Populism

A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings: From the Powell Memo to the Eastman Memo and January 6th

Published on by Brynne VanHettinga

Part 9 of a 10-part Series:

The Pitchfork Politics of Conspiracy and Hate

“The road to fascism and dictatorship is paved with failures of economic policy to serve the needs of the general public.”

 Tim Wu in The Curse of Bigness:  Antitrust in the New Gilded Age (2018)

On January 6th, it was mostly White men—members of the most privileged group in American society—who were now the ones threatening the “system.” Yet, these were not the billionaires and oligarchs—the “masters of the universe”—whose primary objective is the protection of obscene wealth. This was a protest against a government that is viewed as being unresponsive to the People. If we are completely honest, we might admit to some sympathy for this sentiment, if not for the action. How many of us have argued that our elected representatives know nothing about the struggles of our daily lives and care even less. How many of us have participated in peaceful protests or rallies at the Capitol (as this writer has), which (even if unlikely and not caused by any of us) could have turned violent?

Moreover, imagine what any one of us might do if we genuinely believed the election was stolen. Indeed, there was a small-but-non-zero probability that Trump may have simply declared himself the winner (regardless of actual results) and barricaded himself in the White House behind a force of military loyalists and armed MAGA vigilantes. What would we have done in such a situation? Certainly, the Capitol would not have been a target, nor would January 6th have been a day of any particular significance. There likely would have been mass protests, and some of these likely would have turned violent. Although the riot at the Capitol on January 6th was the inflection point that climaxed a slow but insidious threat to American democracy, we know that this could have taken any number of alternative paths. Former Vice-President Mike Pence should take serious note of possible alternate outcomes.

 

Michael Cohen predicts Trump will not leave White House if he loses on 2/27/2019

January 6th is a unique event in more ways than the obvious. Post-January 6th analysis has focused on criminal prosecutions and reforms to the Electoral Count Act, with the goal of insuring that such a thing does not happen again. As necessary as these legalistic remedies are, they do not address the extreme level of delusion and hate that has infected a sizeable minority of the population. As attorneys who participated in the coup plot are now being charged with “weaponizing their law licenses” by bar disciplinary authorities, harder to address has been the weaponization of the First Amendment. 

At what point should free speech rights yield to public safety hazards? In the case of Covid misinformation, we can point to this as creating a threat to public health, and even human life. We can point to “hate speech,” that results in “hate crimes” and acts of stochastic terrorism where people are killed. In some cases, the public harm is less acute and even harder to establish causation. For decades, we have been subjected to a corporate media that, at first, focused on manufacturing insatiable wants to keep us working harder. In the beginning, many of us in the (formerly robust) middle class may have been able to afford the occasional advertising-induced splurge. What was the harm in wasting money buying things we didn’t need? As the middle class was hollowed out and most of us found ourselves working harder for less, the corporate media shifted to the manufacturing of consent, a Panglossian propaganda model touting glamorous lifestyles, justifying the infallibility of “markets,” and blaming everyone who isn’t already rich for their own shortcomings.

This strategy enabled the oligarchs to maintain a hold on power for decades. But people will continue to work harder for less only so long. At some point, most folks were no longer willing to vote on single moral/cultural issues like abortion, even when the opposition was labeled as baby-killers. New and more heinous bogeymen had to be created. It started with pedophilia—which, unfortunately there are plenty of real-life examples. But—oops—some of the pedophiles are doing “our” bidding, so even more loathsome (and patently incredible) stories were made up about deep state pedophile rings drinking the blood of children in the back of a pizza restaurant in New Jersey. The Q-conspiracy took on a life of its own.

The Q-Anon movement appeared after decades of right-wing disparagement of government. Government is portrayed as an impediment to freedom, but this version of “freedom” is about allowing the privileged to do whatever they want unimpeded by obligations to society at large. Freedom for the rest of us means the “freedom” to work harder, with the remote chance that we too, might become obscenely wealthy. The purpose of “public” schools was to provide a training ground for technocratic job skills useful to the corporatocracy. High level positions in academia, government and law are reserved for those educated at elite institutions—and who are carefully screened to insure they subscribe to elite values. The hoi polloi are not privy to learning the history and mechanics of government, a philosophical ethos of public service, or the critical thinking skills necessary to challenge the status quo.

The working class is not only kept ignorant of how government functions, but is programmed to view government as the enemy—a “deep state” which is comprised of elites who are completely disconnected and disinterested in their daily lives and welfare. Which, unfortunately, contains some element of truth, but they are unable to discern the whole picture. Success is determined in a hypercompetitive environment of Darwinian survival of the fittest and everyone for himself. This prevents development of solidarity among the working rabble, which also prevents them from forming or joining labor unions—which have also been demonized. This creeping degradation of working and civic life erodes hope in the future.

Since the civil rights era of the 1960s, previously marginalized groups—BIPOC, women and LGBTQ—were able to make some visible gains in socio-economic advancement.  Although still in the minority, women are now CEOs of major companies.  There is a record number of women in Congress, and four women now sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Income of Blacks and other minorities has also improved, but inequality remains high. Although income and status for women and minorities has improved over the past several decades, they have nonetheless not caught up with the income and wealth levels of white men. From the vantage point of rural and working-class white males—whose incomes have stagnated or declined—what they observe is that some “others” are gaining while they are losing—which creates resentment and polarization.

The economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton describe a heretofore unacknowledged epidemic they term Deaths of Despair. They trace a rising death rate from suicide, drug overdose and alcoholic liver disease (a slower form of suicide)—particularly among middle aged white men without college degrees—to declining real wages, insecurity, deprivation, alienation, and loss of hope for the future. For the first time in a century, American life expectancies fell in 2019 (pre-Covid) and 2020. Although the drop in life expectancies was larger for most minority groups, it fell 2.4% for whites. Even when life expectancies were increasing, Americans had lower life expectancies and poorer health than citizens in other high-income countries. Moreover, beginning in the 1990s, life expectancies in the United States began to diverge across geographic regions, and these have been correlated with political party domination. Between 2001 and 2019, the absolute difference in mortality rates between Republican leaning and Democratic leaning counties jumped by 541%.

The acknowledgement (and discussion) of extreme and growing inequality is found primarily among academics or non-mainstream media sources. Government and academic centers that collect data typically focus on datasets and formats designed to be useful to businesses or “economic development” planners. Other than occasional, fragmented stories or articles, popular culture and mainstream media has developed no language or discourse to address how and why the “system” is not working for so many people. Most Americans know (or more likely, “feel” on a gut level) that they are working harder for less, and that life has become more precariatized and harsher. Because they have no way to even articulate the angst—let along avail themselves of systems and institutions to help figure out why and what to do—they look for someone to blame.

This alienated angst is juxtaposed against a media saturated in relentless optimism, Wall Street boosterism, jingoistic hubris, and celebration of wealth. The message is if your own life doesn’t measure up to the roaring success that is all around you, it is because you either need to work harder, “market” yourself more aggressively, or are simply a loser. This is more than a disorienting cognitive dissonance, but amounts to a subtle assault on the core of one’s own human dignity. A combination of material, social, and psychological degradation primes a significant subset of the affected population to devolve into scapegoating and conspiracy theories—which can lead eventually to disconnection from reality. Or, what Dr. Lobaszewsky would term a hysteroidal high point.

There is a spiteful attitude among the alienated white working class that goes above and beyond mere selfishness and greed we usually associate with plutocrats. This perversion of (perhaps justified) grievance is expressed in the sentiment that if my own life is miserable and my job sucks then no one else (especially if they are BIPOC, LGBTQ, or a different religion) should have a decent life or job either. So…,we will vote against minimum wage increases, employee rights, job safety, expanded health care, environmental protection or anything else designed to make the lives of the “least of these” better. We would rather deny these things to “the other”—which also serves to deny them to ourselves—because the only way we can feel good about ourselves is to ensure that someone (or everyone) else is miserable.  

The words of Katherine Stewart (The Power Worshippers at page 277) emphasize many of the same things that Lobaszewsky observed in Nazi and Soviet-occupied Poland:

“Reactionary authoritarianism doesn’t come out of nowhere. It draws much of its destructive energy from social and economic injustices that leave a few with too much power and many others with too little hope. Rising economic inequality and insecurity has created a large mass of people, on all ends of the economic spectrum, who are anxious for their future and predisposed to favor calls for unity around an identity that targets others for vilification and degradation, [thus elevating] to power a small group of people with the means and desire to control the social order for their own benefit.”

 

A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings: From the Powell Memo to the Eastman Memo and January 6th

Published on by Brynne VanHettinga

Part 6 of a 10-part Series:

The Double-edged Sword of Populism

There has always been in our national experience a type of mind which elevates hatred to a kind of creed…For this mind, group hatreds take a place in politics similar to the class struggle in some other modern societies. “

Richard Hofstadter, 1963,  Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

Populism is a political movement that purports to champion the “common person” against a real or perceived elite that exerts an inordinate amount of power over the life of everyday people. The paradox of populism is that it can come from either the right (anti-government) or the left (anti-corporate), and its effects can be either progressive or regressive.

Populism often arises in response to real injustice, but then may morph into something darker as it gains power. A good example of this is the Jacobin Club of the French Revolution. It was formed by mostly middle and upper-middle class persons, and its goal was to preserve the gains of the revolution by preventing a reactionary backlash from the aristocratic elites. The Jacobins increased their membership by recruiting lower-middle-class shopkeepers and artisans, and they became increasingly radicalized. During the trial of King Louis XIV, moderates who opposed violence were excluded from the club. What followed was the Reign of Terror, where many people were publicly executed. The Jacobins were blamed, and they were eventually abolished.

Here in America, perhaps the earliest example of populism was Shay’s Rebellion in 1786-1787. A group of farmers who were subject to bank foreclosure violently stormed courthouses in Massachusetts. The governing authorities in some states (who were comprised of elites) were concerned whether they would be able to suppress future such rebellions themselves. Shay’s rebellion was the event that motivated the American Constitutional convention (May-September 1787). A national government would allow the states to combine defenses against future challenges to “property.”

