Why do so many seemingly intelligent people fail to think? They fail to review Trump’s economic, crime, foreign and security policies? Then study the histories of Kamala Harris – until recently despised in her own party – and Tim Walz, likewise disdained? Call it the “Harris-Walz Mystery.” What is behind it?
Why do so many people who, by comparison, study the backs of cans, jars, and boxes for calorie counts, amounts of saturated fat, sodium, carbs, and protein, and not care about picking good leaders?
How can so many parents not worry – day and night – for the wellbeing of their children in schools, what they are being taught, forced to accept, safety in bathrooms and locker rooms, moral compass, exposure to drugs and crime? Why do they not think harder?
How can so many smart young people not see that energy solutions include balance, affordable fossil fuels and nuclear, unaffordable solar and wind, the value in being calm, not hysterical?
How can so many good hearts not appreciate that America is not an accident, that they did not get mobile phones, digital media, cures for diseases, and knowledge of the universe, just by chance?
How can we not want to understand history, the hard-won history of freedom, how delicate that human desire and right is in practice, how easy it is to crush, how crushable we all are?
How can they not want to understand Mankind’s long battle to get here, to have lives defined by God-given rights, limits on government, protections for faith and speech, a balanced Constitution?
How can seniors not see their life savings are being drained by the Biden-Harris – and now would be by Walz – government power centralized, consolidated by handouts, inflation made permanent?
How do they not see the enormity and momentum in inflation as a hidden tax, stealing value from them daily, that Biden-Harris were taking nine percent of their savings (annualized) in August 2022?
How can they not see the wisdom in stopping illegal entry into the US to keep citizenship and civic cohesion alive, keep us safe, keep our electoral system safe, kids safe, stop the rising drug overdoses on Chinese fentanyl, Mexican and Colombian cocaine, heroin, and meth?
Where is common sense? How can people who count pennies for gas, not see the cause of their pain? How can the thought process that people apply to safely crossing a street, trusting people who talk bluntly, even if rudely works daily, but then entrust themselves to those who are not leaders?
Jonathan Swift stumbled on the answer, years ago, when he noted people are easily led astray. Many give up thinking, let feelings guide them, and they are hard to get back. Wrote Swift: “It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.” In other words, logic, facts, and life experience may not work on those guided by loose, lazy, fluffy feelings.
Does that mean we should stop trying? No, we must keep trying to persuade, but false narratives and deliberately sown prejudice get get deeply rooted, and are hard to undo, as we all know.
We are in a perilous moment, many claiming to attest for things that are not true, class warfare and racist ideas reseeded for political gain by the current government, calling good bad and bad good.
Even George Orwell (1984) knew control of information flow is everything; those who control the past control the future. Our First Amendment rights are plainly at risk, yet many still do not see it.
So, about this “Harris-Walz Mystery”…Why are so many smart people willing to follow this deceptive pair, dishonest, calculating, power-concentrating in ways that endanger the future?
The answer is a giant slight-of-hand, as used to protect Biden, shifting all to Trump-Vance, the old denial, deception, and deflection. Half-truths, untruths, helping people hate, is their strategy.
Yes, it’s a food fight, both sides undermining each other, but the imbalance is profound, one side abusing power for profit and to prosecute enemies, which – if unchecked – may kill the Republic.
That side is now counting on a chunk of centrist America to pay no attention, do no more original thinking, ask no hard questions of Harris-Walz, indulge hope and also hate to win the day.
That is their strategy: Keep people off balance, keep them from digging deeper, thinking harder, comparing policies, examining Harris and Walz. Why do so many intelligent people fail to think? It takes effort, and it is easier not to, just to assume the best and accept what others tell them.
We have created an intellectually lazy cohort among voters, a group that would rather be given things than work for them, have others think for them, imagine ignorance outweighs knowledge.
No wonder Isaac Asimov, arguably one of the deepest thinkers of our time, warned: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States…nurtured by the false notion that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’” There you have it, a caution shared by our founders: Think or perish.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
