In Part 1a of this series, I noted that the stresses that emerged around Donald J. Trump’s election to the presidency did not originate solely with him, but that he was a catalyst for pre-existing, underlying conditions. In this and the next section, I’ll lay out 12 of these social conditions.
1. Public Indifference & Disaffection
Let’s first recognize the fact that only about half of eligible voters voted in the 2016 election and less than half of those voted for this president. But the politics of gerrymandering and complications of the electoral college allowed someone with one fourth of the country on his side to take over the rest of us, despite losing the popular vote.
For many people, the two major parties have become indistinguishable in their structure and investment in power, although espousing vastly different values. Both parties can be said to have betrayed their basic principles to stay in power and to cater to wealthy donors. Third parties have not been successful in escaping challenges of irrational ideologies of their own, charges of personal grand-standing, lack of financial clout, or having their own questionable backers.
Many citizens don’t see their influence in the face of powerful forces that benefit from public apathy.
2. Manipulators of Legislators – a Shadow Government
Lobbyists register and work openly to influence legislators, but there are also shadow organizations that work mostly outside of public view. This movement began some decades ago. One example is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) – founded in 1973 – whose agenda has been to draft corporate-friendly legislation to be passed into law at the state level and to promote their policies. They write up bills and give them to sympathetic state legislators who, in turn, introduce them into state governing bodies. Also in the 1970s, Exxon-Mobile’s research scientists concluded that their products were contributing to anthropogenic climate change. The company’s response was to initiate a misinformation campaign to discredit others who came to the same conclusion (using some of the same people who tried to discredit research on the dangers of smoking tobacco). Please note: it is not the conservative or liberal nature of such groups that are of concern, but their operation as a kind of manipulator of public (mis)education and government. In addition, we also have various super PACs on all sides claiming to be public welfare organizations, but clearly operating as political agents.
I suspect that the discrepancy between our façade of a citizen-driven democracy and the reality of influence by powerful organizations and donors is a source of stress for those of us with only one vote.
3. Tribalism, Tribal Boundaries, Loyalty and the search for Certainty
Political discussions are too often presented in absolutist, either-or, all-or-nothing, for-or-against terms in ways that undercut communication and the engagement necessary for various factions to work toward viable solutions. That is, there appears to be more investment in boundaries and brand-loyalty than in substance, common values and compassion. We see this regarding climate science, gun issues, women’s healthcare, immigration, gender, race, ethnic equality, economic policy, civil rights, environmental safety, corruption in government and business, to name a few. Furthermore, autocratic leaders are less interested in truth or solutions as they are in loyalty and conformity.
I see anxiety motivating this kind of behavior – an outgrowth of felt threat of a loss of identity, status or power, which brings us to the next point.
4. The Unheard Voice of the Left Behind and Socially “Victimized”
Part of this president’s popularity has come from the fact that there are people who have felt victimized by what most of us would consider social progress, as well as those who have been left out of the economic riches of the country while others prosper. Each time the previous president talked of economic growth, these folks were not seeing it in their world. This discrepancy has been a fertile field for mobilizing opposition to the establishment, with a desire for radical change – no matter the cost.
Among the “victimized” are people who outright distrust most any form of centralized government. They distrust its power over their lives, object to restrictions on their behavior, and want to keep more of their earnings that otherwise go into taxes that sometimes pay for things they don’t believe in.
Some are afraid that raising the status of people who are not like them is a threat to their way of life and even their identity as Americans. Thus, civil rights for others seem, to them, to be a reduction of their rights.
5. News media and social media
We have media – news and social – that appear to be more interested in generating their own wealth than serving us, often operating by an “economics of outrage.” That is, they present news items in provocative ways without proper analysis or fact-checking. Opinions are stated as facts, speculation as reality; and we get recurring false equivalence or grossly slanted presentations. (Slanting might be expected, but distortions are dishonest and misleading.) It has become work to find out the truth behind much of the news, especially when the algorithms of search engines tend to “feed” us with our own biases or what is trending – not with what is reliable.
Contrary to the modern myth of the so-called “liberal press,” most news corporations are owned by a few wealthy conservative businessmen.
Finally, our news feeds are constant. Whereas we used to be faced with news at the end of the day, after dealing with our own lives, we now are subjected to it on the web, on our phones and on social media.
Thus, we are constantly faced with a flood of “information” that may or may not be true, is provided in order the sell something, and can come through a variety of channels amenable to manipulation. We have the stress of too many words, too little truth, and even less meaningfulness.
6. Our Abusive Patriarchal Culture, sometimes called a “Rape Culture”
There has been a struggle against “political correctness” that hides a desire to dispense with expectations of respect for others. This is little more than an attempt to institutionalize bullying and the expression of anti-social behavior.
What’s more, under a general category of abuse of power, we see a more insidious practice of powerful men displaying underlying misogyny and opportunism as shown in increasing numbers of accounts of sexual harassment and financial corruption, reflecting in part, the religious dynamics of a patriarchal church built on the values of ancient Rome and Greece with their subjugation of women. We’ve not yet recovered from that conceit of male superiority.
The pervasive nature of this cultural defect is only recently becoming evident, although women have been aware of it for centuries. Church and state have colluded in downgrading the power, influence and wealth of women, including the battle for control over their bodies and medical needs. Women are still treated as if they were property in some factions of our 21st century society. We should remember that women were not even given the rights of citizens to vote until 1920 – less than 100 years ago.
This gender inequality (to put it mildly) may be one of the most significant failures of our culture, and certainly is a major source of stress for us all.
Furthermore, our high regard for successful business executives turns out to be support of predatory greed, theft of wages, and ownership of anything they can bend to their will. This structure of approved institutionalized predation is a threat to all of us not sitting in the offices of power. Any of us could be fodder for their engines.
7. Climate Change and the Industries of Denial – Hijacking Science
Tremendous efforts have been made to undercut legitimate scientific studies and, as I noted before, since the 1970s Exxon Mobile mounted a campaign to dismiss evidence of global warming that they found in their own research. George W. Bush and this president have both tried to downplay, if not censor, the significance of scientific data regarding climate change (and other critical environmental issues). Propagandists posing as scientists, paid by oil companies and other corporations, are given equal press against legitimate scientific studies and the scientific process. Ideology has taken precedence over reality – a stressor for anyone aware of what is happening to our land and seas.
Likewise, scientific concerns about food quality, pollution, toxic industrial products, sustainable energy sources, and sustainable agriculture have come under fire. Progress toward more sustainable and safe sources of food and energy have been curtailed in favor of dying industries.
Science is, after all, our reality check on the nature of the world around us, our impact on it and its impact on us. One would think a rational person would want as much true science as possible. The profits of the few have been elevated over the well-being of the many.
More to come. . .
I’ll continue my listing of the dozen underlying conditions that supported the rise of such an administration in the next posting, and then begin to address the adverse impact of the resulting stresses, and how to deal with them.