Reading headlines and listening to political sound bites got me thinking about the old Aesop fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”

It is about a shepherd boy who repeatedly fools villagers with a false alarm about a wolf attacking the town’s flock of sheep.  When a wolf does actually appear, no one believes the boy and the sheep are devoured.

I recently read two articles in the same newspaper that reminded me of this fable. The first was written by a professor of economics. He was critical of all the political fear-mongering about the size of our federal debt and forecast of another $1.5 trillion federal budget deficit.

His opinion was that savvy economists focus on something called the “primary deficit,” which looks at the interest payments on the debt compared to the Gross Domestic Product.  Although a higher deficit drives higher interest payments, growth in our national output can keep the ratio the same.  

His point was that our primary deficit is pretty stable. Indicators of the U.S.’s ability to pay its debt, such as strong demand for treasury bills and a strong dollar, suggest our creditors aren’t worried about our deficit. 

Warren Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, always includes in his annual letter to shareholders that no one has ever gone broke from confidence in the U.S. economy.

The second article I read was by a geriatrician, a physician who specializes in the health of old people.  He discusses the effects of aging with his patients every day.  The most common issue he sees with seniors is slower recall. This is the familiar “it’s on the tip of my tongue” experience where we eventually can remember given time. This actually starts when people are in their 30s and gradually increases as we age.

Dementia, commonly caused by Alzheimer’s disease, is different. Affected people lose their ability to store new memories. They can still recall memories from long ago but can’t tell you what they had for breakfast that morning.

In this doctor’s opinion, President Joe Biden’s halting speech is typical of normal aging where it takes longer to dredge up the word you want to use. And in the president’s case, his speech is further hampered by his lifelong battle with stuttering.

In both examples, political opponents and dramatic news stories would have us believe we are wrecking our economy and have a leader who can’t find his way to the bathroom. Not only is it unfair, it gives us a very flawed perception of issues that are important and therefore need to be understood on a factual basis.

There is a lot of “crying wolf” by our leaders who think they can be re-elected by creating false issues and choices. The greater danger in this behavior is that it destroys the credibility of government and our trust of it.

A significant percentage of Americans still believe the last presidential election was stolen. It also means most of those same people think the assault on our U.S. Capitol was justified.  We have governors of states that don’t accept federal jurisdiction of our “national” borders.

A significant percentage of Americans didn’t accept that COVID was an epidemic threat. Many of those same people didn’t trust the vaccines and have extended their distrust to all vaccines.  Measles, once eradicated, is on the rise and killing again.

This is where we face the danger of the “wolf” devouring us. We were lucky COVID wasn’t as deadly as we initially feared. I say that with a wince not meaning to minimize that over 1 million Americans were killed by COVID and their caregivers and families were traumatized by the experience.  Thousands of survivors now have damaged hearts or lungs.

Not trusting an election is even worse. A democratic government works on the acceptance of the people who elected their representatives. If a significant percentage of Americans don’t accept the legitimacy of their government, we are closer to anarchy than democracy. Without the rule of law, we will devour each other.

As we start this election season, don’t trust the boys crying wolf. Why would we elect people to serve in government that incite our distrust of government?  

Decide which issues you think are most important for your government to address. Then dig in, do some research and find out what is really going on and what corrective action is needed.  Then pick your representatives based on those who most reflect your concerns and have your confidence that they know how to fix a problem.

We need to be vigil for the real wolves that are out there. Some of them are the ones crying wolf.