The headlines in this week’s National Enquirer screamed, “L.B.J. ordered J. Edgar Hoover to Assassinate J.F.K.; 56 years later the mystery is finally solved!” I had no idea. I always thought it was the Mafia.
When Generoso Pope bought the failing New York Evening Enquirer, rumor held that Frank Costello, a local Mafia don, lent him the money in exchange for a promise that Pope would never write about his “activities.” Fast forward to Donald Trump’s alleged affairs and the paper’s “catch and kill” policy, and the beat goes on.
A good story is often a mix of fiction with a smattering of truth thrown in. Hoover’s power derived from a shared narrative of his infallibility. Politicians and FBI agents alike lived in fear of his judgments. But, it was the stories about Hoover as much as the man himself that inspired the fear. People love stories.
Storytelling may be humankind’s oldest form of entertainment. In ancient Jerusalem, parents told their children stories about demons and devils to keep them away from the burning garbage pits on the city’s outskirts, helping give rise to the religious myth of Hell.
Stories become beliefs through the process of repetition and sharing. While it may be true that facts are stubborn things, the emotional features of a story tend to hold sway over the facts.
We have trouble relinquishing these beliefs due in part to their emotionally charged nature and the fact that the story is shared by people we trust and respect.
The facts about our government tell us that government is full of competent, capable and dedicated people doing a good job. But the story about government is a widely shared narrative of dysfunction, corruption and incompetence.
Conspiracy theories thrive in such an environment and persist despite facts because changing a belief is much more complicated than a simple accepting of the facts. It may mean ending friendships, confronting fears, altering lifestyles and accepting uncomfortable realities.
As we have witnessed in the current impeachment hearings, the American people haven’t really changed their beliefs about this president. Those in support of Trump continue to support him. Those opposed are frustrated and confused by that support.
The facts seem self-evident, but for Trump supporters these facts are largely manufactured by a “deep state” or a “Google bias” against conservatives. Trust in government agencies has resulted in a bar set so low for politicians that a president asking for a quid pro quo from a foreign leader doesn’t sound like such a big deal.
The granddaddy of all conspiracy theories, the assassination of Kennedy 56 years ago, still has 47% of Americans believing that Oswald did not act alone. Thirty percent believe that Google discriminates against conservatives. Twenty-nine percent believe that a “deep state” works against Donald Trump, and 27% believe aliens really crash landed at Roswell.
(Philip Mead, formerly of Concord, lives in Chazy, N.Y.)