Credibility

Lack of Trusted Authority is Why Covid-19 is Kicking Our Butts

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We have faced tough times before.

World wars, famines, pandemics, economic ruin.

But in each of these disasters, the majority of people thought they had somewhere to turn for knowledge and advice.

We had trusted authorities to tell us what to do, to counsel us how to handle these seemingly insurmountable disasters.

Today many of us face the Covid-19 pandemic feeling there are few sources to believe in – and that more than anything else – is why we are having such a difficult time coming together to overcome this crisis.

The media, government, science, religion – none hold a central place of confidence in most people’s lives. So when tough decisions about health and safety come into play, many of us aren’t sure what to do.

This wasn’t always the case.

Look back to World War II.

Not only did we defeat fascism but new vaccines put a wallop on illness and disease.

When we entered the fray, the US government organized new research initiatives targeting influenza, bacterial meningitis, bacterial pneumonia, measles, mumps, neurotropic diseases, tropical diseases and acute respiratory diseases.

And because there was an immense trust in government – after all, as a nation we had been attacked together as one at Pearl Harbor – there was enormous trust in these initiatives.

Before World War II, soldiers died more often of disease than of battle injuries. The ratio of disease-to-battle casualties was approximately 5-to-1 in the Spanish-American War and 2-to-1 in the Civil War. In World War I, we were able to reduce casualties due to disease through better sanitation efforts, but we could not protect troops from the 1918 influenza pandemic. During that outbreak, flu accounted for roughly half of US military casualties in Europe.

Much of the groundwork for innovation in vaccinations had already been laid before WWII. However, it was the organization of the war effort and the trust both the civilian and military population had in government that catapulted us ahead.

I’m not ignoring that some of this trust was misplaced. The US government has never been fully trustworthy – just ask the Asian American population forced into internment camps. However, the general feeling at the time that the government was a force for good, that we were all in this together and we all had to do our part had a vast effect on how we handled this crisis.

Today that kind of trust is gone.

In some ways that’s a good thing. It could be argued that “The Greatest Generation” put too much faith in government and the following years showed why too credulous belief in the good will of our leaders was unearned and unhealthy.

From Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal to Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct to George W. Bush lying us into a war of choice to Barack Obama’s neoliberalism to Donald Trump’s gross mismanagement and blatant racism – we can never go back to a WWII mentality.

Skepticism of government is kind of like seasoning. A certain amount is a good thing, but the inability to trust even government’s most basic ability to take care of its citizens and function in any meaningful way is hugely detrimental.

And this earned distrust has seeped into just about every source of possible certitude that might have helped us survive the current crisis.

The media used to be considered the fourth estate – one of the most important pillars of our society. After all, the freedom of information is essential to the free exercise of democracy.

However, the erosion of impartiality has been going on since at least the 1980s when the FCC under President Ronald Reagan abolished the Fairness Doctrine. Since 1949 this had required the media to present both sides’ of opinions. In 1987 a Democratic Congress passed a bill to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine but it was vetoed by Reagan.

This, along with the rise of talk radio and the insistence that news departments turn a profit, lead directly to the creation of more biased reporting skewed to a particular audience – Fox News and Sinclair Broadcast Group being the most prominent.

The fact that just six corporations own 90% of the media outlets in the country skew coverage to what’s in the best interests of big business. These corporations are GE, Newscorp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner and CBS.


Finally, the loss of local newspapers and the purchase of those few that do exist by large media conglomerates further increase bias.

Few people feel they can trust the news anymore. They turn to the Internet, social media, Twitter and other sources that often are just echo chambers for what they already believe.

The irony is not lost on me that you are reading a blog by a public school teacher, not a professional journalist. But my aim is to use my experience in education to inform the debate.

It’s just too bad that I’m often forced to report the news when traditional news sources drops the ball.

Again skepticism of mass media is a good thing, but we should at least be able to count on the press as a reliable source of facts. However, these days few facts are free from bias, spin and editorial comment.

Even science is not immune.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) made several blunders handling this pandemic which hurt the organization’s credibility.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the organization refused to acknowledge and later emphasize the airborne spread of the virus. It took until May 2021 for the organization to fully recognize that fact.

Another blunder was the guidelines on what counts as “close contact.” It went from “within 6 feet” to “within 3 feet”, and the duration went from 30 minutes consecutively to 30 minutes cumulatively. It’s not so much that the evidence changed, but that political pressure forced the CDC to lower its standards.

World scientific consensus now is that the coronavirus is capable of airborne spread without close contact between two people. Airborne droplets can linger in the air indoors and infect any number of people from one superspreading host subject.

The CDC’s advice on close contact is based on old scientific research that just isn’t as good as modern experiments.

