William Cooper is the author of How America Works … And Why it Doesn't.
With over 90 percent market share in internet search, Google is a dominant way for Americans to seek and receive information about the world. Google Trends keeps track of all the searches and provides tools for analyzing the data.
The search statistics show that Americans have a stunning indifference to fundamentally important subjects and, at the same time, a gross infatuation with triviality. The idea that Americans’ focus may often be misguided is nothing new. But with Google Trends, we now have massive troves of hard data substantiating the thesis.
Several examples illustrate the point.
Take, first, a comparison between Americans’ interest in the multi-trillion dollar federal budget and in reality television. The United States budget reflects our core national values and objectively measures our global impact. Given its size and scope, the budget materially alters billions of lives both at home and abroad.
Google Trends shows, however, that Americans care more – fare more – about the inconsequential happenings of strangers than they do about how our trillions are deployed. There is, for example, tremendously more interest in the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills than in the Office of Management and Budget, the executive agency that oversees budgetary spending – peaking at over ten times the interest when the housewife drama gets particularly juicy.
And how about the House Ways and Means Committee – which writes the US tax code – compared to Vanderpump Rules? It's worse – peaking at roughly 100 times more interest in Vanderpump.
A second example of the staggering disconnect between what Americans are interested in and what matters is a comparison between the Kardashian family (Kim, Kylie, and the gang) and Africa (yes, the entire continent). Despite making great progress in recent decades, Africa continues to have widespread and profound challenges. Much of the continent – still traumatized by a long history of foreign interference and endless war – is perennially ravaged by preventable hunger, economic distress, and child mortality.
Yet Americans care more – far more – about the Kardashians than all of the countries in Africa.
Combined.
Take a comparison in Google searches between Kim and The Democratic Republic of Congo, a country of 80-plus million people with a brutal history of colonialism and industrial exploitation. The results are startling – peaking at roughly 100 times more interest in Kim.
Kim's sister Kylie Jenner versus Mozambique? Same thing – peaking at well over 100 times more interest in Kylie.
And so on.
Google Trends is, indeed, a data-driven window into the conscience of America. The results speak for themselves.
This misfocus is not just disappointing – it has consequences. Apathy and inattention are the engine of corruption and abuse. America’s budget deficit is set to reach $1 trillion next year at the same time massive addressable problems such as child homelessness, crumbling infrastructure, and under-performing public schools compound negatively at accelerating speeds. And despite being the richest country on earth, America has the least generous foreign-aid contribution of any developed nation. Just a fraction of the extreme wealth of the top .1% of Americans (capital which compounds positively at accelerating speeds) could save tens of millions of lives in Africa which instead parish needlessly from lack of basic nutrition and rudimentary medicines.
Put simply, when Americans focus on the wrong things, the wrong things happen. When we do not pay attention to how our tax dollars are spent, catastrophic waste and abuse occurs. When we ignore entire continents screaming for help, widespread death results.
And, indeed, when we care more about reality television than the federal government, a reality television star gets elected president.