Can Our Democracy Survive This?
Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 10:39 pm
I’m not talking about surviving a Trump presidency, which, of course, has threats specific to that in particular. I’m talking about surviving the disease of which Trump is lately the most visible and frightening symptom.
To me, simplistically, the disease boils down to two main elements:
1. Radical tribalization as a reaction to globalization
2. Erosion of trust
Radical tribalization as a reaction to globalization has two fronts. One is the economic globalization which has dramatically increased wage disparity world-wide. Part of this is due, in my layperson’s opinion, to the fact that globalization increases the opportunity for a few individuals to make massive amounts of money, vast amounts of money that dwarfs the riches of the past. Initially, this is not due to any plot or maliciousness – it’s just the nature of the beast. However, money and power begets the desire to protect money and power and accumulate even more money and power. It also begets tremendous opportunity to do just that. So the unbelievable enrichment of a few via the natural mechanisms of capitalism played out on a global scale results in the equally natural desire to protect and enrich oneself even more, with very effective tools to achieve that end. Of course not all vastly wealthy individuals fall prey to this, but enough do that it does become a sort of figurative (not literal, no strawmen please) conspiracy – the natural conspiracy of the incredibly wealthy to protect and increase that wealth no matter how, frankly, ridiculous that accumulation inevitably becomes.
The result is a visible and painful income disparity. People do not clearly understand how and why this came to be, and are vulnerable to charismatic individuals or parties who convince them that it is the fault of some foreign tribe, whereas, in reality, these pockets of the ultra-wealthy exist across all nations, races, genders, religions, etc. Globalization is complicated, and there are no easy or obvious solutions. Hell, I’m not even sure I’m right about this, either, but it’s what makes the most sense to me. Some would say I’m a victim of radical tribalization as well, with the ultra-wealthy as the other tribe. Obviously, I think my explanation makes a lot more sense than to accept that the existence of some undocumented workers laboring at nearly slave wages, doing menial labor many Americans refuse to do in the first place, is the cause of this income disparity.
The erosion of trust – well, where to begin on that one. The roots of that disease is a Gordian knot to untangle. But, to cut to the chase and simplify my point, the loss of trust in the press in particular is damaging. It’s damaging because a healthy press is crucial to a healthy democracy. I think this problem bloomed (after seeding for centuries) as a reaction to the 24-hour cable news cycle. Suddenly, instead of three stations accepting that their news programs would not be money-makers, and relying instead of commercial entertainment to create the money to sustain the essential news, now news had to become the money-maker in order to survive. So news had to become sexier, filled with click-bait no matter what the format. And this resulted in many news programs losing even the vague semblance of impartiality. Add to this the fact that many politicians acted like the Mormon church in practically brainwashing its adherents to be wary of and automatically distrust any news from any source other than the sanctioned source, and the end result is a lack of trust. Now we have fake news added to the mess, and it is an ungodly mess.
Yes, many news sources are NOT worthy of trust. But on the other hand, some still are. I despair to see some posters lump news sources like Fox and MSNBC in with NPR. NPR, in my opinion, is one of the FEW news sources that still makes a strong attempt to be impartial. Of course it doesn’t always succeed, but it doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with Fox and fake news.
When we have a populace that is already gravitating towards radical tribalization, and we add the inability to believe or trust any news source except one sanctioned by people or groups with other agendas, and we have a serious problem.
I am not certain that democracy can exist under those circumstances. Yet I, personally, see no solution.
Of course, we’re screwed anyway due to global warming (which, ironically, will only increase the radical tribalization as a reaction to increased migrations from the poorest countries that are going to bear the brunt, at least initially, of global warming), so I’m veering towards George Carlin’s stance. Just an observer, folks, just an observer.
But lord, it is painful to observe.
To me, simplistically, the disease boils down to two main elements:
1. Radical tribalization as a reaction to globalization
2. Erosion of trust
Radical tribalization as a reaction to globalization has two fronts. One is the economic globalization which has dramatically increased wage disparity world-wide. Part of this is due, in my layperson’s opinion, to the fact that globalization increases the opportunity for a few individuals to make massive amounts of money, vast amounts of money that dwarfs the riches of the past. Initially, this is not due to any plot or maliciousness – it’s just the nature of the beast. However, money and power begets the desire to protect money and power and accumulate even more money and power. It also begets tremendous opportunity to do just that. So the unbelievable enrichment of a few via the natural mechanisms of capitalism played out on a global scale results in the equally natural desire to protect and enrich oneself even more, with very effective tools to achieve that end. Of course not all vastly wealthy individuals fall prey to this, but enough do that it does become a sort of figurative (not literal, no strawmen please) conspiracy – the natural conspiracy of the incredibly wealthy to protect and increase that wealth no matter how, frankly, ridiculous that accumulation inevitably becomes.
The result is a visible and painful income disparity. People do not clearly understand how and why this came to be, and are vulnerable to charismatic individuals or parties who convince them that it is the fault of some foreign tribe, whereas, in reality, these pockets of the ultra-wealthy exist across all nations, races, genders, religions, etc. Globalization is complicated, and there are no easy or obvious solutions. Hell, I’m not even sure I’m right about this, either, but it’s what makes the most sense to me. Some would say I’m a victim of radical tribalization as well, with the ultra-wealthy as the other tribe. Obviously, I think my explanation makes a lot more sense than to accept that the existence of some undocumented workers laboring at nearly slave wages, doing menial labor many Americans refuse to do in the first place, is the cause of this income disparity.
The erosion of trust – well, where to begin on that one. The roots of that disease is a Gordian knot to untangle. But, to cut to the chase and simplify my point, the loss of trust in the press in particular is damaging. It’s damaging because a healthy press is crucial to a healthy democracy. I think this problem bloomed (after seeding for centuries) as a reaction to the 24-hour cable news cycle. Suddenly, instead of three stations accepting that their news programs would not be money-makers, and relying instead of commercial entertainment to create the money to sustain the essential news, now news had to become the money-maker in order to survive. So news had to become sexier, filled with click-bait no matter what the format. And this resulted in many news programs losing even the vague semblance of impartiality. Add to this the fact that many politicians acted like the Mormon church in practically brainwashing its adherents to be wary of and automatically distrust any news from any source other than the sanctioned source, and the end result is a lack of trust. Now we have fake news added to the mess, and it is an ungodly mess.
Yes, many news sources are NOT worthy of trust. But on the other hand, some still are. I despair to see some posters lump news sources like Fox and MSNBC in with NPR. NPR, in my opinion, is one of the FEW news sources that still makes a strong attempt to be impartial. Of course it doesn’t always succeed, but it doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with Fox and fake news.
When we have a populace that is already gravitating towards radical tribalization, and we add the inability to believe or trust any news source except one sanctioned by people or groups with other agendas, and we have a serious problem.
I am not certain that democracy can exist under those circumstances. Yet I, personally, see no solution.
Of course, we’re screwed anyway due to global warming (which, ironically, will only increase the radical tribalization as a reaction to increased migrations from the poorest countries that are going to bear the brunt, at least initially, of global warming), so I’m veering towards George Carlin’s stance. Just an observer, folks, just an observer.
But lord, it is painful to observe.