A Possible Explanation

A Possible Explanation.

In 1989, a female jogger in Central Park was raped and beaten nearly to death.  This violent attack upon a white investment banker was, almost immediately labeled the “crime of the century.”  Intense public pressure to solve the case led to the rapid arrest of five young (14 to 16 years old) men who were black and Latino.

        After intense interrogations, ranging from 14 to 30 hours in length, four of the five confessed to the crime, but all five were charged with the attack. It is significant that (a) the boys soon recanted their confessions which they blamed on police coercion, (b) no physical evidence linked the young men to the crime, (c) no physical evidence indicated that there was more than one attacker, (d) the semen found in the victim did not match any of the young men, and (e) the four confessions were inconsistent with each other and with the physical evidence from the crime scene. In spite of this complete lack of forensic evidence, all five of the young men were convicted and sent to jail.  Real estate developer Donald Trump called for their swift execution in a full-page newspaper ad.

        Thirteen years later, Matias Reyes, who was serving a life sentence for murder, confessed to the crime. His DNA was a perfect match for the semen (and only forensic trace) recovered from the victim.  His was the only semen recovered from the victim.  The attack on the jogger was similar in M.O. to his other rapes, none of which involved any other perpetrator.

Eventually, the Central Park 5 settled a wrongful conviction lawsuit with the City of New York for $41 million.

       Most of us have heard this story recently. I only describe it in this detail because, to me, it leads to a connection to current events of another sort. Although the evidence of the innocence of the five convicted erroneously of this horrific crime was indisputable and overwhelming, evidence of their innocence did not change the minds of several individuals.

Linda Fairstein, founder of the NYPD SVU, overall case coordinator then and now a well-known crime fiction author, maintains that it was a righteous conviction.    

The lead prosecutor, still claims that the five young men were indeed “still guilty” and that Reyes was simply an additional perpetrator—an “unindicted co-ejaculator.”

The head detective said: ‘This lunatic [Reyes] concocts this wild story and these people fell for it.”

The second chair lawyer in the prosecution still calls the taped confessions “pretty compelling” notwithstanding their inconsistencies and the fact that of the first 325 DNA exonerations in the U.S., 27% involved false, extorted confessions.

Here’s the good part. Donald Trump, in 2013, tweeted (what else?) that Ken Burns’ award-winning documentary on the Central Park 5’s innocence was “…. a one-sided piece of garbage that didn’t explain the horrific crimes of these young men while in the park.”

      OK, so why all this history? I wrote all this to illustrate a phenomenon referred to in the psychological literature as Cognitive Dissonance.

        In the above examples, the issue is that a long and deeply held belief is challenged by facts which refute that belief.

       
        One example from history is a case of Dr. Freud’s in which a young woman, on  seeing her beloved (and assumed faithful) father enter what she knows to be a brothel, becomes deeply troubled and demonstrates various symptoms (hysterical blindness among them) as a result of the dissonance between what was tightly held belief and what was shown to be reality.

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       Similarly, the assumed guilt of five young men of color as we have seen since, fits Donald Trump’s racial and social world view, ergo anything which threatens that position causes anger and disbelief. In the case of the prosecutors and law enforcement individuals involved, a proof of innocence challenges their belief in the absolute rectitude of their job performance.

        In the above examples (of the Central Park events), the result of the dissonance is simply denial. In the earlier case of the young woman, the result was more disabling and seemingly, at first, unrelated. The point is that the magnitude and nature of cognitive dissonance can cover a wide array of reactions from mild to extreme.

        I said all that to say this: the response to being presented with a cognitive dissonance can range from denial, to anger to violence. I have seen all these responses exhibited by Trump supporters when faced with Trump behavior(s) which are at odds with what they know to be proper or appropriate. This is magnified by the fact that, for many supporters, the real reason for their tightly held adoration lays below the surface so far that it’s more visceral than objective. Ok, ok, here’s an example: Many folks. as we know. are fond of Trump because they’ve seen and heard all the code words for white supremacy yet attempt to justify their hero worship by citing more “acceptable” actions.

         Supporting Trump’s tariffs is one such example of many. By every standard of economics they are a failure. American farmers have been subsidized (so far) an extra $15 billion due to tariffs causing loss of Chinese soy-bean markets. The fact that this would build three of Trump’s $5 billion walls is seemingly contradictory. Rather than acknowledge this fact, an obvious dissonance, since on one hand they proclaim Trump’s genius and yet he’s an obvious economic dunce, is anger directed at anyone who points this out. It is the externalization of internal conflict, directed at the source of the contradictory truth.

        Another example: we have heard for years the term “tax and spend” liberals. Rising Republican star Paul Ryan and his cohorts were “deficit hawks”, clamoring for reductions in spending on persons who need help. And yet, and yet. We have at present what is, by any definition, a strong economy, yet we see a huge deficit, actually as large as ones Obama had during a major recession and Wall Street bailout. Many Trump supporters were entranced by campaign promises such as:  

On balancing the federal budget:

 "It can be done. ... It will take place and it will go relatively quickly.  ... If you have the right people, like, in the agencies and the various people that do the balancing ... you can cut the numbers by two pennies and three pennies and balance a budget quickly and have a stronger and better country."

On Eliminating the federal debt in 8 years”

"We’ve got to get rid of the $19 trillion in debt. ... Well, I would say over a period of eight years.”  

This not only hasn’t happened, it’s escalated astronomically. This should, and perhaps does, produce huge cognitive dissonance among the devotees, yet we hear no complaint. Rather we get “But what about....? (insert anything Obama or Clinton here). Even worse we just see rage aimed at the messenger.

       In my opinion, all this derives from the hard core Trumpists’ absolute inability or unwillingness, (probably both) to confront the fact that all these ill-advised actions are insufficient to override the deep-rooted bond of racism that created the relationship in the first place.

          

If, by reading this, you have come to believe that Trump supporters are suffering from mental issues….well, that’s your conclusion.