linnposts.com

(I invite you to follow me on Substack at https://janlinn.substack.com/p/the-problem-of-american-moral-myopia.)

Short-sightedness is real condition. It’s technical name is myopia, which means being unable to see distant objects clearly while nearby objects remain in focus.

Metaphorical short-sightedness is as real as physical myopia. It exists when a person makes decisions that lack foresight or ignore the long-term consequences of those decisions.

Global warming and the climate change it is producing all around the world is a sobering reminder of the extent to which human beings suffer from metaphorical myopia.

Take, for example, what climatologists are saying about El Nino 2026.

El Nino is defined as “a naturally occurring climate pattern characterized by the warming of ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.” Its impact is that it  alters global atmospheric circulation, weather patterns, and marine life.

This year scientists are describing what is about to occur as a “super El Nino” that will produce climate extremes that include heat waves, flooding, droughts, and potentially extremely dangerous and destructive hurricanes.

At the same time that we are entering a season of a super El Nino, the Trump administration has taken steps to remove regulations on coal and carbon emissions that have been in place for many years in our successful efforts to reduce the human impact in the planet’s climate.

That’s only one among an endless line of short-sighted decisions Trump has made in the last year and a half (seems so much longer than that, doesn’t it?) that are having serious and devastating consequences on us now and future generations to come.

But, of course, Trump is in the position he’s in to make such short-sighted decisions because of the equally short-sighted decision of 77,303,568 Americans who voted for him in 2024.

It is rather astonishing that so many Americans could suffer from metaphorical myopia all at the same time.

Some of them, of course, have experienced a miraculous recovery of sight, it seems, apparently seeing quite clearly now how badly their vision was impaired when they voted for him.

That’s a good thing. Better late than never, as the old adage says, but here’s the thing. “Buyer’s remorse” doesn’t change the impact of short-sightedness in any way.

Trump is living proof as we face a daily deluge of decisions that are short-sighted because they are self-serving for Trump and his family.

On top of that, the worst part of the impact of the astounding voter myopia of 2024 is that it gave Trump’s own untreated personal myopia four years to take its toll on the country. Four years!

Because of the long term consequences of Trump’s election, I think there is a special  responsibility every voter who suffered from moral myopia in 2024 should feel.

Not because they owe an apology to the rest of us who are living with the damage his decisions are having on all of us.  

They do, as a matter of fact, but they owe more to themselves than they owe to us.

Taking responsibility for moral myopia is a necessary pre-requisite to personal healing from it.

It is not enough to realize you made a mistake you didn’t understand you were making at the time. Healing is possible only when you see it was not only a mistake, it was morally wrong to do what you did.

Electing Donald Trump to the presidency was a profoundly moral wrong, not because he has not helped people’s economic circumstances, or because he has betrayed other promises he made.

No, electing Donald Trump demonstrated a shocking level of moral myopia because of the degree of moral corruptness that defined who he was when people voted for him.

It wasn’t that 77,303,568 didn’t know he was corrupt. It was that they didn’t see that it mattered in comparison to other things.

That is how moral myopia affects people. It blurs their vision of right and wrong, what is important and what is not. In the process, it can threaten to undermine the values a nation needs to sustain itself.

The critical need is for people to take moral myopia seriously. Other things such as the economy, civility in politics, the rule of law, are all critically important, but moral myopia is the most serious danger any nation can face.

All of us, of course, are susceptible to it, but that does not mean some effects are not worse than others.

They clearly are. In fact, I think it is fair to say that voting for Donald Trump in 2024 was one of the worst.

Based on what we know now, it is more than obvious that the election of Donald Trump in 2024 was a level of national moral myopia not seen in America since the Civil War.

Healing won’t come quickly, especially since moral myopia is extremely difficult to recognize due to the fact that your perception usually becomes skewed gradually.

That makes recognition that much harder which naturally makes healing more difficult. The first step, of course, is admitting you have the problem.

That’s the challenge 2024 Trump voters now face. Admitting their vote was a sign of moral myopia is far more difficult than believing it was a simple mistake.

Voting for Trump was never about politics alone. It was always a moral choice, and healing from it can begin only when you understand it was a moral mistake.

I want to believe that more and more Americans are beginning to heal as we see Trump’s poll numbers continue to drop.

If that is not what is happening, I fear the threat to our way of life climate change poses will pale in comparison to the problem we will face as moral myopia infects the whole of American politics.