Does size matter?

Several things have occurred to me over the past few days.

I am concerned with whatever actions our recently inaugurated President will be taking, but I am even more concerned that somehow, millions of Americans couldn’t discern that they were casting their vote for someone who is a snake-oil salesman / used car salesman / evangelical miracle worker.

Somehow the American public seems to forget such examples and Tammy and Jim Baker, Jim Jones, P. T. Barnum, and others. I don’t care what such people are saying.  People certainly can agree with them.  But can’t people discriminate between the message being delivered, and the honorableness of the person delivering the message?

I despair for my country when people are not willing to look at facts with their own eyes, and even if the facts are self-evident (or at least they should be) they believe they are seeing something else.

Take the size of the crowd who attended the inauguration.  The size isn’t important.  It really shouldn’t matter.  (Nor should the relative size of any other body part matter.)  Yet the new President has made a point (and his press secretary has done the same) to discuss this at length.  They will say their reason for emphasizing this is the fact that the press reported the crowd size was not as large for Trump as it was for Obama, and this is but another example of how the press is lying.

The various pieces of evidence that I’ve seen concerning crowd size clearly (to me) shows that prior Presidential inaugurations have had larger crowds, so the reporting has been factually correct.

But the real point is “so what!”  Certainly, inaccurate reporting by the press is a matter of concern.  But I am more concerned about the emphasis being placed on the relative numbers.  Only juveniles (and those whose mental workings aren’t beyond that stage) carp on such things.  Do we really want a President who thinks that way?

Additionally, here is an example of the President clearly stating a truth that is just not true.  There is no such thing as an “alternate fact”.  There is “fact” on one hand, and “fiction” on the other.  This type of thing IS black and white.

There have recently been a number of op-ed pieces expressing concern about false news.  But when the President of the United States doesn’t tell the truth, who decides what is fact or not?

I think some portion of the erosion of the ability for many people to detect BS, can be laid at the feet of the advertising industry.  The language of commercials is just filled with half-truths.  I cringe every time I see a certain commercial running currently for an auto insurance company.  Their spokesman says something like the full price of his new car wasn’t covered when it was totaled shortly after he bought it.  The quote goes something like “My insurance salesman told me I had gotten the wrong type of coverage.  I think I got the wrong insurance company.”

Every time I see the commercial I think “Well, the insurance company he is with must also offer full replacement coverage since the salesman told him he had the wrong coverage.”  And then I think, “Didn’t the guy know that a car can depreciate up to a third of its value the second it is driven off the auto lot?”.  And then I wonder whether the salesman mentioned the need for replacement-value coverage at the time the insurance was purchased?  If not, the salesman was at fault.  But if he did, then I can just hear the guy saying “Naw… that costs more.  You’re just trying to rip me off.”

I understand that a 30-second or 60-second commercial just doesn’t have enough time to explore the possibilities, and after all, they are trying to puff a particular product.  So the thought process to figure out the underlying facts is left to the viewer.  I think that over more than 50 years of this type of half-truths, that people have forgotten their need to apply some thought to their decision.

The type of critical thinking needed requires frequent exercise to stay active.  A lot of Americans have evidently slacked off on this type of exercise.