Why Don’t Facts Change Our Minds?

By Hicham Bou Nassif | Weinberg Associate Professor of International Relations and the Middle East and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College-California

The results of the municipal elections in Shiite areas of Mount Lebanon suggest that voter loyalty to Hezbollah and Amal Movement remains unshaken despite the recent war. As expected, the opposition rushed to interpret low voter turnout as a sign of public discontent. Equally predictably, the duo responded that turnout levels were within the norm, and if they had declined, it was only because their base felt confident in their inevitable victory. What’s indisputable is this: the humiliating military defeat suffered by Hezbollah and its heavy toll on the Shiite community did not lead to a backlash at the polls. The fact that voters continued to support the duo regardless of the disastrous consequences of its latest adventure suggests that the opposition’s hope for a mass voter shift is little more than wishful thinking. 

This raises a question that lies at the heart of democratic dysfunction: how can democracy function when voters refuse to hold ruling elites accountable for their failures? Exercising this right is fundamental to the democratic process — it is what gives democracy meaning and legitimacy. 

This issue is not limited to the Shiite community. Lebanon’s Christian population has been in steady decline on all fronts since the “War of Elimination,” a conflict in which all three major Christian parties were involved. Yet political loyalties among Christians remain strong enough to preserve their leadership, even if the relative power of those leaders shifts from one election to the next. Some might point out that the Free Patriotic Movement has lost ground among Christian voters — and that is true. But the fact that the movement remains alive, even in decline, speaks to the same unhealthy relationship between voters and political elites found in the Shiite community. 

Indeed, this phenomenon goes well beyond Lebanese politics. Take the United States, for example. Over 100 days have passed since Donald Trump took office on a platform promising to restore America’s so-called golden age. His track record so far includes: 

1. The worst market volatility since the 2008 financial crisis;
2. Persistent inflation;
3. Strained relations with nearly all of America’s allies, including Canada;
4. A high-stakes confrontation with Beijing — arguably necessary, but one the US is waging alone, rather than rallying the West to confront the Chinese regime collectively. 

There’s little to celebrate in this performance. Yet despite a dip in Trump’s popularity, recent polls show that large segments of the American public remain loyal to him. 

So why don’t facts change our minds? British columnist Janan Ganesh posed this question in the Financial Times last week. He argued that political affiliation has replaced declining religious belief — that humans, needing something to believe in, have transferred their faith from gods to political leaders. Social media, he added, compounds the problem: in the past, people could change their views quietly, without public acknowledgment. But in today’s hyper-public online environment, doing so often requires a visible admission of error — something most people would rather avoid. It’s far easier and more comfortable to double down on one’s original position. 

By coincidence, I happened to read the Washington Post immediately after Ganesh, and came across an article explaining why segments of Russian society continue to support Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. The article’s central point was straightforward: these groups consume only state-controlled media. As a result, they are fully convinced that the West launched an unprovoked attack on Russia via Ukraine — and that Russia is nobly defending itself, purging Ukraine of neo-Nazis. If that narrative were true, who in Russia wouldn’t support the war? 

This highlights an additional reason — beyond those Ganesh identified — for why people remain loyal to their elites: facts alone are meaningless without interpretation. When ruling elites control the means of interpreting facts — through culture and media — they shape how people understand those facts, and in turn, how they behave politically. Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Marxist thinker, got many things wrong. But when he wrote about the cultural hegemony of ruling elites, he struck at the heart of the matter.

This article was originally published in Arabic by Nida al-Watana on 12 May 2025. The original can be found here.

The views expressed in this op-ed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of SyriacPress.