Again and again, the same colossal problem facing democracy, today's voters' naïve gullibility, their inability to think even a single step beyond the first issue facing them, let alone to seek the causes. Elections call for thought, nothing terribly demanding, but a refusal to think undermines the entire process. And here the voter is…
Again and again, the same colossal problem facing democracy, today's voters' naïve gullibility, their inability to think even a single step beyond the first issue facing them, let alone to seek the causes. Elections call for thought, nothing terribly demanding, but a refusal to think undermines the entire process. And here the voter is up against politicians whose approach is that of bank robbers creating a diversion; the voter pays attention to the diversion while the robbers complete their heist.
There is something exceptional about this particular deception: the media don't usually help bank robbers, yet here they do their damnedest to help political mountebanks bamboozle the public.
Another way of looking at it: I'm reminded of the schoolkid asked about the causes of thunderstorms who answered: "It's because God's angry with us".
Here, however, it's not God who's angry but the voter who treats the President like a god that's failed to come up to expectations, so he wants to return him to the store and buy a new one. However, the real effect of his angry vote in midterm elections is to cripple this presidential god supposedly endowed with magical powers, depriving him of the means to do anything for anyone.
How absurd. And, since many voters today seem so uneducated and uneducable as to be incapable of anything as complex as a game of billiards, let alone chess... let alone poker... we're up against a structural problem that makes the land ungovernable and plays into the hands of the country's enemies, especially those within the gates.
Only bigger carrots -- greed -- and fear of an even bigger stick stand any chance of showing voters the consequences of their actions.
But then, look at how deeply Putin and his robber band (duly blessed by KGB Patriarch) despise the people... of Russia and Ukraine, look at how Orban Drumpf and DeSantis scorn the voters they manipulate...
Good government demands respect for citizens, including fools, if not for all they think, say or do. When it comes to voting we can judge a politician's suitability by the respect and self-respect he or she shows.
Only... people who've been watching too many third-class soaps couldn't tell a real human being from a fake... Hence the perfect simulacrum, Reagan. Hence Agent Orange.
Is this because the average voter thinks only of himself/herself rather than the community? What's good for the whole community (besides myself)? We live in a country that has been raised on independence and pulling yourself up by your own boot straps. I personally know people in the $100,000 earnings range who begrudge paying taxes b/c they don't realize how the taxes benefit them. Yes, people just don't get it.
From all the responses, Peter, I would guess that America has an extremely difficult lesson to learn from an extremely difficult teacher. Of course the oligarchies can buy their way out of danger, float above the clouds of destruction, playing their supercilious game of chess, or Monopoly, pushing us little mute pons around the square game board, winner take all. But, what if we don't play the game, make up our own, like Zelenskyy, and call it democracy?
In trial by jury, the judge issues instructions, guiding jurors step by step through the different items of evidence they must consider, asking them to weigh up on that basis which case is the most convincing. This isn’t foolproof—nothing is—but it does at least help ensure that jurors take account of all relevant factors and are at every stage guided by evidence rather than their prejudices.
There are no such safeguards when it comes to elections—there should be, but even if there were it’s doubtful that they would have the slightest influence over most voters’ decision as reason and commonsense have little weight in these proceedings. If the issue were one of rendering justice, chances are it would be more like a lynching or the mob’s trial of Jesus… which was, of course, presided over by a politician…
Passion, prejudice, I like/don’t like his/her face, together with entertainments called “debate” that are more like a boxing match than anything involving reasoned argument—remember that flabby hunk with the orange-peel skin and the strange hair circling around Mrs. Clinton like an all-in wrestler looking for a hold and which way to throw her off the stage?—and millions of dollars get thrown to the four winds… but the political arena remains a largely thought-free zone. Such thoughts as get through have a rough time competing with Big Money.
#
I’d almost forgotten when it was that I wrote of today’s America in terms of the Nika Riots. So I just checked and, yes, it was well before January 6th 2021. In fact it was in January 2017, just after that geriatric Caligula thought he’d been made Emperor.
A few excerpts from my notes at the time. First, from an excellent essay by Amanda Taub in the New York Times of January 11th 2017: The real story about fake news is partisanship.
