I recently watched a PBS program that had a title something like BRAIN HACKING. The main thrust was that economic and political interest groups, tapping into a broad array of information about individuals and their fears and feelings gleaned from Facebook and other social media, are targeting people with messages that motivate them to act in ways that are different from what they would otherwise see as their self-interest.
It turns out the fear of losing something we already have is a much more powerful force upon our brains than the pleasure of gaining something we never had. Commercials on television are structured in such a way as to play to that reality about how our subconscious brain works. Why else would a person who buys a $40 dollar watch also decide to pay $35 for a form of insurance that would cover the loss were it to be destroyed by a two year old?
Both Presidents Obama and Trump used these available treasure troves of information about our fears and feelings to great effect during their campaigns. Trump has elevated it to an art form. His former campaign director was an expert in using packaged and super analyzed social media profiles of likely voters to influence them in favor of Trump and against his opponent.
It should be noted that in most developed countries, political campaigns are not allowed access to individual or collective social media postings. But credit Trump, he has capitalized on his largely white, evangelical Christian base’s fears about losing control of the country to a coalition of minorities and liberal whites who don’t really care about secure borders, public safety or protecting the personal wealth of those who worked hard for it.
Not only those fears, but the dream that we can somehow restore life in the 1950’s, when we didn’t have so many worries, when white Anglo Saxon Protestant Christians could merge their views into public laws applicable to all, and minorities knew their place in the social order.
The tragedy of how this weaponized packaging of social media profiles has evolved is that it is stoking the fires of our social, economic and political divisions into a conflagration that is fully capable of destroying any semblance of the unity than keeps a nation together at peace.
This was from many decades ago the dream of the Soviet Union and now Putin’s Russia: to defeat the United States by dividing it from within. No need for nuclear missiles or large armies, just use the very freedom the American people have to destroy the United States from within. And while that process is a steadily burning fire, use social media channels to prevent any politicians who would actively oppose hostile foreign influence from gaining national leadership. That was and still is their game plan. So very sad that it’s working very well!
This is what has been happening to America the past few years. Trump and McConnell have combined to preserve political control by those who have or benefit from the bulk of our nations’s wealth, by those for whom white supremacy is a mostly unspoken tenet of religious and social beliefs and values, and those who desperately want to turn back the clock on such legal developments as the rights of women to have limited lawful and safe o9access to abortions, the rights of homosexuals and other sexual “deviates” to marry and be protected from discrimination, and the whole notion of “political correctness” and tolerance of everything.
By all measures, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an amazing woman. She died on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. According to Jewish tradition, one who dies on such a High Holiday is considered a “Tzadik,” a person of great righteousness. She overcame many barriers to become one of the most revered and influential jurists in our country. But Trump and his base were not her fans. No, she was a major obstacle to their goals. And within hours of her passing, our “leaders” are moving rapidly to replace her on the Supreme Court. Yes, securing a firm conservative majority on the nation’s highest court has been the central goal of the Republicans for more years than Trump has been in politics. Overturning liberal decisions like Roe v Wade. Serving as a bulwark against overreach by a future Democratic Party President and Congressional majority. “Don’t worry, the federal judges will tie them in knots.”
The Supreme Court has always reflected, in no small part, the political, economic and social beliefs of its members. This is only natural. But most Americans have held the court in high esteem as reaching decisions based on the rule of law and judicial precedent. But if Justice Ginsberg is replaced before the upcoming election, or before the next president has a chance to make an appointment of his own, not only will this be rank hypocrisy (given recent Senate precedent), but it will forever seal the court’s fate as an institution primarily political.
During the great depression of the 1930’s, conservative justices on the Supreme Court repeatedly struck down FDR’s programs to help Americans survive and get our people back to work. When FDR had seen enough of that politically driven obstruction, he threatened to push a proposed bill through the Congress increasing the number of justices on the court. And somehow, miraculously, the court stopped declaring his New Deal programs unconstitutional.
Wow! Just like that. Think about that for a few minutes. What changed? Did the Constitution change? No. All that changed was the court’s fear of losing control. Nothing else.
If President Trump and the Republican majority Senate starts the process to replace Justice Ginsburg before her small body grows cold in the ground, Joe Biden should fire a verbal shot across the bow of the Republican Party by promising to send a proposal to the Congress, on day one of his term of office, should he be elected to office along with Democratic Party majorities in the House and Senate, to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court from nine to fifteen. This will destroy that last bulwark of the Republican safety net for white minority rule, and forever relegate their chosen justices to a minority position.
Were this to happen, we would still have our divisions, but at least government of, by and for the people would be preserved. If Trump’s own brown shirts, the heavily armed white supremacists, should start a rebellion, my prayer is that the armed forces of our nation would remain united and disciplined, and put down such a rebellion with overwhelming force. Otherwise, our great experiment in democracy will be over, and for the sake of my children and grandchildren, let’s hope for a reasonably benevolent dictatorship or oligarchy. I have done my best to sound the alarm. Our people are being played like a Stradivarius. Social media, with all its benefits, has become a ticking time bomb that the enemies of democracy and freedom will use to destroy us. Some of our people believe anything that sounds like it fits their political views. Q Anon? Really? Choose Russian military intelligence disinformation over our own intelligence and law enforcement agencies? Wake up, America, before it’s too late!
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