The Costs of Rejecting Reality

Thanks to the information environment we inhabit, we Americans increasingly inhabit alternate “realities.” I’ve put quotation marks around the term “realities,” because it has become very clear that the universe in which too many Americans have chosen to reside is at odds with–indeed, incompatible with–empirical reality. The amount of propaganda, conspiracy theories, and other varieties of mis- and dis-information readily available online greatly facilitates the very human desire to indulge in confirmation bias–and the failure of civic and scientific education has facilitated widespread acceptance of “realities” wildly at odds with fact and credible evidence.

It seems pertinent, therefore, to ask: what happens when people choose to deny empirical evidence and facts they find inconvenient or annoying? What, for example, might we expect from RFK, Jr’s refusal to understand the science of vaccines, or the demonstrable benefits of a fluoridated water supply?

History is instructive. I did some (very superficial) research, and found fascinating (and depressing) evidence of humanity’s past experience with the denial of science and empirical inquiry.

Before acceptance of germ theory, for example, many people believed diseases like cholera were caused by the presence of  “miasma” (bad air). As a result, governments took no effective measures to control cholera outbreaks–and doctors who warned about the dangers of contaminated water were ignored. The result was thousands of unnecessary deaths.

The tendency to ignore and reject scientific evidence hasn’t been confined to America. In Russia, in the early 20th Century, a Soviet agricultural scientist named Lysenko rejected the science of genetics in favor of pseudoscientific ideas like Lamarckian inheritance (the belief that physical changes made to an organism during its lifetime would be  passed on–inherited by the organism’s offspring.) Stalin’s government embraced Lysenko’s theories, suppressed the scientists who supported Mendelian genetics, and based its agricultural policies on Lysenkoism. The result was widespread crop failures and famines that caused millions of deaths.

I found plenty of other historical examples: delays in accepting the science of plate tectonics that hindered advancements in understanding earthquakes, volcanic activity, and geological hazards. Initial medical responses to the HIV/AIDS crisis that were hampered by widespread stigma and misinformation. Vaccine disinformation (especially the consistently debunked claim that vaccines cause autism) has led to reduced vaccination rates, and the resurgence of diseases like measles, polio, and whooping cough that medical science had virtually eradicated.

Numerous studies have confirmed that the MAGA movement’s resistance to masks and vaccines during the COVID pandemic cost the U.S. thousands of lives–a far greater percentage of American citizens died than the percentage of people living in countries where the population had more respect for medical science. Delays in lockdowns, resistance to public health measures, and vaccine rejection caused millions of preventable deaths and significant economic damage.

And I don’t even want to theorize about the likely consequences of climate change denial…

Ironically, MAGA’s stubborn resistance to empiricism and fact flies in the face of what actually made America great.

America’s founders were students of the Enlightenment, especially the philosophy of John Locke, often considered the father of empiricism. The Founders committed themselves to unleashing the power of reason to advance knowledge and to build an effective and responsive government. They believed that science and democracy worked together, and often expressed their intent to base government policy on the best available data and the most up-to-date, empirical understanding of the world.

As the Union of Concerned Scientists wrote in 2012, “science and democracy, working hand in hand, have proved a powerful combination that has helped our nation to prosper and thrive throughout our history.”

That partnership of science and government is what enabled America’s economic “greatness.” The country’s economic growth  has significantly depended on empiricism and technological innovation; advances in industries like aerospace, computing, and biotechnology have all been dependant upon rigorous science and empirical evidence. Respect for science and empiricism has also been crucial to the development of the military defense technologies that have made the U.S. a world power. (Think radar, GPS, and nuclear energy.)

Trump and the MAGA movement are the absolute antithesis of the respect for science, evidence and expertise that is actually at the base of America’s global preeminence. The collection of clowns, buffoons, and know-nothings that Trump has nominated for his cabinet make a mockery of MAGA’s promise to return America to greatness.

What is that famous Santayana quote? Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.

Welcome to Lysenkoism.

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About Those Grocery Prices….

Lately, grocery prices have figured significantly in America’s political argumentation. A number of Trump voters cited them as justifications for their votes, for example. (Excuse my skeptical belief that this “reason” was generally given to mask the racism/misogyny that actually prompted those votes.)

Biden had little to do with grocery prices, but those prices are legitimately relevant to arguments about Trump’s moronic devotion to tariffs, and his threat to impose them on pretty much every country from which the U.S. imports. Every economist who has weighed in has pointed out that tariffs tax American consumers, not the countries exporting to us. And it’s hard to ignore the inevitable effect of his fixation on mass deportations, which–if successful–would leave crops rotting in American fields and set prices soaring.