Later populism in America was associated with the Progressive era (1877-1917). This was the period characterized by the ascendance of industrialism, the growth of monopolies, and rampant inequality. For most of the “regular folks,” there was a major shift from livelihoods on small family farms or independent shops to wage labor. It was the period where businesses combined to form huge “trusts,” which allowed regionally dominant businesses to merge across state lines. The enlargement of trusts created the American Gilded Age and prompted passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890.  This was more than a matter of money and raging inequality, but presented a threat to democracy itself, as the voices of regular people were increasingly unable to be heard in the halls of Congress that had been captured by big money.

The Progressive Populist movement pushed forward trust busting (the Sherman Act), reform of government corruption and cronyism (the Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883), and the labor union movement. Although the Progressives themselves were not directly responsible for violence, violence and unrest frequently appeared around labor strikes. Like today, while the mainstream press often blamed the striking workers, later investigations found that it was often created by Pinkertons (a vigilante law enforcement group hired by the industrialists) or federal and state national guard troops responding to requests to defend factories.

More recent examples of American populism are represented by the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. Although these movements are frequently portrayed as opposites, in their early days they sometimes were described as two sides of a very angry coin. Both were motivated to some degree by the government bailout of Wall Street and big banks during the Great Recession of 2007-2009, while the pain of Main Street and working people was ignored. Although both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street started as grass roots response to injustices against “the people,” the Occupy movement faded out due to lack of organization and resources. Conversely, the Tea Party movement morphed into something much more organized and better funded—including the support of right-wing billionaires.

Throughout American history, various groups have been demonized: Abolitionists, Mormons, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, African-Americans and other peoples of color, immigrants, bankers and intellectuals. We can intuit that the demonization of the latter (bankers and intellectuals) came from the ground up, whereas other forms of demonization were likely more generalized. Anti-intellectualism is a common element of populism in America.

Some of us remember former Vice-President Spiro Agnew’s calling students protesting the Vietnam War “effete snobs.” The intellectual is portrayed as someone who is content to live a life of the mind, safely ensconced within the Ivory Tower and immune from the hard work and exempt from fighting wars that all the rest of “us” must do. The intellectual is stereotypically described as enjoying an unearned social superiority while contributing nothing of real value to the rest of society. Intellectuals are the ones who live in an abstract world of spreadsheets and data, who jet off for meetings in fancy places like Davos, where they make decisions resulting in lost jobs and shuttered factories.

In modern times, the buzzwords are “meritocracy” and “professionalism,” along with their messages that only those with requisite (usually expensive) training and degrees are qualified to make certain decisions. We can sympathize with populist arguments that “elites” were behind policies (e.g., globalized trade and rapid technological change) that made a few very wealthy while destroying jobs and impoverishing the communities that were left out of the decisions.

In real life, however, the targets of anti-intellectualism are not always so easy to identify.  Typical non-Wall Street targets are higher-level public administrators and university professors. Although public administrators can be co-opted by the managerial ethos (get more work out of everyone for less), they are also public servants—most who genuinely want to see their work make a difference and improve communities. Likewise, many university professors genuinely want to improve the future through their students, and they often share the angst of their working-class neighbors—managing larger classes with fewer resources and constantly under threats from “the Administration.” Or state legislatures. Indeed, professional-level workers are increasingly subject to many of the same forms of inferiorization typically experienced by blue-collar workers. 

While “bottom-up” driven populist anti-intellectualism is usually based on legitimate grievances (and may sometime serve to advance democratic ideals), todays anti-intellectualism is a top-down driven version with entirely different roots and purposes: Oil and gas companies deny climate change, the corporatocracy and the wealthy promote “trickle down” economics, notwithstanding all the evidence that it doesn’t work as they claim. This form of anti-intellectualism allows them to whip up the working class against “intellectual elites.” Which, remarkably, never includes the well-paid white-paper “researchers” at their own posh think tanks.

 

At some point, rabid anti-intellectualism morphs into anti-science, anti-evidence, and denial of reality. The propaganda machine has been pushing policies (anti-regulation, anti-wealth-tax, anti-union, anti-education) that either harms regular working people directly or disempowers them in some way.  Relentless propaganda, combined with the defunding of public education, has resulted in loss of critical thinking skills among working and middle-class populations. Most people are already working too many hours to have time to educate themselves on all the issues—if they are even inclined to do so in a culture that disparages learning. Add on top of this the constant media barrage of glamorous and exciting lifestyles of the “rich and famous” juxtaposed against one’s own drab and shabby life, and you have a recipe for mass cognitive dissonance.

In a world where everyone is exhorted to view everyone else as competition for increasingly fewer resources (good jobs, housing, opportunity, recognition), anti-intellectualism creates another form of “us versus them.” Universities and research groups are working to make education more accessible as well as to bridge the divide between academia and the “real world.” At the same time, both oligarch-funded and organic social media hate propaganda machines have made intellectuals defensive. Feeling themselves under attack, some academics and intellectuals respond by expressing disdain for the ignorant masses, perpetuating the cycle of hate and distrust.