The Disconnect: Sleepwalking Into The Abyss

The Stakes Part III: How A Society Can Miss All The Warning Signs

This is the third installment of a series that I am calling The Stakes. (You can find Part One here and Part Two is here) It is meant to be a project that gets readers and the people they know up to speed as to what is going on as we head into the 2024 Presidential Election, exactly what is on the line, and the beginning of a discussion of what it is we can do in this election cycle and moving forward. For those looking for additional materials regarding these topics, please check out my book The Midnight Kingdom: A History of Power, Paranoia, and the Coming Crisis and the associated five-part Midnight Kingdom Lecture Series over on YouTube.

Please subscribe to Dispatches From A Collapsing State to gain access to this series and to keep this project rolling along. If you have questions about these articles, please reply to the post. When I’m finished I’ll try and put together a response to clarify them as an addendum. And please share these with friends and family members who need more information to understand exactly what we’re facing.

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Introduction: The Disconnect

It’s bad enough to live through one of the more dangerous and perilous times in modern history. Every day is filled with reminders that we are living on the brink of disaster. As I type this, two major wars are raging and threatening to spin into a larger world conflict. The state of Texas is standing in open rebellion against the federal government and Republican-led states are lining up to support it, all of it cheered on by a Right Wing media machine that has demonstrated it doesn’t care about consequences. Meanwhile, one of the most disastrous presidents in all history stands prepared to win the nomination for his party once more and is promising openly to serve as an authoritarian dictator.

That can wear you out in a hurry.

But it’s even worse that as we watch this unfold, those people we have depended on to protect us and inform us are largely behaving as if none of it is real. Our political leaders continue to fund-raise off the madness. Leaked conversations continually highlight how much their strategists, consultants, and even many of the politicians themselves, greet the chaos as a fantastic opportunity to fund-raise and possibly win elections. The journalists and pundits who cover this mess are largely dismissive of all worries that any of this is truly serious. Even after watching the attempted coup of January 6th, 2021 unfold on their television and phone screens, they have mocked that it was much more than a riot fueled by idiot MAGA supporters who shouldn’t be taken seriously.

For eight years now we’ve been treated to speeches, articles, opinion columns, tweets and posts, a great deal of them seemingly completely oblivious to what anyone paying attention can see going on. To listen and to read it is to be told that you’re hysterical. Delusional. That maybe you should go and touch grass and leave this to the serious people.

While that plays out, on social media and even in real life, the conversations are getting worse. Nearly everyone plays pundit and strategist now. There’s no room to criticize anyone “on your team” or ask for any consideration beyond winning an election or pledging total support. Regardless of topic, whether it’s Gaza or even the need to restore women’s reproductive rights, any “conversation” or exchange of ideas quickly turns heated and abusive.

Honestly, it’s enough to make you give up.

After all, we’re in a fight that feels overwhelming in its own right. Being told it’s not even real only makes it all the more intolerable.

So. Why is it like this? What is happening in our discourse and our culture?

Is This a Conspiracy?

No. And like I was saying in Part I, most conspiracy theories are alternative explanations for what capitalism is doing without implicating capitalism as a system. Behind our politics and behind our media are invisible motivators that we’re all very familiar with but often forget to factor into our analysis or understanding. In order to run for office or even receive the education necessary to do so successfully, not to mention the task of fundraising, most often it requires someone to come from a place of means. To own a media company requires a significant amount of wealth. And, as we’ll talk about in a bit, to work for a media company often requires considerable affluence, as well.

The point is that capitalism - or more specifically neoliberalism, the current evolved form of capitalism - is in trouble. To recognize that fact and to advocate for the necessary reforms needed to fix the situation is quite hard when you’re a major component in the system you’re supposed to be criticizing or diagnosing. You tend, when enjoying this type of wealth and privilege, to appreciate the system writ large and perhaps argue for small-scale or moderate tinkering. But, all in all, if you truly believed the system wasn’t beneficial and that it wouldn’t eventually fix itself, then you probably wouldn’t participate in it.

So in covering politics and culture, in serving in leadership positions that are most concerned with shepherding, protecting, and enabling the system itself, you’re not likely to view the entire picture through certain lenses. You could be concerned about record inequality and perhaps advocate taxing the absurdly wealthy, but you’ll also likely shrug and say, “There’s just no way to do that right now!” when the shit gets bad.

In the media, you’ll focus primarily on the soap opera elements of the process, but capitalism ensures you’re not going to spend too much time on deep, deep analysis. After all, that can bum people out. There’s more motivation to pay attention to the characters (your Donald Trump’s, your Nancy Pelosi’s, your Ted Cruz’s, etc.) and their antics, but the broader picture isn’t exactly where it’s at. It’s not profitable. It’s not attractive. And, again, it doesn’t suit the bottom line of the people who own the apparatuses or most of the people working to make it run.

