Faced with an overwhelming threat, our first instinct is often to deny that is exists—”there must be some mistake, this can’t be happening.” That is normal and understandable. However when large portions of a society live in continuous denial of self-evident truths—like rejecting reams of scientific evidence or insisting an obvious con man is a hero—the entire society suffers. Behind such mass denialism often lies a long-standing corrosive anxiety about the future that can easily turn into paranoia, confusion, and rage until something snaps—it’s reality that must be wrong! It is then that many flock to another template, one that eases their fears and that represents “Truth” no matter how much evidence to the contrary.
Denialism is rampant in America; elsewhere too, but given its role in the upcoming election, it’s of pressing concern here. Denial fantasies such as “The Rapture”, science and global warming as an elitist scam, gun control is aimed at disarming liberty-loving citizens, and a ranting demagogue is society’s savior, are driving this election as surely as economic concerns (which also attract their own form of denialism). Once committed to denial, and with peers, social media, religious figures, and ranting talk-show hosts reinforcing the message, the flood of denial overwhelms all reason, evidence, or facts in its path.
Most Trump supporters live in a state of denial. It is not only the nonsense he spews at rallies and on tweets, his blatant racism, all the business failures, or the bizarro lies he tells. It’s how a person can hear Trump’s inane, petulant litany of lies over and over again and decide, “Yes, that’s the man I want to be our president.” That is denialism on so many levels. Denial of what one would think of a neighbor or co-worker with one-tenth of Trump’s pitiful self-absorbed malice. Denial of the seriousness of the issues that demand a president’s attention and the cost of ignoring them. Denial of a man who used the presidency to extort money from sycophants and corporate hogs gorging themselves at national expense. Denial of Trump’s serial racism and the surge in white supremacism and hate crimes it has triggered. Denial of his roler in attempting to overthrow Constitutional government on January 6, 2021—and ever since, as he’s baldly stated on his current campaign trail.
But a greater denial is the failure to connect Republican policies to the very real question of how we, as a nation, will meet the life-and-death challenges that confront us. Instead, Republicans are devoted to a culture war of baseless charges about hurricane aid that actually interfered with relief efforts; anti-abortion policies worthy of A Handmaid’s Tale; and the lifting of restrictions on automatic weapons capable of firing hundreds of rounds a minute.
These policies have consequences. Denialism about Trump’s character or the spineless groveling of Republican officials or the corruption on the Supreme Court is bad enough. Denying the impact, the in-your-face consequences for our children’s and grandchildren’s lives, is both tragic and frivolous, a lethal combination.
Electoral denial and climate-denial go hand in hand. It took a long time for the general population to recognize climate change’s threat as it unfolded one sea surge, one wild-fire, one rising degree at a time. For Trump and the Republicans and their electoral base, though, the weather’s fine. Only 23% of Republicans, according to a Pew poll from August, 2023, view climate change as a serious problem. This past May Florida’s governor DeSantis signed a law forbidding mention of climate change in any Florida law, which “restructures Florida’s energy policy so that climate change and addressing planet-warming pollution no longer are priorities” (environmental journalist Amy Green). Meanwhile DeSantis scampers around Florida bemoaning the devastating impact of Hurricane Milton. The Florida voters who elected him and who apparently are prepared to hand Trump their electoral votes are prime examples of both electoral and environmental denialism.
Then there’s the refrain that we need a president who understands business. That itself is a meaningless statement and a denial of history and the nature of the office. Did FDR or Lincoln understand business? And how does a guy who has bankrupted at least half a dozen businesses, overseen another dozen major failures, regularly stiffs his contractors, and had most of his ventures investigated for fraud, pass muster as a good businessman? But he sure looked decisive when firing people on The Apprentice. It’s reality-denying TV, isn’t it? Must be real.
Another common Trump-voter assertion in the face of the unraveling of Trump’s lies and evasions is that he is “honest, transparent, and unafraid of speaking his mind.” True, in a way. Trump is transparent because there’s nothing there. He’s honest because he doesn’t hide his racism or misogyny. “Unafraid of speaking his mind” is no more a qualification than “he’s a guy you could have a beer with.” The slob at the end of the bar bellowing about Jews and blacks and immigrants meets the same criteria. When temperatures soar to 120 degrees and the electric grid blows out, when social security and Medicare disappear, when hospitals close in all but the cities endowed with wealthy medical centers, how will those people feel then?
The reporters, editors, and publishers of the mainstream media are also in denial. Its corporate owners have clearly quenched the old journalistic fires. (The most recent Rolling Stone issue is an exception). They do publish articles about Trump’s falsifications and legal woes but rarely dig into what that means for our most pressing domestic concerns: infrastructure; Trump’s tax policies that gave to the hyper-wealthy by robbing the middle class; proliferation of guns with massive fire power; women’s health; pandemics and disaster response; militarization of the police; the inroads of the acidic toxins of racism. Internationally his relationships with Putin and other dictators also have far-reaching destructive implications that few mainstream outlets are articulating.
Denialism might as well be spelled “Denihilism”, because when we are in denial, we turn our backs on problems and thus deny ourselves the ability to solve them. It’s a nihilistic approach to life, a world where nothing matters except the thin hope that one’s fantasy can reshape the momentum of real events. And that’s the Republican platform in a (literal) nut-shell.
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