If you want to know why the United States is such a screwed up country, William Cooper writes, don't blame the politicians. Blame the people who put them there:
Data from Google Trends — the search giant’s tool for tracking and analyzing Google’s search statistics — shows that Americans have a stunning indifference to public policy and, at the same time, a gross infatuation with triviality. It’s no surprise, then, that our elected officials are frequently incompetent and our governance often poor.
Consider a few examples:
Take, first, a comparison between Americans’ interest in the multi-trillion dollar federal budget and in reality television. The United States budget reflects our national values and measures our global impact. Given its size and scope, the budget materially alters billions of lives both at home and abroad.
Google Trends shows, however, that Americans care far more about the inconsequential happenings of strangers than they do about how our trillions are deployed. There is, for example, tremendously more interest in the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills than in the Office of Management and Budget, the executive agency that oversees budgetary spending – peaking at over ten times the interest when the housewife drama gets juicy.
Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — a key player in the government’s fiscal response to the coronavirus — gets unceremoniously brushed aside when The Bachelorette is in season — typically peaking at roughly 25-50 times more interest in The Bachelorette.
A second example of the staggering disconnect between what Americans are interested in and what matters is a comparison between the Kardashian family (Kim, Kylie, Kanye and the gang) and Africa (the entire continent). Despite making great progress in recent decades, Africa continues to have widespread and profound challenges including preventable hunger, economic distress, and child mortality.
Yet Americans care far more about the Kardashians than all of the countries in Africa.
Additional examples abound. There’s Meghan Markel (the wife of England’s Prince Harry) versus Boris Johnson (the country’s prime minister). Justin Smollett (at the peak of the previously little-known actor’s fake-battery scandal) versus China (yes, China). Deflategate (Tom Brady’s deflated-football controversy) versus the Federal Reserve (yes, the Fed).
So is it any wonder that a reality TV star is president? Americans focus -- or don't focus -- on the same things Donald Trump does.
Image: everythingsproblematic.wordpress.com