And the organization has misjudged so much more from the importance of masking (at first they said it wasn’t important, now they say it is important), whether children can catch the virus (at first they said this was unlikely and now they admit it happens but is often asymptomatic), whether Covid spreads in schools (they used to say the limited protections in place at schools made this unlikely and now they admit it is happening), etc.

One could argue that these were simple mistakes that have changed as better science comes in. However, in each case they appear to have initially been politically motivated and justified with limited or flawed studies that could not continue to be supported as new data came in.

At first the CDC told us that masking wasn’t important not because it was true, but to hide a shortage of masks that needed to be prioritized for medical staff. These needs are understandable, but hiding the truth and then changing your messaging doesn’t engender trust.

Misinformation about the impact of Covid on children was an attempt to keep schools open and stop the economy from shutting down as parents were unable to work. Not only did this put children at risk for economic gain, it has contributed to the current refusal of so many people to follow CDC guidelines about reopening schools.

Why do so many people refuse to have their children wear masks at school? Why is there so much vaccine hesitancy? Why anxiety about reopening plans that focus on close contacts?

The CDC owns a lot of the responsibility because it has repeatedly earned our distrust.

This isn’t to say everything coming from them is dubious. I think the guidelines the CDC has put in place for the current school year are supported by the facts.

I think there is evidence that people need to wear masks in schools. I think we need to vaccinate as many people as possible.

But these are just bare minimums.

I think the CDC is still focusing too much on the economic impact of its guidelines when it should be solely focused on the health and safety of students, staff and the community.

This is not a time for scientists to be playing politics.

We need them to be as transparent as possible – as trustworthy as they can be.

Unfortunately, the erosion of institutional credibility at so many levels has become a cycle to itself.

At multiple levels, sources that should be bedrock have become wet sand.

The federal government has not taken enough action to keep people safe. State governments have not taken enough action – and some have even taken action to prevent safety.

Even at the local level, many school boards have cowardly refused to put in place mask or vaccine mandates.

It is the systematic breakdown of a society.

We have few places left we can trust.

And that is why we are fractured and scared.

We don’t know what to do to keep our loved ones safe.

People seem forced to choose between taking the virus seriously and ignoring it.

Many refuse to admit that it could hurt them. They think it’s just the sniffles. Few healthy people die and they discount the potential longterm effects of catching it.

The US has only 4% of the world population but nearly a quarter of all Covid cases.

That’s not a coincidence.

In large part, it’s because we don’t know how to combat the virus because we don’t know who to trust.

And the resulting credibility vacuum has enabled unscrupulous politicians, agents of chaos and other charlatans to position themselves as experts.

When all information is equal, disinformation is king.

The solution to the pandemic may end up being easier than this riddle.

How our institutions can regain their credibility.

Especially when our politics doesn’t allow them to be honest, and fewer people are even listening to them every day.

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The Credibility Gap Between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton

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I Believe Bernie Sanders. I Don’t Believe Hillary Clinton.

Really. It’s that simple.

These two candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency both have things going for them. But at the end of the day one of them is much more credible than the other.

They’re both career politicians.

Sanders has been a Vermont Senator for nine years, a U.S. Representative for 16 years, and Mayor of Burlington for eight years.

Clinton was Secretary of State for four years, a New York Senator for eight years, and – most famously – First Lady of the United States for eight years and of Arkansas for 11 years.

But when they speak, only Sanders seems genuine.

I know that’s a personal value judgement. Maybe it doesn’t hit you the same way.

I just don’t know how it could hit you differently.

For instance, both candidates say they’re going to keep the banking industry in check and stop the risky practices that crashed the economy under President George W. Bush. However, that same industry is Clinton’s main financial supporter while Sanders has almost nothing to do with them.

Look at the facts.

Clinton admittedly accepts a massive amount of donations from Wall Street – $824,000 from Citigroup, $760,000 from Goldman Sachs, $696,000 from JP Morgan Chase, $636,000 from Morgan Stanley and the list goes on and on. More than 760 of Clinton’s over all donors list their occupation as CEO or another form of chief executive, according to CNBC.

Meanwhile, Sanders has accepted almost nothing from Wall Street, doesn’t have a super PAC and still raises nearly as much money in donations as Clinton. Small individual contributions make up 70% of his campaign cash. His biggest contributors are from retirees, unions and progressive political organizations – $105,000 from Machinists/Aerospace Workers Union, $93,000 from the Teamsters union, $89,000 from the National Education Association.

So when Sanders says he’s going to break up the big banks and regulate Wall Street, I believe him. Apparently, they do, too, since they aren’t giving him any money.

But when Clinton says she’s going to hold Wall Street accountable, too, it’s just laughable. Why else would they be giving her all this money? Are they paying her to get tough on THEMSELVES!? As Sanders supporter Dr. Cornell West puts it, “I was born at night but not last night.”

The same thing goes for healthcare.