Prices aren’t the only grocery problem. There’s also maldistribution– the growing incidence of America’s food deserts. A friend recently shared an Atlantic article that shed light on both issues. Titled “The Great Grocery Squeeze,” it highlighted the importance of government policy–very much including the enforcement of policy.

The concept of the food desert has been around long enough that it feels almost like a fact of nature. Tens of millions of Americans live in low-income communities with no easy access to fresh groceries, and the general consensus is that these places just don’t have what it takes to attract and sustain a supermarket. They’re either too poor or too sparsely populated to generate sufficient spending on groceries, or they can’t overcome a racist pattern of corporate redlining.

But these explanations fail to contend with a key fact: Although poverty and ruralness have been with us forever, food deserts arrived only around the late 1980s. Prior to that, small towns and poor neighborhoods could generally count on having a grocery store, perhaps even several. (The term food desert was coined in 1995 by a task force studying what was then a relatively new phenomenon.)

Affluent folks tend to think of food deserts as a feature of low-income, primarily Black neighborhoods, but it’s also a problem in very White places like North Dakota. In 1980s, almost every small town in North Dakota had a grocery store, and many had two. Now, nearly half of North Dakota’s rural residents live in a food desert.

Food deserts are not an inevitable consequence of poverty or low population density, and they didn’t materialize around the country for no reason. Something happened. That something was a specific federal policy change in the 1980s. It was supposed to reward the biggest retail chains for their efficiency. Instead, it devastated poor and rural communities by pushing out grocery stores and inflating the cost of food.

In 1936 Congress had passed the Robinson-Patman Act, essentially banning price discrimination in the industry.

During the decades when Robinson-Patman was enforced—part of the broader mid-century regime of vigorous antitrust—the grocery sector was highly competitive, with a wide range of stores vying for shoppers and a roughly equal balance of chains and independents. In 1954, the eight largest supermarket chains captured 25 percent of grocery sales. That statistic was virtually identical in 1982, although the specific companies on top had changed. As they had for decades, Americans in the early 1980s did more than half their grocery shopping at independent stores, including both single-location businesses and small, locally owned chains. Local grocers thrived alongside large, publicly traded companies such as Kroger and Safeway.

Studies tracking grocery prices while Robinson-Patman was being enforced found that large independent grocers were less than 1 percent more expensive than the big chains.

In the 1980s, convinced that tough antitrust enforcement was holding back American business, the Reagan administration set about dismantling it. The Robinson-Patman Act remained on the books, but the new regime saw it as an economically illiterate handout to inefficient small businesses. And so the government simply stopped enforcing it..That move tipped the retail market in favor of the largest chains, who could once again wield their leverage over suppliers.

Once independent stores closed, “the chains no longer had to invest in low-income areas. They could count on people to schlep across town to their other locations.”

It wasn’t only groceries–lack of anti-trust enforcement affected the entire retail sector. Between 1982 to 2017, the market share of independent retailers went from 53% to 22%.

The problem of food deserts will not be solved without the rediscovery of the Robinson-Patman Act. Requiring a level pricing playing field would restore local retailers’ ability to compete. This would provide immediate relief to entrepreneurs who have recently opened grocery stores in food deserts, only to find that their inability to buy on the same terms as Walmart and Dollar General makes survival difficult.

Policy matters. Just not in the way MAGA voters think.

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An Uninformed Electorate

Over the years I’ve been writing this blog, one of my more frequent laments has been the collapse of America’s local newspapers. The last time I looked, the United States had lost a over a quarter– 2,100 – of its local newspapers, and that number doesn’t include the “ghost” papers that are theoretically still functioning, but no longer able to adequately cover local news.

What do we lose when we lose local newspapers?

We lose “news you can use” about local government agencies, schools and the goings-on at the State legislature. As I’ve previously noted, we also lose a common information environment that builds community and is more trusted than national media sources. And that trust matters.

Research confirms that the loss of a properly functioning local paper leads to diminished participation in municipal elections, which become less competitive. Corruption goes unchecked, driving costs up for local government. Disinformation proliferates because people turn to social media to get their “facts.”

A recent study confirms the importance of local newspapers to the maintenance of an informed citizenry. I’ve previously reported on a statistic I found stunning (and depressing)–the fact that people who follow the news (presumably including Fox “News”) voted for Harris by a considerable margin, and people who reported seldom or never following the news voted for Trump by a much larger margin. But that finding didn’t distinguish between local and national news sources.

This study–cited by the Local News Initiative-– did.

Donald Trump won the 2024 election with one of the smallest popular-vote margins in U.S. history, but in news deserts – counties lacking a professional source of local news – it was an avalanche. Trump won 91% percent of these counties over his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, according to an analysis of voting data by Medill Journalism School’s State of Local News project.

The study didn’t confuse correlation with causation; researchers were careful to note that Trump’s dominance in the country’s news deserts isn’t a simple matter of cause and effect.

