Etiquette



DP Etiquette

First rule: Don't be a jackass.

Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.

Thursday, January 30, 2025

The democratic governance illusion; The déjà vu illusion

 As DJT continues to quickly move the US from a democracy to some form of kleptocratic authoritarian state, some very debatable assertions are being used frequently to justify, deny, distort, self-delude and/or soften the harsh reality and cognitive dissonance of DJT's and MAGA's destructiveness to democracy and its rule of law. Those assertions refer to (i) the will of the people (posted about here yesterday), (ii) the democratic governance, and (iii) the déjà vu (been there, done that and survived) illusions. In my firm opinion, all three assertions are more false than true, and thus illusions. In my opinion, they are obviously more false than true. This post is about the democratic governance, and déjà vu illusions.


The democratic governance illusion
I strongly disagree with a common assertion that so far DJT is simply acting on his campaign promises and is doing it democratically. Jon Stewart recently made this argument in a segment that Comedy Central aired. He argued that the Founding Fathers were to blame, not DJT, because what DJT is doing is legal. 

Is the argument of democratic governance true? Not completely. So far, he keeps some promises and breaks others. He is already breaking laws, e.g., illegally firing inspectors general. He has completely abandoned his promises to make food prices go down and to immediately end the Ukraine war. Those lies were intended to deceive, which deprived deceived people of the power to decide their votes on the basis of fact and truth. That exemplifies the the will of the people illusion in action. He lied about not implementing Project 2025 and he put a key author of P2025, Russell Voight, in charge of OMB. More deception.

Poll data before the election indicated that most voters falsely believed he would govern democratically (), not as an authoritarian.  Obviously opinions on this point vary widely. I see DJT's entire campaign and the entire MAGA wealth and power movement mostly as an illusion that is heavily grounded, maybe ~85%, in demagoguery, lies, slanders, partisan flawed reasoning and unwarranted, irrational emotional manipulation.  

Trump is clear about his intention to concentrate more power in the hands of the presidency, moving away from traditional Republican small-government principles. This includes using executive orders to bypass Congress. He reinstated Schedule F, allowing him to simply fire tens of thousands of federal employees. He intends to replace them with corrupt authoritarian loyalists. This is a significant threat to democratic governance, because it centralizes critical powers within the executive branch, reminiscent of tactics used by elected autocrats like Hungary's Viktor Orbán. There is nothing democratic in that. 

Trump's first term was marked by blatant violation of the constitutional Emoluments Clause. He took money from foreign governments seeking influence. His second term will be even more geared towards self-enrichment, with mechanisms like his Truth Social stock and crypto project being some of the ways to implement a kleptocracy. There is nothing democratic in that. 

So far, some of DJT's major actions in office align with historical patterns of authoritarianism and kleptocracy. Concerns about the direction of American governance under his administration are evidence-based and thus legitimate.

One can and should at politics, including the 2024 elections from a cognitive biology and social behavior point of view, i.e., a human being point of view. From that vantage point, it is pretty easy to see authoritarian and kleptocratic intent in DJT's actions so far. He is governing as a corrupt dictator much more than as a honest democrat. For most people who implicitly believe they are somehow not like other humans, or are above other humans (morally superior, God-chosen, or whatever), maybe ~90% of them will find it hard to impossible to believe this reasoning is valid. Despite skepticism, there is solid evidence that DJT is governing as an authoritarian kleptocrat more than as an honest democrat.


The déjà vu illusion
The last of the three illusions is that although the US may be going to experience some unpleasantness or hard times, we will be OK in the long run. That thinking relies on the fact that in the past, the US has experienced major threats, e.g., the US Civil War, and corrupt, authoritarian political leaders and systems, e.g., (1) authoritarianism in the Jim Crow South and DJT's first term in office, and (2) corruption scandals such as the 1872 Crédit Mobilier Scandal, Gilded Age corruption, and DJT's first term in office. 

One can argue that the US in fact did not come out OK from DJT's first term in office. Things went from bad to worse and now that he is in office a second time, things are going to get worse. Two points are important. First, one cannot ignore or downplay the authoritarian empowerment inherent in the USSC's decision in Trump v. United States in 2024. In that case, the USSC granted presidents unprecedented immunity from criminal acts, laying the foundation for American authoritarianism. Second, and almost equally important, was the 2024 decision in Snyder v. US that federal bribery law applies only to bribes paid or promised before an official act, not to "after-the-fact gratuities."

How can anyone know that this time will be just like all the other times of trouble? They can't. What is new and unique now is the breadth and depth of public acceptance of demagoguery, corruption, lying and overt authoritarian acts such as threatening the press and attacking inconvenient truths, e.g., about global warming, vaccines, and unpleasant American history (racist, bigoted, authoritarian and/or corrupt). The social infrastructure that radical right American kleptocratic authoritarianism has built over the last ~65 years includes deep, widespread public distrust of science, the federal government, the press and history, fact, truth and rationality that is inconvenient to false American kleptocratic authoritarian narratives. This is new.

Also, the déjà vu theory of we'll be OK because we always were OK before (itself a debatable belief) completely fails to account for new, powerful anti-democracy weapons that demagogues, authoritarians and kleptocrats never had access to until the last ~20 years. Those weapons include (1) the internet with toxic social media and huge, aggressive propaganda campaigns, (2) sophisticated demagoguery informed by the latest advances in cognitive biology and social behavior spread by all sources including the internet, and (3) artificial intelligence that (a) has already helped build a vast US (~$150 billion/year) and global attention industry (~$500 billion/year)(the businesses that depend on the resale of human attention) based, and (b) is now being used to build an even more powerful intention industry that aims to replace our will with the will of intruders. 

Demagogues, authoritarians and kleptocrats have full access to all of those new weapons for their use to attack truth, democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties. In my opinion, there just isn't much substance in déjà vu thinking that we'll be OK this time because we always were. This time is different. In my opinion, asserting déjà vu is more illusion than reality.


Q: Are assertions of democratic governance by DJT, and déjà vu reasoning that we will be OK, mostly false, mostly truth, or too complex and uncertain to rationally critique and make predictions from?