So These People Aren’t All Hanging Out In One Room?

Well. Now that you mention it.

They kind of are. The interlocking environments of politics and media are pretty much inseparable. The media figures all know each other, the politicians all know each other, and they all know each other and traffic together for self-beneficial purposes. Politicians cozy up to media types in order to curry favor or glean positive coverage and the media spends way too much begging for insider access. There are definitely rooms where they all get together and socialize. And sure, they even cook up some projects or brainstorms ways they can profit and benefit. But it’s certainly not a smoke-filled room where the elite explicitly plan the fate of the world.

Instead, it’s an ecosystem that kind of twists everything into a big, confusing knot. And if you’re getting drinks with these people, sharing tips and leaks, if you’re carrying on like old pals, you kind of have to start wondering whether it becomes difficult to actually be objective in covering all this stuff. After all, you don’t really want to believe, as a media figure, that you’re hobnobbing with fascists, do you? That kind of…sucks.

You Said “Objective.” I Feel Like We Always Hear This Word

Oh yeah. Journalists love to throw around the word “objective.” It’s one of the load-bearing concepts of all journalism.

Unfortunately it’s kind of bullshit.

What?!

Hear me out here. There’s no such thing as objective reality. In fact, the very concept of objective reality is one of the most dangerous and destructive concepts there’s ever been. By constructing an “objective” reality, what we’re actually doing is allowing the wealthy and powerful to create a world of their choosing and forcing everyone to live within it under penalty of violence and destruction. Law enforcement serves them and has since the very beginning. Armies serve them. Most everyone tasked with determining what is “objective” is either wealthy or in the thrall of wealth.

One of the things I like to remind people is that conventional history’s reliance on “objective” narratives hurts millions of people. An example: the idea that the 1950’s were a golden era in America where times were better actually uses “objective” reality to obscure the suffering of people of color, LGBTQ+ Americans, women, children, and the poor. If someone steps outside of that “reality,” they’re violating a sacred, important mythology.

Hold On. What’s That Got To Do With Journalism?

Sure. Journalism has continually relied on the concept of being “objective.” Which has meant, for a long time, for a lot of people, that it’s their job to treat the opposite sides of hot-button issues as if they are equal. As the Republican Party has grown more extreme this has meant that our press has often given the GOP unearned legitimacy as their exploitative and oppressive political opinions are treated as if they are somehow reasonable instead of exploitative and oppressive.

Take the abortion issue. It is not equal to look at this debate and give equal credence to one side that believes women should have control over their own bodies and the other that doesn’t care if children or women are raped or if they could lose their lives. These are not equal! They are not even on the same scale as one another. The Right has become so extreme that it has dragged the Overton Window (a concept that tells us what is “acceptable” in our culture) far, far to the right.

But. Again. Objectivity doesn’t really exist. It’s a means of creating a false sense of reality that, once more, benefits the wealthy and the powerful most of the time.

But I’ve Always Heard The Media Was Leftist? Isn’t That The Bias?

Hardly. Americans have literally no understanding of what “Left” means. Here’s a primer on it, if you haven’t read it.

Our media is often socially liberal, meaning that in a liberal democratic system it is most often tolerant or accepting of behaviors, identities, and groups that fall within the aforementioned Overton Window. When that moves, however, things shift in some unpredictable ways. This is why you can’t read “Leftist” newspapers or magazines without hearing why LGBTQ+ people need to cool it down or why women need to chill out about Roe V. Wade getting wiped out or why Black Americans are rightly concerned about losing their voting rights, but there are other things to worry about. What matters is winning the next election. There’s always the next election. And you shouldn’t trouble the status quo for that reason, which means that, over time, not that much can change.

As well, the media can be liberal when it comes to programs and spending. That isn’t always the case, however. They’ll talk about a need to fund the basic building blocks of a society - such as education, transportation, healthcare, etc - but are very quick to tout the dangers of deficits, even as deficits aren’t even remotely that important.

What you’ll notice here is that the liberal media is a lot like certain swathes of the Democratic Party in that way. They’ll express support for things that they will also tell you aren’t particularly doable right now. Or, they’ll tell you they wish they could be done but simply aren’t possible at the moment. Maybe in the future. Maybe if everything comes together right. In the meantime, however, have to keep an eye on the deficit and make sure the economy continues humming along as programmed.

When that’s treated as the “Left” side of the equation you can start to see how our politics and culture get really messed up.

Not to mention how our media continually manufactures consent. But that’s a conversation for later.

Is This Intentional Or Unintentional?

