By Michiko KakutaniNew York Times literary critic Kakutani looks at writers (Orwell, Huxley, Arendt) who assailed totalitarianism in the past and compares today's White House. The 45th president made 2140 false or misleading claims in his first year in office (regarding his popularity and achievements, investigation into Russian interference, etc). He attacks the press, the justice system, civil servants.
She notes that Alexander Hamilton stated that the constitution's architecture was based on a rational system of checks and balances and that - while not perfect - has endured for over 200 years, thanks to its resilience and capacity to accommodate change. Today, an irrational countertheme in US history has arisen - one that ignores reason, facts, informed debate, and policy making. "Science is under attack, as is expertise of every sort...in foreign policy, national security, economics, or education." (p 23)
In today's culture wars, we see a relativism where politicians create their own truth and social norms (eg, those who assailed Bill Clinton's sexual peccadillos in the 90s now give Trump a pass for his affairs with porn stars).
Because she is a literary critic, Kakutani brings the perspective of both novelists and social commentators to bear. For example, Daniel Boorstin's 1962 book The Image foresaw reality TV and the rise of a celebrity known for his "well-knownness", images were replacing ideals, credibility replacing truth. A study by Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis on online disinformation concludes that "it's a surprisingly short leap from rejecting political correctness to blaming women, immigrants or Muslims for their problems".
In chapter 5, "The Co-opting of Language", Kakutani quotes Victor Klemperer's war diaries that chronicle how swiftly and insidiously an autocrat can weaponize language to suppress critical thinking, inflame bigotry, and hijack a democracy. They have an obsession with numbers and superlatives, everything had to be the best or the most. "Hitler says in the Reichstag that Napolean fought in Russia in temperatures of minus 25 degrees, but that he, Commanding Officer Hitler, had fought at minus 45, even at minus 52." (p 93) Trump's inauguration crowd claim is a good example, and he accuses opponents of the things he himself does (Lyin' Ted, Crooked Hillary, etc).
Manipulation of social media by Russia and other countries has been targeted, with few exceptions, in favor of Trump; current targets include stirring up trouble over the NFL payers taking a knee and increasingly on special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the election. Current concerns are the 2018 midterm elections, targeting Mexico, and advances in virtual reality that can fabricate images of politicians saying things they never said, thus further blurring our ability to distinguish the fake from the true. Kakutani writes
- The sheer volume of dezinformatsiya unleashed by the Russian firehose system -- much like the more improvised but equally voluminous stream of lies, scandals, and shocks emitted by Trump, his GOP enablers, and media apparatchiks - tends to overwhelm and numb people while simultaneously defining deviancy down and normalizing the unacceptable. Outrage gives way to outrage fatigue, which gives way to the sort of cynicism and weariness that empowers those disseminating the lies. As the former world chess champion and Russian pro-democracy leader Garry Kasparov tweeted in December 2016, 'The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.'"
She adds
- Trump's lies, his efforts to redefine reality, his violation of norms and rules and traditions, his mainstreaming of hate speech, his attacks on the press, the judiciary, the electoral system - all are reasons that the democracy watchdog group Freedom House warned that year one of the Trump administration has brought "further, faster erosion of America's own democratic standards than at any other time in memory', and all are reasons that Orwell's portrait of an authoritarian state in which Big Brother tries to control all narratives and define the present and the past is newly relevant.
George Washington, in his farewell address of 1796, admonished the young country to guard its constitution and remain vigilant about efforts to sabotage the separation and balance of powers. Madison noted that "a popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both." Our government must recognize this truth today.
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