For over a month we have put pause to our lives because of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic.  For much longer, I have watched another pathology spread across our country, one that took off during the Viet Nam war and has been encouraged by the Right Wing.  This pathology promotes distrust of government in all of its forms, and it is being encouraged by Trump and his supporters. (Deep State?)

The mistrust has been fueled by a widespread credulousness in the population.  By that I mean there has developed in the culture a willingness on the part of millions to readily believe what they hear or read on the basis of slight or uncertain evidence.  Or no evidence!

This credulity has been accompanied by a widespread willingness to dismiss science and true expertise.

One sees it in educated people, people who have been trained to think, analyze, and make well-formed judgments.  Trump’s supporters are credulous because they are ready to believe anything he says without demanding he cites evidence for what he says.

Credulity fuels faith in supernatural––religious or simple superstitions–– that try to explain nature without evidence.  There has never in all history been one single piece of evidence set forth about any supernatural claim that can be repeatedly tested.

Credulity endangers us.  In 2019 USA Today reported that hate groups "climbed to 1,020, up from 784 four years ago, and was propelled by a rise in extremism, the center said. From 2017 to 2018 alone, the tally rose 7 percent. “  This rise is being fueled by the credulity that supports Trump, his racism, his divisive policies.  (Fear also helps fuel credulity. 

My university training squeezed any tendency to credulity out of me. Anti-vaxxers, for instance, say vaccines used for the public are bad for children. If so, test, demonstrate and display the evidence. Set up an experiment done by a lab that all respect where the vaccines in question get analyzed for all the chemistry in them.  The results will reveal the facts.