“In his farewell address as president Tuesday, Barack Obama warned of the dangers of uncontrolled partisanship. American democracy, he said, is weakened ‘when we allow our political dialogue to become so corrosive that people of good character are turned off from public service, so coarse with rancor that Americans with whom we disagree are not just misguided, but somehow malevolent’.”
#
“Partisan tribalism makes people more inclined to seek out and believe stories that justify their pre-existing partisan biases, whether or not they are true.”
Here, I jotted down: “A mix of video game automatisms and tribalism”. My notes continued:
“In this context, the word ‘tribalism’ sounds all too appropriate. It's supposedly politics that are divisive, but may not politics provide a perfect alibi, the screen onto which people project their hatreds? And, for that, any other screen would do the trick.”
I went on to wonder about the kind of things that can happen once politics have become sidelined by public entertainment. It starts with ritualized warfare but…
“What I wonder is whether the mass folly now engulfing country after country is not a repeat performance of what nearly brought down Byzantium, with Blues and Greens coming close to destroying the city and overthrowing the emperor. And whether, given modern armaments, at least in America, we don't risk something infinitely worse than the Nika riots and the mass killing that put an end to them.”
[Curious. Read this in the light of current events near Kyiv.]
#
“…Interesting that our political parties should be distant descendants of the Byzantine Blues and Greens. Violence and partisan support for teams were of the essence, political causes, secondary. Just issues to latch onto as a pretext for a fight.
Thanks for your post. I hadn't read about the Niko riots. I was thinking more of the Italian city republics, local monarchy living in towers.
"In 1277 the popular organization of Padua forbade the presence of the election officials of all sailors, gardeners, agricultural labourers, landless men and herdsmen' and various other categories, including all men assessed for taxation at less than100 L.". Presumably the danger was that the powerful might use them to intimidate the electors.".
As Koch and friends are currently rounding up the wild Mustangs by helicopter on our public lands and shipping them off to Mexico and Canada under horrible conditions for meat, I doubt if we'll see chariot races very soon. On the other hand, bashing towers seems to be a popular way to for an autocrat to start an inserrection. Mussolini used a fire to advance his career, Hitler used the Reightxdmstsge (sp?) Fire, 911 seemed like an attempt to start a war...
The Italian City,-Republics, by Daniel Waley, World University Library, 1973.
Thank you, Karen, but it doesn't make me happy to say these things...
On the one hand, we're up against the press-button pop-a-pill mentality that demands instant satisfaction while guaranteeing dissatisfaction. On the other, it's the tribal voter who believes that because the party for which she is voting has the same name as the party Dad and Granddad voted for, it's the same party.
Nowadays, that can be like Little Red Riding Hood casting her vote for the Wolf that's swallowed Grandma and stolen her clothes..
One conclusion of the petulant toddler faced with failure of his/her instant demand for satisfaction; "you're not my mommy!" equating dissatisfaction with responsibility of the parent. Literally, the voter equates "hard times" with bad leadership. Bad leadership makes good times harder, bad times even worse. Good leadership responds to bad times rationally, exhorts the public to reasonable and necessary sacrifices to set things on a more stable course, reminds of us of our interdependence, even as the political toddlers continue to bemoan their fate, equated to the responsibility of the leader of the moment.
I understand Peter. It is disheartening to see so many people expecting this “powerful”person to fix everything yesterday. Unfortunately, that mindset (along with Putin) got Trump elected. After all “he alone could fix it”. We have seen the “dumbing down” of America since the Regan years. And his Secretary of Education, Bill Bennett, gutted the Federal support for Civics education. Consequently, so many people today don’t have a clue about engaging in the political process, or the rights and responsibilities of citizens. That creates the perfect scenario for an authoritarian President.
That said, depressing as it may be, I am hopeful that with work we can hold on to our democracy. It seems like there are so many things going in the wrong direction, but we are not. I learn so much from Heather and all of this group, as well as others I follow on Substack. It is reassuring to know so many that are aware, concerned, and doing what they can to hold on to our democracy.
Again and again, the same colossal problem facing democracy, today's voters' naïve gullibility, their inability to think even a single step beyond the first issue facing them, let alone to seek the causes. Elections call for thought, nothing terribly demanding, but a refusal to think undermines the entire process. And here the voter is up against politicians whose approach is that of bank robbers creating a diversion; the voter pays attention to the diversion while the robbers complete their heist.
