Who do you trust?
The late Johnny Carson first came to prominence on American TV when he took over the hosting chores for a quiz show called “Do You Trust Your Wife?” in 1957. The show’s format had the host ask pairs of married couples questions that allowed each male contestant to answer for himself or “trust” his wife to give the correct answer. Seeking to expand its contestant base in 1958, producers changed the show’s title to “Who Do You Trust?”
A new version of the show for today’s viewers might be called “Do You Trust Your Expert?” Because, clearly, many Americans don’t.
For example, experts tell us that there’s no truth to the rumor that contrails generated by jet aircraft are not condensation but “chemtrails” that contain various agents for nefarious purposes. These purposes include weather modification, psychological manipulation, human population control, testing of biological or chemical agents on a population, and that the trails are causing respiratory illnesses and other health problems.
Yep. Rather than accept global warming or a global pandemic, many Americans find it easier to believe that the government – which can’t balance a budget, process income tax in a timely manner or even paint the lines on a highway without making them wavy – is manipulating weather and inventing a global plague that will allow it to implant tracking microchips via a vaccine program. I have a friend who swears these theories are true. I allow her to expound, somehow hoping that the widening of my eyes to manga cartoon character proportions might signal my disbelief. She takes no notice. Similarly, I’ve had a few people tell me that they are sure their positive tests for COVID-19 “breakthrough” infections can’t possibly be true. “Flu,” they say. “Sinus infection.” “They’re calling everything COVID!”
Really? Some 12,000 breakthrough cases have been reported among Americans who are fully vaccinated. Why the disbelief?
Because Americans distrust experts.
In his excellent 2017 book, “The Death of Expertise,” scholar Tom Nichols wrote: “Americans have reached a point where ignorance, especially of anything related to public policy, is an actual virtue. To reject the advice of experts is to assert autonomy, a way for Americans to insulate their increasingly fragile egos from ever being told they’re wrong about anything. … All things are knowable and every opinion on any subject is as good as any other.”
His statement was true in 2017, and it’s even more so today.
Joe Biden didn’t get 7 million more popular votes than his opponent: The election was rigged. Stolen. When your doctor says that you have cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure or diabetes, you believe it. But when it comes to COVID-19, you choose to believe people who “did their own research” on the internet, or cite what you thought you overheard at the bar at the local social club. Vast left-wing conspiracy. Curtailment of personal freedoms. Mind control. Fascism.
The government can’t tell me what to stick in my body. But it can damn sure tell a woman what to do with hers.
It’s been said that a man who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client.
So might it be said about a man who acts as his own physician.
Who do you trust?