abyssos.org

So Trump won after all. And the Republicans won the house and the senate as well, so it will be interesting to see what will unfold. And how much resistance will there be from the Democrat’s side of the aisle? What kind of an opposition will there be? From what we know so far, it looks as if there’s not going to be too strong of an opposition, at least not immediately. Bernie Sanders’ candidacy hinted at a substantial divide within the Democratic Party, so chances are both parties will have transformed fundamentally come 2020, maybe even by 2018.

In the aftermath of the election, the media aren’t shy to follow up with explanations. But, similar to what I wrote about in the first part, I think it is more worthwhile to look at the perceivable changes to the democratic process, instead of asking why Trump may or may not have won.

The left out ones

I do want to mention one thing though: Michael Moore called it. In his article back in July, he explained why he thought Trump would be likely to win and how it would go down. As it turns out he was pretty much spot-on and he was able to see it, because, unlike many liberal commentators, he lives in Michigan and not in one of the hotspots where the liberal, cultural and political elites congregate (i.e. “urban America”). His Brexit analogy was smart and insightful, and he’s right to point towards the vast number of people who feel left out and unrepresented in today’s democracies. And he’s right to point out that they are not necessarily dumb or uneducated, but that them being left out is a structural phenomenon. It is the result of a misguided process and leadership which favors mostly the “winners” of modern capitalism, the effects of which are noticeable in all Western democracies. Where the feeling of being cheated by the system, being excluded and mislead once stood as a vague ambiguity, it transformed into a tangible anger and because they are good at tapping into that anger, the right wingers all over the world are seeing a surge in voters.

There are two major factors at play here, which directly relate to the post-factual era and the current state of development of our capitalist world: First, since we entered the age of information, the sheer amount of available information has grown so incredibly, that it has become impossible to differentiate between fact and fiction without undertaking considerable effort. And because in a parallel development, the methods of sorting through the information and organizing the stream of information to our preferences, have become some much more sophisticated as well, it is now perfectly possible to live in an information bubble, where all we hear, see and feel is eventually predefined through our preferences and attitudes. Now, I don’t want to make a simplified point here down the lines of “well, all those kids are glued to their smartphones all the time and don’t know what’s going on anymore”, but what’s important to note is that it actually takes serious effort to look beyond the individual, informative bubble. Anyone who does so needs to make a conscious decision, it doesn’t just happen. What that means is, in 2016, when we get the news, they are quite likely pre-filtered to match our general ideas and opinions of the world. And, implicitly, we start to structure our social contacts along those lines as well. We’ll be more likely to engage with people who follow the same commentators on Facebook, Twitter etc. We’ll talk to those among our friends who read similar articles and hold similar opinions. And because the distractions and means of information are so plentiful, there is basically no grounds to challenge our opinions unless we actively seek to do so. This, to me, is why the democrats missed the boat this time with people who live outside of urban America. There was no reason for them to believe they would, because the channels of interaction have grown so divided.

The second factor is to be found in our consumption-driven lifestyles and their interlocking with our economies. There is no sense of economic upturn on an emotional level and what we do perceive has become completely decoupled from actual economic developments. Because the issues are so complex, the general consensus seems to be somewhere along the lines of “well, as long as things are okay” or “they’re all crooks anyway”. And because our economies require growth and rising consumption rates to flourish, we are made to feel as if we need to buy stuff all the time. Artificial needs are constantly created in order to do so (see Part 1). Now, what that does on a social scale is, that a perceived lack in purchasing power can create fear of missing out, which can then turn into frustration and eventually anger. In other words, while some consumer goods (e.g. electronics) keep getting more affordable through technological progress, upkeep costs (rent, utilities and food most prominently) slowly but steadily keep rising. The system is designed to work by draining the wealth of the majority of the population slowly: As wages don’t rise at the same rates that the costs of living do, for most people the reality is a slow decline of wealth and purchasing power. This effect is slowed down through technological progress – think about the spread of cell phones, flat screen TVs and smartphones – as production becomes cheaper, those goods are available on almost any budget. On an emotional level, this is quite a potent buffer, if you think about it: While the chances of actually owning the place you’re living in (a long-standing, defining “middle class” dream) are getting slimmer, the growing accessibility of “luxury goods” makes up for it and generates an individual sense of progress. So, to put it somewhat polemically, the “middle class” is caught up in a slow-draining hamster wheel while being fed the spillovers to keep them satisfied.

Recently, the emotional climate seems to be shifting and the growing frustration started morphing into a diffuse anger and a constantly present sense of loss. And because the political climate is all but inspiring, a candidate who promises to turn back time and restore an idea of a certain status quo can indeed seem quite intriguing.