There is something exceptional about this particular deception: the media don't usually help bank robbers, yet here they do their damnedest to help political mountebanks bamboozle the public.
Another way of looking at it: I'm reminded of the schoolkid asked about the causes of thunderstorms who answered: "It's because God's angry with us".
Here, however, it's not God who's angry but the voter who treats the President like a god that's failed to come up to expectations, so he wants to return him to the store and buy a new one. However, the real effect of his angry vote in midterm elections is to cripple this presidential god supposedly endowed with magical powers, depriving him of the means to do anything for anyone.
How absurd. And, since many voters today seem so uneducated and uneducable as to be incapable of anything as complex as a game of billiards, let alone chess... let alone poker... we're up against a structural problem that makes the land ungovernable and plays into the hands of the country's enemies, especially those within the gates.
Only bigger carrots -- greed -- and fear of an even bigger stick stand any chance of showing voters the consequences of their actions.
Or as Churchill once put it, "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."
But then, look at how deeply Putin and his robber band (duly blessed by KGB Patriarch) despise the people... of Russia and Ukraine, look at how Orban Drumpf and DeSantis scorn the voters they manipulate...
Good government demands respect for citizens, including fools, if not for all they think, say or do. When it comes to voting we can judge a politician's suitability by the respect and self-respect he or she shows.
Only... people who've been watching too many third-class soaps couldn't tell a real human being from a fake... Hence the perfect simulacrum, Reagan. Hence Agent Orange.
Is this because the average voter thinks only of himself/herself rather than the community? What's good for the whole community (besides myself)? We live in a country that has been raised on independence and pulling yourself up by your own boot straps. I personally know people in the $100,000 earnings range who begrudge paying taxes b/c they don't realize how the taxes benefit them. Yes, people just don't get it.
From all the responses, Peter, I would guess that America has an extremely difficult lesson to learn from an extremely difficult teacher. Of course the oligarchies can buy their way out of danger, float above the clouds of destruction, playing their supercilious game of chess, or Monopoly, pushing us little mute pons around the square game board, winner take all. But, what if we don't play the game, make up our own, like Zelenskyy, and call it democracy?
In trial by jury, the judge issues instructions, guiding jurors step by step through the different items of evidence they must consider, asking them to weigh up on that basis which case is the most convincing. This isn’t foolproof—nothing is—but it does at least help ensure that jurors take account of all relevant factors and are at every stage guided by evidence rather than their prejudices.
There are no such safeguards when it comes to elections—there should be, but even if there were it’s doubtful that they would have the slightest influence over most voters’ decision as reason and commonsense have little weight in these proceedings. If the issue were one of rendering justice, chances are it would be more like a lynching or the mob’s trial of Jesus… which was, of course, presided over by a politician…
Passion, prejudice, I like/don’t like his/her face, together with entertainments called “debate” that are more like a boxing match than anything involving reasoned argument—remember that flabby hunk with the orange-peel skin and the strange hair circling around Mrs. Clinton like an all-in wrestler looking for a hold and which way to throw her off the stage?—and millions of dollars get thrown to the four winds… but the political arena remains a largely thought-free zone. Such thoughts as get through have a rough time competing with Big Money.
#
I’d almost forgotten when it was that I wrote of today’s America in terms of the Nika Riots. So I just checked and, yes, it was well before January 6th 2021. In fact it was in January 2017, just after that geriatric Caligula thought he’d been made Emperor.
A few excerpts from my notes at the time. First, from an excellent essay by Amanda Taub in the New York Times of January 11th 2017: The real story about fake news is partisanship.
“In his farewell address as president Tuesday, Barack Obama warned of the dangers of uncontrolled partisanship. American democracy, he said, is weakened ‘when we allow our political dialogue to become so corrosive that people of good character are turned off from public service, so coarse with rancor that Americans with whom we disagree are not just misguided, but somehow malevolent’.”
#
“Partisan tribalism makes people more inclined to seek out and believe stories that justify their pre-existing partisan biases, whether or not they are true.”
Here, I jotted down: “A mix of video game automatisms and tribalism”. My notes continued:
“In this context, the word ‘tribalism’ sounds all too appropriate. It's supposedly politics that are divisive, but may not politics provide a perfect alibi, the screen onto which people project their hatreds? And, for that, any other screen would do the trick.”
