Collective denialism - Part 2

There were legitimate criticisms that could have been made about the Affordable Care Act. Obama said something along the lines of, "If you like your health care plan you'll be able to keep your health care plan." That was short-sighted and failed to appreciate the ways in which health care plans would be changing post-Obamacare. It was also short-sighted to say that health insurance premiums wouldn't go up. That's not something that should have been predicted with any level of confidence.

Health insurance premiums did go up, but the reason why they went up is because the people that joined the exchanges were sicker than expected. That's exactly the point of Obamacare. We want those people getting treatment because A) it will improve their quality of life and B) we're facing those costs head-on rather than sweeping them under the rug. Still, those are valid criticisms that could have been debated before the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. Unfortunately, if there were people making those arguments, they were drowned out by the Republicans screaming about a government takeover of health care. That's why denialism is so counterproductive. It crowds out legitimate arguments that could advance understanding with subversive nonsense.

This is how Wikipedia defines denialism.

In the psychology of human behavior, denialism is a person's choice to deny reality, as a way to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth. Denialism is an essentially irrational action that withholds the validation of a historical experience or event, by the person refusing to accept an empirically verifiable reality.

I recently got into an exchange on social media about Planned Parenthood. Someone posted a "sting" video about Planned Parenthood that suggested that it's trying to trick people into having abortions. It implied that Planned Parenthood was being caught in a lie, claiming to be a provider of prenatal care when it's really just an abortion factory. I tried to point out that Planned Parenthood is up front about what they do. Their primary goal is to prevent unwanted pregnancies and their secondary goal is to terminate unwanted pregnancies. They also provide numerous services related to men and women's sexual health. The original poster responded by linking to another "sting" video that suggested that Planned Parenthood turns a blind eye to child sex trafficking, which is also factually incorrect.

The woman who posted those videos is a religious conservative. She didn't state her opinions outright, but I can make a few guesses. I can guess that she's anti-abortion. She probably thinks federal funds are being used for abortion by Planned Parenthood. (She either doesn't know about the Hyde Amendment or doesn't believe that it does what it says it does.) She probably thinks that people shouldn't have sexual intercourse outside of marriage. She probably thinks that people shouldn't have access to birth control at all. I have to guess about her views because she's not on social media arguing for what she believes in, she's posting slanderous videos that attempt to discredit, disparage, and denigrate an organization based on misleading and deceptive information. It's a corrosive and insidious approach to public debate.

What I find so frustrating is that people do have legitimate differences of opinion. It's OK to be anti-abortion. It's OK to argue that fetuses should have the same rights as fully formed people even if that takes away the rights of the mother. Those are debates that we should have. But so often people aren't willing or able to argue for what they believe in. What are the experiences that formed your political identity? What are the reasons why you think the way that you do? What does your ideal future look like and how are your thoughts and actions helping to bring about that future?

Republicans have turned denialism into an ideological platform. It has permeated every debate, every talking point, every tweet. And let me be frank. It's a sickness. It's a mental illness. It represents an existential threat to our democracy and our way of life. The reason why it's so serious is that it sets up a situation in which someone's actions are not self-correcting. Normally when a person does something that turns out badly they say to themselves, "That did not turn out the way I expected. There must be something about the situation I didn't understand." Denialism robs you of the ability for introspection and self-reflection. It causes you to blame others for the terrible things that resulted from your own actions, or simply deny them completely. There is virtually no limit to the amount of damage that can be done, because even as actions have worse and worse consequences, there will always be an unlimited number of people and things to blame, other than yourself.

I don't know what to do about this calamitous problem. I used to think that information was key. That presenting people with irrefutable evidence would change their minds, but that idealism has slowly been replaced by a creeping sense of dread that nothing will change these people's minds. I'm left with the troubling thought that denialism might be like alcoholism. Alcoholics are notoriously difficult to get through to. You can present them will a laundry list of reasons why their behavior is damaging to themselves and to others, but at the end of the day, they're still going to reach for that drink. One of the only ways to get through to an alcoholic is to cut them our of your life until they get help. Unfortunately, that might be what it takes.