‘In the US, science and media, arbiters of truth, are often mistrusted now — old fires are stoked’

Matthew Baum is Marvin Kalb Professor of Global Communications at Harvard Kennedy School. Speaking to Srijana Mitra Das at Times Evoke, he explains stormy tides in American politics:
The world saw an attempt made on Donald Trump’s life recently — what messages are both Republican and Democrat voters taking from this?

■ It’s still early to say but there aren’t many events like this in American political history. The last time a similar attempt took place was in 1981 on President Ronald Reagan. He got about an 11-point bounce in his approval rating but that didn’t last very long — it was a classic rally-round-the-flag event. Of course Donald Trump isn’t a sitting President, he’s a candidate, and the US is far more polarised today. So, we are seeing three developments — first, on the right, there are growing conspiratorial interpretations of the Democrats apparently having tried to kill Trump. This is a way to fire up their base and I suspect it will do so. Second, a small slice of the electorate doesn’t have a strong leaning either way — for them, this is a very loud and salient event. It will generate sympathy for Trump, at least for a while. I doubt it will cause any Democrats to develop sympathies though. And third, this incident really freezes Joe Biden’s attempts to launch sharp attacks on Trump.
NOT TONE DEAF: Donald Trump is often blamed for causing deep divisions in US society — but Baum argues he vocalises contentions kept silent so far (Pic credit/Getty Images)
You’ve researched the links between depression, conspiracy theories and firearms — how do these work here?

■ Our project saw a gigantic explosion in depression in America after the Covid pandemic — that has never abated much. We’ve been working in the field since April 2020 and we’ve consistently found about half the public showing sufficient signs of depression which could be recommended for clinical treatment — 50% young people of 25 years show moderate to severe depression.
This also has ramifications for contexts of social tumult and political violence, including the January 6 insurrection and very prevalent mis information and conspiratorial thinking, promulgated from the top of the system all the way down. Our research finds depression has a wide-ranging symptomology — some people respond by being sad and withdrawn. Others respond with anger and aggression. They experience depression as a loss of control and try to reassert this — which category a depressed person might be in depends on several factors, including a belief in conspiracies.

Conspiratorial thinking tends to push people into reasserting control by fighting what they see as evil forces at the core of injustice. So, this brings a corresponding spike in firearm ownership — that is generally truer of men than women, who tend to become more ruminating than aggressive. Hence, support for political violence can be a consequence of such depression.


Is America experiencing other forms of political breakdowns?

■ We’re seeing deep polarisation, a decline in trust in democratic institutions — including science, our epistemology for understanding truth and building knowledge — and the media. These fundamental breakdowns are making it difficult for us to remain cohesive.

The irony is that the US had half a century of widening socioeconomic inequality — that curve is actually bent in the other direction now, with massive public investments following the pandemic. Yet, the angst from inequality has hardly been touched. By most normal fiscal metrics, we’ve had a pretty strong economy for the last few years — but many Americans still believe we’re in a recession. There is usually a lag between changes in the economy versus perceptions of it but this time, the way it is playing out is incredible. This is also deeply linked to distrust — no-one believes the arbiters of truth the way they once did.

Socioeconomic inequality is a real problem — it has steadily increased since the 1960s, with rural areas feeling particularly left out. In a society with robust safety nets, that would be less likely to cause social fragmentation but there is also a widespread belief here that social security, medical care, etc., won’t be there when people retire. This is linked to how since the 1970s, we’ve seen steady neoliberal rollbacks in the social safety net.



What do such breakdowns mean for the economy and civil society?

■ The economy tends to move independently of politics for some time — but that doesn’t last forever. There is still strong civil society in many parts — it just varies in regions. However, there is one large difference today. We’ve had many social tensions in our history — some of those old fires caused the Civil War in the 19th century — but the expansion of the US economy sub limated these. The rising tide lifted all boats, as it were, but those tensions didn’t go away — and under stress, they are rising again. This is linked partly to a President who gave voice to these issues — he didn’t cause them but speaking about these, he’s riding the wave. He’s legitimised saying things which weren’t considered polite earlier. Words matter for trust and civility — this also explains why American democracy is under pressure now.
Times Evoke Americana is an occasional series on the USA.

IS IT TIME? Joe Biden can either step aside or step up attacks on Trump (Pic credit/Getty Images)