I went on to wonder about the kind of things that can happen once politics have become sidelined by public entertainment. It starts with ritualized warfare but…
“What I wonder is whether the mass folly now engulfing country after country is not a repeat performance of what nearly brought down Byzantium, with Blues and Greens coming close to destroying the city and overthrowing the emperor. And whether, given modern armaments, at least in America, we don't risk something infinitely worse than the Nika riots and the mass killing that put an end to them.”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/blue-versus-green-rocking-the-byzantine-empire-113325928/
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/circusmaximus/nika.html
Over a year later, I wrote in my notebook that:
“For years, the Kremlin encouraged the growth of gangs of neo-Nazi football supporters, employed as the regime’s freelance roughnecks.”
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/24/russia-neo-nazi-football-hooligans-world-cup
[Curious. Read this in the light of current events near Kyiv.]
#
“…Interesting that our political parties should be distant descendants of the Byzantine Blues and Greens. Violence and partisan support for teams were of the essence, political causes, secondary. Just issues to latch onto as a pretext for a fight.
Too many recent events echo the Nika riots.”
Thanks for your post. I hadn't read about the Niko riots. I was thinking more of the Italian city republics, local monarchy living in towers.
"In 1277 the popular organization of Padua forbade the presence of the election officials of all sailors, gardeners, agricultural labourers, landless men and herdsmen' and various other categories, including all men assessed for taxation at less than100 L.". Presumably the danger was that the powerful might use them to intimidate the electors.".
As Koch and friends are currently rounding up the wild Mustangs by helicopter on our public lands and shipping them off to Mexico and Canada under horrible conditions for meat, I doubt if we'll see chariot races very soon. On the other hand, bashing towers seems to be a popular way to for an autocrat to start an inserrection. Mussolini used a fire to advance his career, Hitler used the Reightxdmstsge (sp?) Fire, 911 seemed like an attempt to start a war...
The Italian City,-Republics, by Daniel Waley, World University Library, 1973.
That’s why that Larry David Super Bowl commercial was so funny “Every one can vote!” “Even the stupid ones?!? Arrrgh!”
Very well said Peter!
Thank you, Karen, but it doesn't make me happy to say these things...
On the one hand, we're up against the press-button pop-a-pill mentality that demands instant satisfaction while guaranteeing dissatisfaction. On the other, it's the tribal voter who believes that because the party for which she is voting has the same name as the party Dad and Granddad voted for, it's the same party.
Nowadays, that can be like Little Red Riding Hood casting her vote for the Wolf that's swallowed Grandma and stolen her clothes..
One conclusion of the petulant toddler faced with failure of his/her instant demand for satisfaction; "you're not my mommy!" equating dissatisfaction with responsibility of the parent. Literally, the voter equates "hard times" with bad leadership. Bad leadership makes good times harder, bad times even worse. Good leadership responds to bad times rationally, exhorts the public to reasonable and necessary sacrifices to set things on a more stable course, reminds of us of our interdependence, even as the political toddlers continue to bemoan their fate, equated to the responsibility of the leader of the moment.
That's it in a nutshell, Nathan.
I understand Peter. It is disheartening to see so many people expecting this “powerful”person to fix everything yesterday. Unfortunately, that mindset (along with Putin) got Trump elected. After all “he alone could fix it”. We have seen the “dumbing down” of America since the Regan years. And his Secretary of Education, Bill Bennett, gutted the Federal support for Civics education. Consequently, so many people today don’t have a clue about engaging in the political process, or the rights and responsibilities of citizens. That creates the perfect scenario for an authoritarian President.
That said, depressing as it may be, I am hopeful that with work we can hold on to our democracy. It seems like there are so many things going in the wrong direction, but we are not. I learn so much from Heather and all of this group, as well as others I follow on Substack. It is reassuring to know so many that are aware, concerned, and doing what they can to hold on to our democracy.
Wonderful analogy! [Wolf in Grandma's clothes].
Democrats fail miserably where the Republicans are pros
- the propaganda department.
The Goebbels department?
It is not politicians but the judiciary that will have to sort out what look to me like professional criminals.
The fate of the country hangs on the action of the Justice Department and on the accused being treated in exactly the same way as lesser miscreants.