A little of both, mostly the latter. In the research I’ve been doing for the new book I’m finding that most people really aren’t aware of what motivates them or even understand their own beliefs. In living life, people tell themselves stories about why they’re doing the things they’re doing and usually position themselves in a light as the protagonist who is doing things for the right reasons. This helps explain the disconnect between espoused beliefs - both conservative and liberal - and actions.

The other aspect of this is how the system has treated these people. The constructs of the two parties is telling, as is the makeup of the media and political classes. Here’s quick summation:

The Republican Party

A fraught body consisting of a small, powerful, and wealthy elite, most of whom come from incredible privilege, attend the same Ivy League schools they’re always decrying, and actually feel way more comfortable in “the Swamp” of Washington, D.C. or New York City than they do with their constituents or customers or viewers, and then everyone else. This includes an aggrieved rural, working class group that is currently caught in a faux-populist movement (MAGA) created, organized, and directed by the people mentioned previously in order to hide their participation in actions that have hurt those people. Then, you have a whole host of small-business owners and burghers (affluent business people who are powerful in their communities but don’t hold much in the way of national sway) who feel like they should have more wealth, success, and power. The uniting elements are cultural in that the elite create appeals that activate racist, sexist, xenophobic, and general paranoia based on targeted fearmongering.

The Democratic Party

This one is all over the place, but the divisions are telling.

The main body of the Democratic Party is a bit all over the place, but the core is formed by Americans who have received a higher education and constitute what some would call the professional managerial class. These are people who are managers, functionaries, and a whole host of positions that are nestled within the status quo and system. Clerks, office workers, middle-managers, trial attorneys, scientists, etc etc etc.

In the past, the Democratic Party was primarily the go-to representative for the working class, women, people of color, labor unions, and others who had been mostly forgotten in the scheme of things. That changed. In part because of the Civil Rights Movement and the Southern Strategy, but also in the 1980’s when the party embraced neoliberalism and Reaganism and allying itself with corporate interests and the PMC. This strategy was done in part with the understanding that the traditional base - which includes me and, I assume, you - didn’t really have anywhere else to go. Therefore, they could count on the votes because the GOP was so unappealing and dangerous.

These divides help explain a great deal the political schism we’re dealing with - especially in terms of class, the gap between the college-educated and those who aren’t, as well as the winners and losers of neoliberalism - but also help explain exactly why we’re living in a moment where so many people are clamoring for change but not much is actually happening, outside of Right Wing provocation. The GOP has captured a group demanding change, but is leading them further into neoliberal authoritarianism because it is a faux-populist movement. The Democratic Party is largely constituted not to change the status quo because its base and members depend on it continuing to function in pretty much the same configuration. Meanwhile, a whole host of us are screaming, why aren’t you doing anything?

The people who need to do something and who need to report on this aren’t interested in doing any of this.

In other words, there are two separate groups gathered under the same tent. And the side that isn’t really interested in addressing any of this is either incapable of seeing the problem, unwilling to do anything, or complicit in the situation.

What Can We Do About This?

I’ll get into this in Part IV of The Stakes.

Sorry, trying to be orderly here.

Okay. So, Haven’t These People Heard Of Donald Trump? Are They Just Not Paying Attention?

Oh. They think Donald Trump is an aberration. Depending on the person, network, politician, etc, they think Trump is a boorish idiot surrounded by boorish idiots. Which is…true. But they also see it as the same type of thing as NASCAR or trashy TV. Something very déclassé. And probably transitory.

This is how so many media members and politicians truly came to believe that Joe Biden would just fix everything. If they could just get Trump out of office in 2020 then everything would go back to “normal.” Never mind that normal got us here and normal is pretty terrible right now. They were able, because Trump was such an awful person, to simply pin the entire problem on him, as if he emerged out of nowhere and was able to hypnotize his followers. Get rid of Trump, you get rid of the problem.

All the other things associated with him, including the disdain for democracy, calls for authoritarianism, breaking of laws and norms, that can be dismissed as just being part of the Trump disease or, even worse, a delusion of the “hysterical” mind. This might surprise you, but a lot of media figures and politicians buy into the whole “Trump Derangement Theory” that those of us warning about this are actually nuts and overreacting. It’s been that way for years. And, many of them, deep down, actually agree with Trump’s policies but hate the guy so much that they have to speak out against him.

But Why?

Well, they need to keep their own realities intact, and then there are the economic incentives.

The Economic Incentives?

Oh, this is a chunk of it.

To be accepted into mainstream media and the circles of power, there’s a certain expectation of what you can say, do, or publicly espouse.

Personally, as an analyst, I found a ton of opportunities prior to the 2016 Election when I was providing the service of letting people understand the gathering danger. Then, when Trump won, things sort of shifted. Our media, which is addicted to Trump as a driver of traffic and attention, treated the story as a boiling pot. The anxiety of a Trump presidency was constant, but as it was happening it wasn’t allowed to get “too bad.” This is why you saw years of “is Trump really fascist?” articles and pieces.

