Sam Smith - One thing that rarely gets mentioned about the Trump phenomenon is how unusual it is for so many Americans to put their trust and their votes behind a president who is such a proven liar and such a failure in so many other ways.
The best answer I can come up with is that we are seeing the personalization of values we came to accept a long time ago thanks to corporations and other institutions instructing us with things like advertising and public relations. Combined with the lack of teaching our children how to deal with such matters, we have created a society that is far too comfortable with deceit. If you can accept it in buying something for dinner, why shouldn’t it work for a presidential candidate as well?
The failure of our media to report honestly on the current disaster is another factor. One journalist who covered Trump and told the truth recently left the NY Times because of the way they edited his columns. You read his description of this experience here.
Something we could do to start a reversal of this cultural disaster is to introduce the skill of finding truth to our childhood classrooms. I went to a Quaker high school that put emphasis on honesty. I also worked on a farm and was an officer on a Coast Guard cutter, locales where not being honest does you no good. These were hidden but good values to learn before coming a fledgling journalist.
We can’t change Donald Trump but we can emphasize virtues that have declined in recent times. And as we recover these values we will find more alternatives to Trump.
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