Superman complex

What makes Americans so susceptible to believing in things that are utterly divorced from reality? I mean bonkers stuff, like Elvis is still alive, or like the Clintons lead an international pedophile ring headquartered at a pizzeria, or that donald trump will save the day like the second coming. I've been asking myself this question for a while. And thinking about it from a few different angles. To start, are Americans any different than other countries where people believe outlandish things? I mean, Scandinavians and Europeans in general seem much more phlegmatic and grounded by comparison. Canadians too, and we share the same continent as Americans, so it can't be a question of geography or climate. Could it be something in the history and cultural DNA of America? Has the internet accelerated and amplified the tendency to believe in the bizarre? That seems obvious, but everyone the world over is subjected to the crazy stuff that proliferates on the internet. Americans seem far more likely than others to wholeheartedly embrace it. America seems to be made of the most fertile cultural and political soil for the growth and spread of meshugas. Often it's religious. I'm thinking in part of Mormonism. I have nothing against Mormons. I've known a few personally and they are very nice salt-of-the-earth people with admirable moral qualities. It's almost hard to believe that they believe what they believe in terms of the origin story of their religion. True, their origin story is not much different on the scale of bizarre than Judaism, Christianity or Islam, if taken literally, which most adherents do. But what separates Mormonism is that it's modern (19th century) and uniquely American. After the Enlightenment in the mid 17th century it was generally thought that the western world was done with creating new religions - except of course for the most fringe personality cults (often apocalyptic) like the Moonies, the Raelians, the Branch Davidians, The People's Temple etc. But shortly after its founding, America needed its own homegrown religion to justify its sense of being a new divinely chosen 'promised land'. Something that dovetails nicely with the American ethos of 'the land of the free', a place where there is the opportunity for anyone to rise to their potential, to be whoever they want to be, and believe whatever they want to believe (as long as you weren't an African slave in which case you were traded property.) So believing, as Mormons do, that the angel Moroni visited Joseph Smith and revealed to him the golden plates buried near his home in upstate New York on which a new book of the bible is written, isn't such a stretch. It has turned out over the centuries that Americans have a particular gift for being zealous about their religion. One recent poll estimates that approximately 25% of Americans define themselves as 'evangelical' and it may go as high as 35% (more than 100 million citizens). There are reportedly 1500 megachurches in the US (defined as more than 2000 in weekly Sunday service attendance), and 50 of those churches have attendance greater than 10,000. But that's not nearly the whole story, many more million of the faithful follow and donate to televangelists, a uniquely American innovation that marries religion, charismatic salesmanship and modern media. It's not hard to see a correlation between belief in religion and belief in outlandish conspiracy theory, especially ones that carry a religious subtext. But it has to be more than just evangelical Americans. Latin Americans are far more religious than Americans. Are they as susceptible to loony-tunes conspiracy theories? Probably not, because their religious belief is locked into Church doctrine and organization. American religious belief is more free market and free form, an expression of personal rights and independence. And to my mind this is the one ingredient that differentiates Americans from other places, religion-wise. It's a type of puritan righteousness and zealotry combined with a uniquely American sense of iconoclasm and personal freedom. It has more in common with Hollywood and superhero comics than it does with the Judeo-Christian tradition. What I mean is that Jesus saved humanity because he was a gentle soul who had the humility required to die for our sins. The American version of saviour is more like Superman, who comes from another galaxy but is raised on a mid-western American farm, possesses superhuman strength to pound evildoers into submission, and operates with a hidden identity. And in particular it's the hidden identity part that speaks to the cultural ethos at the heart of America, which is a land of shedding the old meek, failing and persecuted identity and becoming stronger and faster, new and improved. If you can believe in Superman as your saviour protecting the planet from the likes of Lex Luther, why not donald trump saving you from a Hillary Clinton-led baby-blood drinking international pedophile ring?