That is, people didn’t necessarily vote for Trump because they lack local news. Instead, a simpler and more obvious correlation may be at work: News deserts are concentrated in counties that tend to be rural and have populations that are less educated and poorer than the national average–exactly the kind of places that went strongly for Trump in 2024 and in 2020….

But news deserts do have the potential to affect voting behavior in important ways. When voters lose access to local news, they tend to gravitate toward national news sources, according to research by Joshua P. Darr, a professor of public communications at Syracuse University. This kind of news, by definition, focuses on broad national issues—abortion, immigration, the economy, etc.—without regard to local conditions.

Individuals exposed only to national news are thus unlikely to know how a given candidate’s priorities will affect their cities or states. They base their votes on a few national issues that tend to reinforce basic partisan identities. Voters in news deserts are also more likely to engage in ballot “roll off”  – that is, vote for president but leave local and statewide races blank. Others will simply vote a straight ticket for candidates who share the political party of their presidential choice.

Those practices can hardly be considered informed votes by thoughtful citizens–those needed by a democratic system.

Several of the studies I’ve previously cited have found that citizens tend to place more trust in local sources of news than in national media. The absence of a local newspaper doesn’t just deprive them of important information about their own communities–the disappearance of those trusted local sources leaves them with a choice between inadequate alternatives: they may stop following the news altogether, or they may ignore the so-called “legacy” media in favor of less credible sources that reflect their partisan leanings and biases.

I agree with the researchers that Trump’s victory in America’s news deserts is not a “simple matter of cause and effect.” The study’s results should not be reduced to “Trump won because people were uninformed.” But it would be equally wrongheaded to dismiss that argument entirely. It is at least plausible to assume that more information from a more trusted source might have influenced at least some of these voters–if not to withhold a vote for Trump, at least to consider their choices for down-ballot candidates. (The presence of a local newspaper has been found to increase ticket-splitting, for example, indicating more informed voting.)

Life in a news desert leads to more political corruption, higher taxes, lower bond ratings, greater social alienation, misinformation, and loss of social cohesion. It also leads to more votes for enormously unfit candidates.

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The Patriarchal Backlash

Supporters of the draconian abortion bans passed by Red states like Indiana like to pooh-pooh allegations that those bans are part of a “war on women.” But a woman’s ability to control her own reproduction is absolutely essential to her ability to participate equally in economic and civic life, and depriving her of that control is a major goal of those who want to take America back to patriarchy, to a time when women were subservient.

MAGA’s war against women doesn’t stop with abortion bans and restrictions on birth control. The Guardian recently reported on Republican proposals to cut a variety of federal subsidies that disproportionately help women.

As they prepare to take control of the White House and Congress next month, conservatives are eyeing cutbacks to federal programs that help tens of millions of women pay for healthcare, food, housing and transportation.

The ferocity of the backlash to women’s growing equality raises obvious questions: why is it that the United States, with our vaunted celebration of individual rights and civic equality, has never had a female President, as other countries have? Why are women still under-represented in our legislative bodies, compared to numerous other countries?

Recently, Yascha Mounk posed those questions to Alice Evans, a scholar who focuses on them. Evans has a book coming out titled “The Great Gender Divergence,” and her observations are instructive.

Evans noted that there are wide differences in labor force and leadership participation across the globe.

Across Scandinavia there is a very strong share of female representation. In Latin America there are 11 legislative assemblies which actually mandate gender parity, and you’ve just seen two women fight it out for the presidency in Mexico.

When Mounk asked Evans to speculate about why these differences exist, her explanation began with a history of women’s emancipation that was very similar to the one Morton Marcus and I offered in our book From Property to Partnership.

As she noted, in 1900, much of the world was very patriarchal.

Our Enlightenment, our scholars, our scientists, our parliaments, and our judiciary were incredibly patriarchal, a total sausage fest. But then there is a big disruption, and I do think economics and politics are important here. So over the 20th century, skill bias and technological change are ramping up demand for skilled labor. That happens across the world. These factories open up and women seize the economic opportunities they create. It’s also mediated by technology: When women have contraceptives they can control their fertility, further their education and then build careers.

So what accounts for the striking differences in female political and economic participation across the globe? Culture. Especially the persistence of patriarchal cultures, where male status depends upon “protecting” women and keeping them submissive, and where a “husbands’ status is contingent upon them being the breadwinner and women remaining at home.”

The interview is wide-ranging, and focuses largely on the situations of women in countries where male resistance to female empowerment is far more powerful and effective than in the U.S. But Evans’ observations about culture–especially patriarchal culture–have obvious pertinence to America, where our citizenry includes a wide variety of subcultures, many of which are patriarchal to a greater or lesser degree. 

