As I have watched my 97-year-old father’s descent into dementia, with symptoms of memory loss, confusion, delusion, and personality change. I can’t help but notice similar symptoms appearing in our national personality at large.
Under the increasing influence of social media, artificial intelligence, and unfiltered political propaganda, America, like my stricken father, seems to be losing its identity.
In terms of personality change, the American public has tolerated the transformation of a nation — once loved and respected for defending the free world under attack by despots like Hitler, Hirohito, and later Stalin –to its present lockstep with dictators like Russia’s Putin, China’s XiPing and President Trump, all of whom believe “might makes right.”
Likewise, our once generous, democratic, Constitutional nation that welcomed the world’s tired, poor, “huddled masses yearning to be free,” now behaves like a paranoid, angry xenophobe that arrests, imprisons and deports immigrants, despite over 300 hundred federal judges overruling their unlawful actions.
And after over 200 years of striving toward a more perfect union by pursuing equal justice and opportunity for those long denied their God given rights, we now seem to suffer from our own brand of dementia, suddenly forgetting our nation’s history, purpose, principles, and ideas.
The present administration has successfully indoctrinated a large portion of the citizenry to believe that systemic racism, as well as the government’s responsibility to overcome it, no longer exists. To this end, the President has used the power of his office to stop affirmative action, to send masked ICE agents to intimidate minority neighborhoods, and to expunge Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion initiatives from government, education, and private enterprise.
Likewise, the President has also attempted to impair our collective memory by censoring exhibits at the Smithsonian Institute, our national memory bank, claiming the “Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was…”
It all amounts to an Orwellian strategy to erase from America’s collective memory traces of its racist history. Indeed, George Orwell warned the world of this tactic in his dystopian novel, 1984, “The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.” And, as Trump told his former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, “It doesn’t matter what you say…say it enough and people will believe you.”
To that end, Trump continues to repeat the “Big Lie” that his 2020 Presidential election loss was rigged. More troubling, however, is that the majority of Republicans believe him, contrary to all facts, reason, and evidence. This amounts to de facto mass delusion, plain and simple. The President has conned a large portion of the American public as easily as a phone scammer dupes my cognitively impaired father. In other words, our nation suffers from a case of national dementia.
Meanwhile, corporate monoliths, seeking the most efficient means of making profits and influencing government policies, encourage the unfiltered dissemination of misinformation, disinformation, and political propaganda through social and mainstream media.
And instead of the government providing guard rails and regulations to protect citizens from this toxic onslaught, “Political leaders, statesmen, who once served as a firebreak against baser instincts increasingly see an opportunity to look receptive to the base—so they add kindling instead,” observed Professor Renee DiResta, former research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory. .
Likewise, rather than the administration using reason, science, and medical experts to guide and oversee American health, it engages in political malpractice, promoting medical quacks, political hacks, and even Artificial Intelligence as trusted voices in medicine. This dereliction of duty has produced repeated outbreaks of measles in America, a disease once “eliminated” but now spreading due to unregulated misinformation. Their policies are irrational, medically unsound, and dangerous. Certainly, America needs more competent leaders than those irrationally undermining the health and well-being of its citizens.
With regard to unregulated Artificial Intelligence, Dr. Marlynn Wei observed, ChatGPT may create “cognitive dissonance” in the user’s mind “that may fuel delusions…and “leave ample room for speculation/paranoia.” And according to the Pew Research Center, “64% of adolescents are using chatbots;” three in ten say they use them daily. And in testimony at a Senate hearing, Matthew Raine said that ChatGPT discouraged his suicidal son from asking his parents for help and offered to write his suicide note.
And if AI increasingly does our children’s reading, writing, computing, and thinking for them, generations of Americans may be in the process of completely losing their collective mind. Without the capacity to distinguish between reality and fiction, our children will be reduced to empty vessels, filled with a “reality” poured by the powers that be.
Sadly, my father’s dementia is irreversible. But I hope it’s not too late for our nation to wake from its collective delusions and to reclaim the rational, legal, and moral foundation of its identity.
Thomas Cangelosi is a retired teacher from Avon.