The tale of the fear-monger and the media

Fear is not the primary reason for Trumps election or the rise of the right-wing parties practically all around the globe, although that is the one argument that seems to be pushed most strongly in the media. A commonly raised point states that the demagogues are playing the field and instilling fear within people in an effort to gain traction with voters. The reasons why people feel threatened, however, are not with the demagogues in the sense that it is the demagogues and populists, who cause and push those fears. The actual reasons are deeply nested in the fabric of the societies we created over decades of widely uncontrolled commercialism and egotism running wild. It’s not the actual, individual immigrant or refugee who causes fear. The issue is structural and rooted in a diffuse system which causes us as a society to lose our ability to judge critically and rationally. Thus, we’re hindered from looking at social issues as poly-causal, inter-related phenomena, because the system we created conditioned us towards simple, emotionally tangible answers.

The way I see it, there are three principles which dominate the public space of discourse right now:

• Sensationalism, which is catered to by the focus in the media on acts of violence and all sorts of scandals and tragedies.
• Consumerism, which forms a basic foundation of our economic system and thrives on the satisfaction of diffuse, artificial and intangible needs. It is most vividly embodied through modern advertising in all its sophistication.
• And egotism, our tendency to obsess over ourselves and our individual desires, which renders us vulnerable to manipulation from various sides.

Now, with those three principles in a dominant role, it is easy for us to get trapped in a personal narrative, which causes us to abolish self-awareness and self-criticism (after all we are constantly made to believe our individual happiness is all that matters and our purchases are nothing short of important life decisions) and generates an ambiguous sense of defeat (the world is violent and no matter what, our needs are never satisfied). The problem which arises from this disposition is that, if we don’t question ourselves, our judgement and our perception, there’s really nothing holding us back from tapping into easily evoked emotions. So if buying something we want gives us immediate pleasure and the world we’re presented with seems to turn for the worse, regardless of our actions, it is an easy and enticing step to just give in to whatever emotion we’re presented with, instead of taking a step back and undertaking the effort to critically judge the situation.

It’s easy to blame this situation on the media, and certainly not wrong either, but it does miss the bigger picture. There is a deep web of interdependencies at play and an organically grown system in place which banks on people reacting somewhat predictably (and egocentric people are nice and easy to predict).

Please bury the “Idiocracy” analogy

A common talking point which accompanied the prelude and the aftermath of the election is what I’d call the “Idiocracy” analogy. There were articles on it in various media (e. g. the RollingStone) and it came up among my friends and peers a lot too. So in all brevity, Mike Judge’s 2006 movie is about a world turned dumb due to the fact that the highly intelligent part of the population doesn’t reproduce as much as the less intelligent part. The elected president in this dystopia is a loud-mouthed, professional wrestler, who poses with guns and flags. Basically, what people are getting at by citing the movie is that they are either mortified or not surprised at all about Trump being elected and that, apparently, just under half of the voters lack the intelligence to make a better judgment (and thus, are “idiots”).

Now, statements and analogies like that are fun at first, maybe, but they are equally dumb, easily debunked and might actually have helped Trump get elected. But worst of all, they are actually destabilizing our democracies. But let’s go through that step by step.

The claim that Trump supporters lack intelligence is easily debunked because most, if not all, models of measuring intelligence assume that intelligence within the population is normally distributed on a bell-shaped curve. Following that metric, the majority of people must be averagely intelligent and, judging from the number of voters supporting Trump, it is not very likely that there would be a significant deviation from a random group of people. So derogative statements on the intelligence of Trump supporters are either plain insults without proper logical foundation or based on a misjudgment that basically falls into the same category (“idiocy”) as the initial claim itself.

How could such statements have helped to sweep Trump into office? Arrogance and humiliation are pretty strong personal and social drivers. Arrogant dispositions (like “Trump voters are deplorable idiots anyway”) create a divide and actually give populists a powerful narrative to work with: By discarding issues to which a large group of people attributes a lot of importance and ridiculing their position, the way is paved for a populist to push messages like: “Look at those detached elites, not only do they not see your cause, they even think they are better than you!”. Understandably, people respond to that very strongly and the sense of detachment, which in my view has a very real grounding too, probably played a big part in mobilizing voters in the US election.

Well, so the analogy is arguably false and quite likely counterproductive. But how is it destabilizing our democracy? The destabilizing factor has a lot to do with the inner argumentative state, which is assumed if you buy into such analogies. Think about it this way: If your position can be subsumed to a statement that declares people whose views are not your own as intellectually less capable, you’re effectively undermining your ability to enter a rational discourse. After all, why would you even attempt to look at their arguments rationally, if you’re convinced they cannot be intellectually sound anyway? So, in consequence, the conversation is pre-charged with non-arguments and heated, irrational talking points, which then in turn make it impossible to engage in a constructive, public conversation. And this, at its core, is a negation of the public discourse and damages the democratic process.

The best quote amidst the aftermath of the US election came from Bernie Sanders, who said he was willing to work with Trump on the issues that are in the interest of the people and oppose him vigorously on the issues where he is acting against the interest of the American people. That is the right attitude to have and the way for a democracy to work – with politicians who are able to put differences aside and still remain vigilant. And a critically thinking, rationally competent public standing behind them.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.