This kind of thing isn’t cooked up as an intentional piece of misdirection or, again, created in a smoky room. It’s how the corporate-driven media works. And what’s important, regardless of who is president or what is happening, to maintain the general belief that things are still working. Because, if they aren’t, then something would need to change in a radical way.

Again, a lot of the people involved aren’t even aware that these motivations are there or that they’re being influenced unconsciously. If you fall outside the line of “acceptable thought,” if you provide analysis that challenges the corporate worldview, and if you *gasp* question capitalism, you’ll find yourself on the outside looking in. Which is pretty terrifying if you’re main sense of self-worth is career-driven or if you’re relying on your media career for your income.

Speaking Of, Aren’t You Painting The Media With Too Broad Of A Brush?

Sure. Kind of. A litle bit.

Here’s the thing. The way the middle class and middle class economics have shifted in the past few decades kind of makes it necessary to an extent.

Case in point: I’m a former academic. I taught in universities for 15 years. I got there because I took out ungodly amounts of school loans and was buried underneath them for years. Most of the people I worked with at my small public university in the deep, deep south were others who were also saddled with loans. None of us really went to Ivy League schools and so the pipeline really wasn’t there.

Academics of almost every stripe - especially disrespected fields like the Humanities - are paid less because those paying them believe, rightfully, that the appeal of the job is worth taking less money. In other words, people are oftentimes more than happy to go into a field that doesn’t pay as much because it’s rewarding. This is one of the reasons academia is such a mess, for the record, but we don’t have time to get into the rest of the reasons.

There are other jobs that follow this same mindset. The white collar experience is a premium, after all. Getting to make a living wage while not carrying out frustrating labor that keeps you isolated from joy. New York City is filled with these jobs, and the institutions that hire the people know full and well a way to spike their profits is to pay a lower wage than the job or even the city demands and depend on people who have support within their families in order to make up the differences. So if you’ve ever wondered how anybody who isn’t mega-rich makes due in New York City, often the answer is that they have built-in support and resources to make it work. It’s almost like a tax or an initiation fee.

This means that a lot of the media you consume is being produced by people who have a natural point-of-view or come from a pretty different background than you. There are plenty of reasons we don’t like or trust the media. This includes sensationalism and exploitative practices. Sometimes just general mismanagement or over-corporatization. But it’s also because the majority of us don’t necessarily relate to what’s being presented to us or the perspective that’s showing up on our screens and in our earbuds.

Don’t get me wrong, there are people in the media who don’t follow these trends. There are people who absolutely worked their way in due to talent or doggedness. But things have changed in the last few decades and doors have closed.

If This Is To Be Believed, Then Maybe A Potential Re-configuring Of Our Economy Could Help Things?

You said it. If we could turn back the hyper-aggressive exploitation of neoliberalism, shift power from the absurdly wealthy, and get back to the point where we have a fairer economy, you’d probably see some things shift.

There are other things that could help. A dynamic and ambitious politician willing to challenge the discourse and status quo, which are both malleable and have pivoted with enough muscle and persistence.

A societal shift in which economic incentives lay with representing problems as they are and moving the levers to the point where the media and our politicians have no choice but to appreciate those of us begging for them to pay attention, let alone actually do something.

We often take these things for granted, as if they are inflexible or totally rigid. They aren’t. They shift all the time, it just so happens that they have been shifting for so long now that they feel fortified and immovable. But that simply isn’t the case.

The truth is, there are way more of us who see what is going on than those who don’t. It just so happens that those who don’t have all the bullhorns. And all the soapboxes. And all of the tools you need to really get word out. And they’re not particularly interested in sharing.

And What About Politics?

Campaign finance reform.

Until we figure out a way to get most of money out of politics we’re not going to see people who should be running for office actually making an impact. It ensures that entrenched power continues to keep that power. You shouldn’t have to be rich or have an exceedingly well-paying job to even run for office, let alone win.

We deserve a better quality of politician and people who won’t betray us in order to continuing lining their pockets and the pockets of their peers.

What’s The Takeaway Here?

That’s a great question. Hopefully it helps to understand the disconnect between what we are all watching happen and experiencing in our lives and the view from the expensive seats. Outside of being targeted by MAGA harassers and getting sick of reading people in their comments, the vast majority of those who are supposed to cover this and understand it are pretty unaffected. They do live in bubbles and the threat doesn’t seem all that bad.

Since this is the case, it means that we can’t simply view our way out of this. We can’t retweet our way into a sane and robust democracy. We can’t be passive in this fight and hope that the gatekeepers and powers-that-be will wake up and fix everything.

Again. What Do We Do?

Well, I’m glad you asked. That’s coming up in the next part of The Stakes.