise. Violence of all kinds is on the rise. The question is, Why haven’t more Americans been proactive on the issue of community gun violence as we face a November election? How is it that post Columbine, Newtown, Pulse and all the rest, we haven’t taken to the streets as we did for #BLM?
As Elizabeth Warren wrote in her 2015 book A Fighting Chance, “If a mysterious virus started killing eight children every day [as gun violence does], America would mobilize teams of doctors and public health officials. We’d move heaven and earth until we found a way to protect our children. But not with gun violence.” (It was an eerily prescient analogy.)
The death of civil rights icon Congressman John Lewis reminds us of another problem that plagues us as we draw closer to the most critical election in our lives. Remember that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 eliminated legal barriers at state and local levels that kept African Americans from voting. But in 2013 the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Roberts, effectively struck down the Voting Rights Act in a decision that allowed Republican states to enact voter ID laws, roll back early voting, and purge voter registration lists. Last year the Roberts court also barred challenges in federal court to partisan gerrymandering. Why in this now fragile democracy aren’t we repeating the brave and bold actions of the Civil Rights Movement to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to cast their ballot?
With secret government “police” being deployed to U.S. cities to kidnap and arrest journalists and citizens exercising their constitutional right to free speech, and with a runaway pandemic raging, which is nothing short of negligent homicide on the part of the president, why are we not in the streets demanding that Donald Trump resign (as Russians are now doing to oust Putin)?
As one friend put it, “You wouldn’t stay married to a serial killer, so why are so many Americans still putting up with Trump?”
The answer may lie in the concept of cognitive dissonance, defined by psychologists as “having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.”
Cognitive dissonance includes feeling discomfort when a behavior or attitude is in conflict with one’s values and beliefs, or when new information is contrary to those beliefs. A sign of the phenomenon is ignoring facts and therefore making irrational decisions, according to experts, which goes a long way in explaining why so many people aren’t wearing masks – or still insist on thinking that Trump is an effective leader.
Interestingly, when people experience an inconsistency between what they believe and how they behave, they often take actions, or don’t take them, to help reduce growing discomfort. So, for example, they may reject, explain away, or avoid information, even when that information is vital to their health and safety, or saving the country. They may grow angry at forced compliance (masks), avoid learning (fact-finding), and find decisions hard to make, but once a decision is made, it is justified as the best available option.
Donald Trump is clearly experiencing cognitive dissonance in the extreme, along with his other psychological disorders. His thought processes are deeply damaged (and limited to begin with), he is totally irrational, and his paranoia and narcissism only add to the dangerous mix.
Although I’m not a psychologist, I suspect that other Republicans who cannot stand up to Trump despite knowing he is dangerously delusional struggle privately with their own cognitive dissonance. As for mask refusing, fact denying, irrational decision-makers, it’s a possible explanation for their strange and troubling behavior.
The rest of us are understandably fatigued, frightened, and feeling fragile, which makes marching in the streets at the risk of being picked up by gun toting government goons less than appealing. Still, we must act to protect ourselves from the overt fascism that is coming straight at us, and we must overwhelmingly Vote Blue in November or our current nightmare will not end.
We would do well to remember the words of the late John Lewis: “Do not get lost in a sea of despair. … [And] Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”
Whatever form it takes, and psychology aside, the time for trouble that we create is now.
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Elayne Clift writes from Saxtons River, Vt. www.elayne-clift.com