Stupidity or Anger?

A few days ago, I had a conversation about the state of the world with someone whose opinion I value highly.

As we went around the world looking at what passes for leadership and justice, he concluded that people aren’t stupid, they are angry and frustrated.

People are frustrated and angry at many things.

If one looks at the United States, one concludes that there are two systems of justice at play. One is for regular people, the other is for the rich and privileged. 

Former President Donald Trump is a prime example.

He instigated the January 6th insurrection that cost lives and significant damage to the U.S. Congress. Two years of Congressional investigations have resulted in many of his colleagues being imprisoned for their role in the attempted insurrection.

He remains free.

He stole a good number of highly classified documents from the White House and stored them in his home in Mar a Lago. They were found by investigators and confiscated. 

A similar activity by a mid-level bureaucrat would have resulted in a lengthy prison sentence for trafficking in sensitive state secrets.

Trump remains free.

His income tax returns indicate that he has paid little or no taxes over the past few years. If you or I lived in the U.S., we would have had the Internal Revenue Service auditing us seven ways to Sunday.

Trump remains free.

He also claimed to have divested himself of his Chinese bank accounts before he ran for the presidency. His income tax returns indicate that he lied.

Indeed, he has demonstrated an inability to be truthful throughout his life and throughout his presidency. 

He still enjoys the strong support of his base and of many elected Republican officials.

Another example is Republican Congressman-elect George Santos. He has been proven to have lied about all of his curriculum – beginning with his academic credentials and work history as well as his family ties. He claimed that his grandparents were imprisoned during the Holocaust and that he was Jewish when in fact none of this was true. 

Yet a majority of Republican members of Congress allowed him to take his seat as an elected member and have also given him some committee assignments.

In the United Kingdom successive Conservative Prime Ministers have lied about the benefits of undertaking Brexit during the referendum campaign of 2015-16. The Conservatives remain in power, and the British people continue to suffer from the fallout from this historic blunder.

In Russia, President Putin continues to accuse Ukraine of starting the war and of being a fascist danger to Russia. While this is ridiculous, a number of foreign governments appear to support him. This goes for some Western observers who should know better, but whose ideological bent or anti-U.S. stance militates for supporting the lies of autocratic and populist leaders as long as they put democracy or the U.S. in a bad light.  

Meanwhile, a good number of U.N. member states abstained from voting Iran off the U.N. Commission for the Rights of Women despite the current violence in that country and the targeting of women and men with death sentences for defending their basic human rights.

These are just a small sample of the inconsistencies that we face between what governments say and what they do, how they literally get away with murder while people suffer.

So, are people stupid or are they angry and frustrated?

I believe they are a mixture of both. However, I would replace the term “stupid” with “misled and powerless”.

Many are misled and believe lies and conspiracy theories that do nothing to improve their lot in life. Many are also powerless in the face of repressive political systems where the price of dissent can mean the possible loss of one’s life. 

Many are also angry and frustrated with what they see as the constant mendacity and hypocrisy of politicians of all stripes and the lack of a leadership class capable of stimulating thoughtful polices and creating meaningful and honest dialogue with voters.

The angry vent at the fact that justice is meted out differently for different people and lament the lack of good leadership.

The misled and powerless ones unwittingly or our of sheer frustration often support the proven traffickers of lies and conspiracy theories and celebrate them as the saviors of humanity since their anger and frustration see no other option.

And many political leaders are willing to indulge in lies and subterfuge in order to win and hold on to power.

And this has led the world into the mess we currently face.

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Edición: Laura Espejo