Analysis of election results so far is painting a picture of a deeply divided people who will remain deeply divided for years. The division seems to be mostly a combination of (i) a persistent rural-urban divide, and (ii) a probably persistent Trump who may not go away if the loses the 2020 election. Both the New York Times and Washington Post are drawing similar conclusions.
WaPo writes:
When Donald Trump narrowly won Wisconsin in 2016 to clinch the presidency, he carried 23 counties that had previously voted for President Barack Obama. But when Joe Biden was projected on Wednesday to put Wisconsin back in the Democratic column, he was on track to pry back just two of them: Door and Sauk.
Rather than flipping more Obama-Trump counties, Biden instead exceeded previous Democratic win margins in Wisconsin’s two biggest cities, Milwaukee and Madison.
That pattern extended to Michigan and other battleground states, with Biden building upon Democrats’ dominance in urban and suburban jurisdictions but Trump leaving most of exurban and rural America awash in red.
If President Trump loses his bid for re-election, as looked increasingly likely on Wednesday, it would be the first defeat of an incumbent president in 28 years. But one thing seemed certain: Win or lose, he will not go quietly away.
At the very least, he has 76 days left in office to use his power as he sees fit and to seek revenge on some of his perceived adversaries. Angry at a defeat, he may fire or sideline a variety of senior officials who failed to carry out his wishes as he saw it, including Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious diseases specialist in the middle of a pandemic.
And if he is forced to vacate the White House on Jan. 20, Mr. Trump is likely to prove more resilient than expected and almost surely will remain a powerful and disruptive force in American life. He received at least 68 million votes, or five million more than he did in 2016, and commanded about 48 percent of the popular vote, meaning he retained the support of nearly half of the public despite four years of scandal, setbacks, impeachment and the brutal coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 233,000 Americans. (emphasis added)
“If anything is clear from the election results, it is that the president has a huge following, and he doesn’t intend to exit the stage anytime soon,” said former Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, one of the few Republican officeholders to break with Mr. Trump over the past four years.
At this point, it is time to be deeply concerned about the future of democracy, voting rights, civil rights, the rule of law and a long-term rise of radical right propaganda-driven ideology and an accompanying tide of corruption and plutocratic anti-government authoritarianism. America is now firmly settled into a decades-long marathon struggle for social influence and political power.
Two main messages
If I were in control of anti-radical right messaging, I would get experts together and devise a messaging strategy to counter and attack the decades of radical right propaganda, lies and emotional manipulation. Two key messages seem to rise to as the top messaging priorities to deal with. It is now clear that radical right propaganda has successfully but falsely (i) painted democrats as evil tyrant-socialists, deeply corrupt and sometimes crackpot nonsense such as cannibalistic pedophiles, and (ii) created beliefs that compromise is evil or treason, and regulation is tyrannical socialism, while deregulation increases personal freedom.
Other successful results of radical right propaganda include, but are not limited to, significantly decreased social trust in democracy, democratic institutions, political opposition, elections, ethics, truth, experts, science, the rule of law and the free press. None of that bodes well for democracy or honest, competent governance. The right has come to understand and ruthlessly exploit the means available in the constitution and regional or state differences to divide and polarize Americans. Such means of social division include not just ruthless, effective dark free speech, they include the electoral college and differences inherent in the modern urban-rural divide. Exploiting all of that allows radial authoritarian candidates to ignore sections of the electorate and states that are inclined to support more moderate candidates.
If the foregoing is a reasonably accurate assessment of the situation, two key false radical right authoritarian messages that urgently need to be countered and debunked are (1) regulation = socialism, and (2) deregulation = more personal freedom. Obviously, opinions will differ on what is most important, but these two usually false beliefs seem to be fairly common among republicans and some or most independents.
The two points to be made are simple. First, regulation of capitalism is not socialism. Second, when private sector interests are deregulated, power does not flow from government to the people, it flows from government to the deregulated interests. Some benefit may or may not flow to some or most affected people. When private commercial interests gain power form deregulation, average people can often be exploited more effectively.[1]
But, if those two messages are not the top two, what are? It is clear that from here on out, we are in a ferocious messaging war. The immoral radical right will continue to rely on dark free speech to advance anti-consumer and anti-democratic authoritarianism. What tactics should the opposition use, dark free speech or honest free speech?
Footnote:
1. For example, by deregulating regulated for profit colleges after they committed fraud against thousands of students, Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos make it easier for fraud to reappear. Specifically, DeVos made it harder for defrauded students to recover their money.
One site commented: "But on Friday DeVos capped off a two-year effort by issuing
her own rule, which scales back loan forgiveness opportunities for student borrowers. The new regulations significantly raise the bar for student borrowers seeking debt forgiveness based on claims they were defrauded by their colleges. They add a new three-year time limit for those borrowers to file claims, and each case will be considered individually, even if there is evidence of widespread misconduct at an institution.
Borrowers will also be asked to demonstrate they suffered financial harm from their college’s misconduct and that the college made deceptive statements with “knowledge of its false, misleading, or deceptive nature.”" (emphasis added)
Just ask yourself: How can a student prove that the college made deceptive statements with knowledge of its false, misleading, or deceptive nature? Students have to go to court to get the power to subpoena documents that might show knowledge of false, misleading, or deceptive acts, but if the college routinely shreds all of its incriminating evidence, there will be no document evidence to be found and people from the college who testify will lie through their teeth and deny all wrongdoing as such defendants always do.
That shaft the consumer effect is how radical right deregulation works because it is intended to work that way. Deregulation in the public interest reduces needless complexity or limits, but deregulation in the special interest tends to damage the public interest. That is a point that most rank and file republicans simply do not understand and/or will not accept if told about it.