Both candidates say they want to reform the system to make it more affordable and fair. However, Sanders supports a single payer Medicare for all system, while Clinton supports tweaking the existing Obamacare system.

Two decades ago, Clinton agreed with Sanders. Now she receives $13.2 million in donations from the medical and insurance industry – $11.2 million when she was a Senator and $2 million since she began her presidential campaign. From 2013-2015 she received more than $2.8 million in speaking fees alone from the industry.
It’s funny how all that cash coincided with a change in her healthcare policy. She just said recently that single payer will “never, ever” happen.

By contrast, Sanders doesn’t receive sizable donations from the industry at all. Though he voted for Obamacare, he made it clear he thought it was a first step toward the better system he still supports.

So I suppose both are credible in this regard, but Sanders seems to be holding his position more because of conviction than monetary gain. Moreover, how much tweaking of the current system would Clinton really support while still in the pay of the healthcare industry?

However, it’s not all about campaign contributions.

Sanders positions have been fairly rock solid throughout his long career. Clinton’s have changed.

Look at mass incarceration – a huge problem in the United States. We have more than 2 million people incarcerated, many for low level infractions, boosting a for-profit prison industry. By contrast, China – with four times our population – only locks up 1.6 million of its citizens. The US has only 4 percent of the world population but locks away nearly a quarter of the world prison population. Thirty Seven states have higher incarceration rates than most nations, large or small.

When she was First Lady, Clinton supported her husband’s tough on crime legislation. “We need more prisons,” she said in 1994, “to keep violent offenders for as long as it takes to keep them off the streets.” Now that the devastating results of that policy have become clear, Clinton has changed her tune. “We must end the era of mass incarceration,” she said in October of 2015.

That’s quite a switch, and its fairly new. The last time she ran for president, she criticized her rival Barack Obama for being soft on crime and not committing to opening more prisons. Now on the campaign trail she tries to convince us she hates mass incarceration MORE than Obama. In 8 years, she went from a prison booster and belittling Obama for not loving prisons to a prison skeptic.

Did she just evolve on this issue? Has she finally come around to seeing things the right way? Or is she pandering to what she thinks voters want to hear?

Sanders, on the other hand, has been against mass incarceration for most of his career. He’s been speaking about the dangers of ballooning prison populations for more than a decade. As far back as 1994, he said, “Mr. Speaker, all the jails in the world, and we already imprison more people per capita than any other country, and all the executions in the world, will not make that situation right. We can create meaningful jobs, rebuilding our society, or we can build more jails.” Compare that with his statement from July of 2015: “The result of kids not being in school and kids not having jobs is that tragically, today, we in this country have more people in jail than any other country on Earth.”

This issue has become a popular rallying cry recently receiving support from people across the political spectrum. But Sanders was championing it when no one else was paying attention. Clinton has suddenly seen the light.

But it’s not even just past policy decisions.

Clinton is guarded and only seems to make statements that will get her political points. Sanders says things that are sure to loose him votes but that he apparently believes.

For instance, he recently came out in favor of the federal government being largely responsible for public school funding. As a nation, we have drastic monetary and resource inequalities in our nations schools, but no one else is talking about ways to fix it. The trend has been to cut funding. Yet Sanders is willing to put forward a common sense solution the rest of the world has proven works. It’s not bound to get him many votes, though, even from some education advocates afraid of recent federal overreaches in school policy.

Another example is religion. No presidential candidate in recent memory – perhaps ever – has openly admitted to being irreligious. Both Democrats and Republicans usually fall all over themselves to prove how pious they are in their everyday lives. Clinton, for instance, responded during this election cycle that her favorite book is the Bible. Conversely, Sanders admitted he is not a part of any organized religion, though he considers himself Jewish.

That might not get him many votes. But it is refreshingly honest. There is no reason to say something like that unless it were true.

Moreover, Sanders seems like more of genuine person than Clinton. In 1987 when he was Mayor of Burlington, Sanders recorded a folk album. Yes, folk music! It’s called “We Shall Overcome.” The late night shows have been playing it and getting laughs at his expense, but when they bring it up to Sanders, he just laughs and admits that he wasn’t much of a singer.

Can you imagine anything like that from Clinton? Sure, Bill played the saxophone, but Hillary? There is nothing so personal that has leaked to the public. Moreover, the folk song lyrics that Sanders sings are in-line with his political ideology.

Heck! The very fact that Hillary is famous for getting a $600 haircut while Sanders often lets his grey locks fly whichever way they want! It seems like Clinton is trying too hard to convince us, while Sanders is kind of like – here I am, this is me, what you see is what you get.

Ultimately questions of credibility are very personal. People will feel differently. However, looking at the facts, I find it impossible to believe Clinton’s rhetoric and impossible not to believe a good deal of Sanders’. We’ll see how voters feel as the primary elections begin today.