The post where I discuss the rift in our society
By: Brent Johnson
Tags: Impeachment, Politics, Fox News, US Politics

Our society is failing. Divided among two different consensus realities, we can no longer agree upon the facts much less the interpretation of them. With reality itself bifurcated how are we to agree on the problems much less the solutions? How do we agree on what questions to ask?

When did this happen? I think historians will consider the Nixon impeachment to be the start of the split. Two powerful thoughts converged at that moment that would shape the future we now live in, money and power.

David Frum said, “If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.” This becomes readily apparent if you consider actions from the last several years. McConnell decided we needed to wait a year for the election to “let the voters decide” when Obama nominated the moderate Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, but held a vote weeks before the election to appoint the unqualified Christian fascist Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. His own norms be damned, much less the civil norms of our government. Trump, on numerous occasions, obstructed justice, had the DOJ investigate democrats and their families, and riled a mob to attack the capitol building to prevent the counting of the electoral college votes. And now, every red state with the power to do so is passing voter suppression laws or laws that would straight up allow those in power to change the EC votes for the state.

Republicans and Democrats may have switched on social issues during the 20th century but Republicans have stayed true to their one true principal, enriching the rich and supporting big business. The rich and the powerful need the republicans, their corrupt lap dogs, to undermine worker, consumer, environmental, health, and so on protections. All of those pesky public goods get in the way of profit, and they are willing to spend lavishly in order to attempt to satisfy their insatiable greed.

From these forces was born a plan to propagandize the American public such that republicans could retain power and never face such an impeachment again. They launched this information warfare by talk radio (Rush Limbaugh), national news (Fox News), the pulpit, and more recently local news (Sinclair Media), and social media. No lie was too big to tell, no crocodile tear to big to shed. The rich had found a way to extrude a camel through the eye of a needle.

So they set off telling their lies. Lead wasn’t that bed for us, urban youth (and by that they certainly meant African Americans) are all drugged up gangsters, CFCs aren’t that big of a deal, the satanic panic, climate change isn’t real, humans aren’t causing climate change, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, death panels, and so much more. These blatant lies could be dispelled by seeking out other news sources, so they vilified them. They said the other news sources were lying, they were communists, and liberals. You could only trust them. They were fair and balanced. They told it like it is. They created a cult.

There could be no questioning of the doctrine, and those that did were RINOs. They were telling you what to think and believe, how to act. They said that they and their audience were the only true Americans and everyone else could leave. Everyone else was vilified as liberals, socialists, communists, atheists, satanists, and so forth. Their leaders were beyond reproach, and international law, and impeachment. You had to cut ties with other news sources and sometimes friends and family. They told you what brands to shop for and what to buy (remember the overpriced gold coins from the 00s?).

Like any cult they manipulate their followers, finding fear to be most effective. Fear the other, the foreign, they non-christian, the wrong-christian, vegetarians, environmentalists, scientists, college professors, drugs, crime, hippies, satanists, etc. Children are doing drugs. Abortion must be stopped. Satanists are snatching children. People are easy to manipulate when they are afraid. Use the fear to keep eyes and ears attentive. Feed them the lies while you have their attention.

Sadly it worked. The Overton window has shifted steadily to the right in US politics. People hate socialism while loving the police and Medicare. Round-up is legal. Monoculture factory farms are the norm. Livestock are treated as commodities instead of living creatures. Little has been done about climate change. Fossil fuels are the norm. Many products and industries are unregulated. The stock market is the only metric worth measuring our success as a society.

This is the conservative consensus reality. It makes up about a third of the populace.

I’m not especially sure how to end this article. I probably had some rally cry in mind but now I’m just depressed. I don’t know how we get beyond this myopic greed that favors short term profits over health and happiness. I don’t know how we deprogram the bamboozled. If anything social media platforms, designed to manipulate, and monetize our attention are making things worse. Humans are easy to manipulate, algorithms and AI are increasingly adept at doing so, and most people don’t realize their attention is being extracted to begin to put up a defense. When delusion is more compelling then reality how do we bring people back to reality? If it cannot be done, then how do we live with those who eschew facts? E pluribus unum has been killed by the Fox.