Fox News political opinion personality Laura Ingraham at a political conference in December 2018. Image courtesy: Wikipedia Commons.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a psychological phenomenon that happens when people with little experience in a practical domain or academic field overestimate their knowledge base or intellectual aptitude relative to objective standards.
American citizens experienced the devastating consequences of the Dunning-Kruger Effect in” real-time” at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in April 2020. Led by former US President Donald Trump, political leaders and media personalities began an unofficial but national media campaign to downplay the origins and effects of COVID-19.
The objective was to persuade the public that the COVID-19 pandemic was not as dangerous as public health officials and international news reports indicated, undermining the seriousness of the coronavirus.
For example, in April 2020, Fox News evening opinion anchor Laura Ingraham interviewed Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi – two COVID-19 conspiracy theorist Doctors from Bakersfield, California.
Drs. Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi co-own a private walk-in clinic that served as a coronavirus testing site at the beginning of the pandemic.
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In April 2020, Laura Ingraham interviewed Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi, two Bakersfield, California, Doctors who made dubious claims on Fox News about COVID-19 death rates in the US. Image courtesy: The Bakersfield Californian.
On April 22nd, 2020, Erickson and Massihi held a press conference on YouTube in Bakersfield, California, to report their conclusions about the COVID-19 test results.
During the YouTube broadcast, Erickson and Massihi said 12% of Californians assessed had the coronavirus. After extrapolating their numbers to the general population, they estimated five million Californians contracted the virus.
The two doctors from Bakersfield used the total number of COVID-19 deaths statewide (about 1,200 during the press conference week) to calculate a death rate of just 0.03%. If their numbers were correct, the death rate for the coronavirus would be comparable to the average annual death rate of the seasonal flu.
Based on that information, Erickson and Massihi also questioned the need for widespread quarantine measures. During the YouTube press conference, Erickson repeatedly voiced fears about the virus as overblown.
“Millions of cases, a small amount of death,” said Erickson. However, other medical professionals researching the coronavirus discredited Erickson and Massihi’s claims and research methods.
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Public health experts quickly pointed out significant flaws in the clinical methodologies of Erickson and Massihi.
First, they only evaluated a small percentage of California residents. Furthermore, the patients assessed by Erickson and Massihi were from a group of Californians who were more likely to test positive for COVID-19 and were not representative of the larger population. The two doctors eventually had to remove the video after some individuals and organizations in the medical community charged them with spreading false information.
But that did not stop Laura Ingraham and Fox News from promoting Erickson and Massihi’s dubious assertions about the coronavirus on Monday, April 27th, under their “Fair and Balanced” corporate branding rubric. Laura Ingraham has often used her platform at Fox News to help spread misinformation and social division.
Following President Donald Trump’s public propaganda lead, Ingraham, Fox News, and other national Republican Party (GOP) politicians began making questionable claims about COVID-19 contagion levels, infection rates, and death statistics in the US.
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Image by Aidan Bartos on Unsplash.
President Trump reacted to the threat COVID-19 posed to America by attempting to campaign in the media that he knew more about the virus and epidemic contagion rates than anyone else.
In some instances, President Trump contradicted the advice of medical experts and undermined the efforts of his federal COVID-19 task force. His hubris extended to include second-guessing and undermining his administrative public health officials, national medical health professionals, pandemic experts, and political officials in various US states facing the crises on the front line of the tragedy.
Donald Trump’s skepticism about lockdown measures – and his push to reopen the federal government during the coronavirus pandemic received support and criticism. Trump’s supporters argued that local governments and businesses should force workers back into the US labor market to ensure American economic stability and individual freedom despite the public health dangers presented by COVID-19.
Independent virus scientists, medical experts, opposition party politicians, and Mr. Trump’s critics in the American media harshly condemned his administrative management of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Image by Jakayla Toney on Unsplash.
Public health experts’ primary concern was the Trump administration’s lack of a coordinated and coherent federal public health response to COVID-19.
Moreover, Mr. Trump’s relentless efforts to end Obamacare during the pandemic made public health officials realize that the President had no regard for people forced to struggle against the economic challenges presented by the coronavirus. In this way, the Dunning-Kruger Effect is more than just a matter of naivety. It is an ego problem that gives grossly misinformed people the idea that they know everything and are always right.
For what reason other than myopic economic objectives could there be to explain the insane campaign to “get America back to work” promoted by the Trump administration and Republicans Governors across the country at the height of the contagion danger posed by COVID-19 in 2020?
The problem is that former President Donald Trump’s lack of knowledge and faulty decision-making cost people their lives during the coronavirus pandemic.
By the time 2020 President-elect Joe Biden took office on January 20th, 2021 – the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the deaths of over one million people in the United States.
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The “China Virus”
Former American President Donald Trump. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the chaotic nature of Donald Trump’s leadership style.
Yet, infinitely worse than the “Get America Back to Work” campaign was President Trump’s efforts to bully and lie his way through the public health emergency by scapegoating China and Chinese immigrants for COVID-19.
Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric about China during the coronavirus sparked an explosion of anti-Asian content on social media. The language eventually influenced extremely xenophobic attitudes towards people of East-Asian descent.
After President Trump began referring to COVID-19 as the “China Virus,” East Asian American citizens, Chinese migrants, and Asian tourists began to experience brutal acts of public violence.
As New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo said about the coronavirus pandemic at his daily press briefing on Wednesday, April 1st, 2020, “We’re never going to be the same again.”