Recent polls suggest that COVID fears, despite alternative statistical realities, are alive and well. While the general public is unsurprisingly hesitant to resume attending congregations for religious, musical, or athletic competitions en masse, an amazing number highlighted in one survey indicates that just 59% of Americans would be comfortable even having dinner at a friend’s house. This is down from 67% a month prior.

Similar polling found that in the aftermath of the George Floyd fallout that racism was being uncovered in every nook and cranny of American life. Several months into the protests and riots, the percent of Americans who felt race relations were “bad” or “fairly bad” increased from 55% in February of this year to over 70% just a few months later.

Did America’s situation suddenly worsen when it came to COVID preparedness since the onslaught in March, and did it suddenly become virulently more racist in a few month’s time? (Never mind the fact that we are six decades removed from real racism in the Jim Crow South and pre-Civil Rights legislation that enshrined equality of rights for all citizens under the law, and the fact that more and more exculpatory evidence continues to unravel the George Floyd narrative.)

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The ostensible answers are a resounding no and no. Purely media-driven spectacles, America is performing neither poorly with its COVID response nor its work involving unpacking the remnants of racism. If you want a coronavirus test, you can get a coronavirus test. That’s one thing. What’s more, you can expect to survive disease contraction at a (still declining) rate of 99.6%. The news is even better for being healthy and under the age of 65 to the point of statistically disappearing. Can all world citizens claim these things?

As far as race relations, what honest person could say we are having less conversations about whiteness, white privilege, systemic racism, and acting in a manner more inclusive than ever before? Heck, black activists who campaign solely on busted Ferguson myths are being nominated for Congressional seats. Would a racist society tolerate, let alone nominate, such nonsensical individuals? Would it elect a black president? For all of the unconsolable shrieking of racism, the whole narrative has never been crammed so far up our orephuses as it has at a time when it’s never been better, with the 1619 Project entering public school curricula and Oprah getting shameless fools to admit how racist they are as just two obvious examples. It is mainstream to parrot these views; it is anathema to even ask questions. Does that really sound like a racist society?

I admire many individuals for their common sense, however, I cannot say the same thing about Americans, or all people for that matter, as a whole. These entirely predictable, yet unfortunate, responses, are only the latest confirmation of our willingness to believe anything. It just takes enough media coverage to convince us of anything. The proof that we are susceptible to bouts of reality suspension lay in myriad other statistical truths.

Take, for example, a recent column on Right Wire Report about the Flat Earth conspiracy. It is indeed a scary thought that fully 16% of Americans continue to question the state of their spherical home planet. More worrisome is that a recent poll suggests nearly two out of every three millennials aged 18 to 24 support this insanity. In a world driven to madness around hyperbolized COVID and race relation issues when just 16% of people believe in a Flat Earth, what are we to imagine will happen when all of these young people get older?

There are countless examples of human willingness to believe the unbelievable. Decade after decade, a comfortable margin of American adults are ready to believe that Elvis is about to crank out his next album. Recent surveys lowball an estimate of 6-8% of Americans hold a belief Elvis did not die in the late 1970s. It is typically around 10%, so at the very least maybe some people who were holding onto a slim hope earlier are now realizing he would be near eighty-five years of age. Even an Elvis that survived a drug overdose would still succumb to natural causes.

Roughly the same number of Americans (10%) believe the moon landing was a massive fraud, having been perpetrated by design to give our country a space race win against the Sputnik-launching Soviets. Even though we have video proof, actual astronauts, the age of the internet, and Elon Musk now landing booster rockets on a return path to landing pads in the ocean, for some the ability to wrap their heads around science and human accomplishment is too great. These same people would likely have believed a westward-sailing Columbus was going to sail into space 500 years ago.

Most incredible is that almost one-third of Americans are hanging onto notions of Harry encountering the Hendersons on their next camping trip. If the polling were extrapolated, they would show that more people in America, as a percentage, believe in Bigfoot than voted for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump in 2016. Sometimes, there are no words.

As crazy as these people might be, there is proof of far more worrisome elements in America’s community of the gullible. Fully 17% of Americans still have trust in the government. After decades of scandals, pocket filling, back-scratching, pork bill spending, inaction, and self-enrichment at the expense of hard-working Americans, there are still dopes out there who think the bloated and inept government is working for them.

To make matters worse, Congress still has a 25% approval rate. Twenty-five percent! What Congress are they observing? Certainly not the one that convened with William Barr recently and attempted to shame him for protecting American rights outlined in the Constitution while also insisting that Portland’s downtown was brimming with people holding “Free Hugs” signs. Just remember, they are each paid a minimum of $174,000.

Saving the best for last, recent polling indicates that nearly 15% of Americans are still undecided when it comes to choosing their next President in November of 2020. Four years of non-stop media lies, deception, corruption, and now the Democrats’ alliance with hate groups like Black Lives Matter and despicable platform agendas like student loan forgiveness, free college tuition, higher minimum wages, reparations, gun control, and surely free rent at some point, as well as a tragically demented candidate who is choosing his vice-presidential candidate based on immutable qualities, and people are still undecided? It’s exhausting reading that the last sentence in one breath and voters are still undecided after knowing all of that? Compared to what, midnight Tweets?

We really will believe anything we’re told.