There has been a lot of hand-wringing over the fact that Trump pulled more than the expected vote percentage with some traditionally Democratic-voting constituencies. Pundits have offered various theories, almost all based upon policy differences, ignoring  the likely effect of the “macho” elements of some of these cultures, and the corresponding belief that women are unfit for the Presidency. Then there is the influence of fundamentalist religions, virtually all of which circumscribe the role of women. The recent resurgence of White Christian Nationalism is at least partially a backlash against  the growing role of women and gays in American society.

Project 2025 proposes an agenda that is thoroughly paternalistic and patriarchal, and anyone who thinks the Trump administration won’t try to impose its provisions on American society is, as they say, “smoking something.” (The extent to which his chosen clowns, conspiracy theorists and buffoons will succeed is a different question.)

James Davidson Hunter coined the term Culture Wars back in 1992. It was an apt phrase then, and it is even more appropriate now. The divisions between modernists and “traditionalists,” between urban and rural Americans, between resentful Whites and people of color are all essentially cultural. 

Today’s “cold civil war” isn’t between Republicans and Democrats. (Face it, there aren’t any real Republicans anymore.) It’s a culture war between a MAGA movement that wants to reinstate a racist, homophobic, patriarchal society and those of us who want to live in an inclusive 21st Century.

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Crony Capitalism–The Big Grift

Not to sound like some sort of weird Pollyanna, but despite the considerable downsides and probable suffering involved, perhaps the Trump administration’s coming destruction of America’s governing institutions is overdue. Maybe we need a thorough-going rethinking of the ways in which America’s current governing structures support and encourage some very destructive approaches–especially to our economic life.

As I have frequently asserted, I am a huge fan of market capitalism–properly understood. By “properly understood,” I mean a system that recognizes two essentials of a working market economy: the maintenance of a true level playing field, which requires rational, reasonable regulation; and proper recognition of the areas of the economy that are not suited to a market approach. Markets are marvelous devices for the production of all manner of goods and services–and absolutely inappropriate and damaging in other areas of our communal lives.

The basic definition of a market transaction is one in which a willing buyer and willing seller, both of whom are in possession of all information relevant to the transaction, enter into a sales agreement. Rather obviously, that definition excludes things like medical care, where the “buyer” is not in possession of the same information as the provider, and is generally in no position to bargain with the provider or to shop around for a better deal.

What about transactions where the “buyer” is government?

Take prisons. In a market economy, should government “purchase” incarceration services from entities competing for those government contracts? Or–as most of us might suspect–does the prospect of a “buyer” with virtually unlimited resources thanks to the taxing power invite would-be contractor/sellers to engage in a range of unethical behaviors–big donations to selected political figures in order to get the contracts, and/or failure to provide the services at an optimum (or even adequate) level in order to generate more profit?

Should prisons be privatized–i.e., considered part of the market economy? Or is the marketization of such essentially governmental services an invitation to corruption?

One recent report looked at the “industry” of immigrant detention. Titled “Revenue Over Refuge,” the report found the following:

  • Hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing from city and federal governments to private equity firms for goods and services used to detain immigrants.
  • 63 percent of federally-designated ICE facilities contract with private equity-owned companies for a range of services.
  • Private equity-owned companies are winning emergency contracts for managing migrant shelters in cities across the country.
  • Companies like Wellpath and G4S have faced investigations and lawsuits and paid out settlements for mistreating immigrants in their care.
  • Private equity firms and other alternative asset managers stand to profit from increased taxpayer-funded immigration detention, although alternatives to detention cost less.

Are we really surprised to find corporate America engaging in these profit-maximizing tactics? More fundamentally, are prisons the sort of consumer item we think of when we consider the merits of healthy market economies?

When I was still teaching, I required the graduate students in my Law and Public Policy classes to produce team projects on a  policy issue that the team would choose. Over the years, several of the teams investigated government contracting with the private prison industry. In every case, the teams’ conclusions were highly negative. Not only did they focus on the poor performance of the contractors–and the high potential for graft–but most teams addressed what I think is the underlying philosophical question: when should government contract out–and when shouldn’t it? When is it appropriate for government to be the “willing buyer” in a market transaction?

America is heading for a very ugly few years, as the MAGA movement tries to install a government that might have been appropriate for an 18th Century society–a government utterly insufficient for America’s contemporary culture and other realities of the 21st Century. The next few years will range from very unpleasant to devastating (those of us with documented citizenship, a measure of financial security and white skin will be spared the worst of it; others won’t be so lucky.) But when the fever subsides, when the current MAGA eruption of racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism and other assorted bigotries has run its course (at least this time), the rest of us must be ready to offer practical systemic and economic reforms.

Production of that reform agenda needs to be a central part of the Resistance.

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