A Need to Reconsider

There is great disappointment with the political system, especially among segments of the citizenry that have been central to U.S. culture and which have been economically stagnant not just due to historical social-technological shifts and a long-term, but also due to long-standing, big corporate influence over the political system.

They are those who now feel left out. And they want to rebel! And they want to believe! And they need hope! They need someone that speaks for them in a plain style with which they can relate. And they can be misled and convinced through the right sales pitch; just the right presentation. And making promises and appearing different and promising is not that difficult.

These and other segments of the population want someone new; someone they can believe in. Thus 'outsiders' like Sanders and Trump can happen; Sanders attracting the future-oriented but worried millenials and postmodern progressives and Trump the more past-oriented traditionals and nativists.

On the good side, there's one side looking to the future in order to change things and there's another looking to aspects of the past that indeed need saving. And both are partially correct. But, it seems to me that, while one would work within the spirit of the original constitutional system and definitely is not an aspiring dictator (even if associated with the term  "socialism" which has often been associated with dictators), I can't help but think that the other, DT,  would unconstitutionally dictate his own personal bombastic will, continuously explaining away his failures by blaming others; demanding full obedience and support while continuously enamoring those that would not benefit from his political and economic measures.

A charismatic man that rules by an all-or-nothing allegiance is dangerously divisive and can render governing less manageable or even unmanageable. This is why he should lose the current 2016 presidential election by a substantial margin so that his movement doesn't continue as an obstacle to peace and finding solutions.

And there already is to be noted this divisive tendency and peril arising in other parts of the world. Dictators and dictator-aspirants are taking over many parts of the world. The idea that "the system is rigged" is - in fact - a talking point exploited by authoritarian hopefuls and current autocrats all over the world. Nothing new. And these individuals are now springing up again in many places that have had established representative democracies (for instance, Hungary, Poland, France, Russia, Italy, Venezuela, The Philippines and others).

Clearly ,as David Cay Johnston said about D. Trump "he talks as a dictator." He has said many things that he will "fix" basically overlooking or demeaning checks and balances. However, what we need is not to overlook checks and balances but to craft a much more functional problem-solving democracy; however not through a dictator's whims.

Perhaps the "DT Phenomenon" will be instrumental in stimulating greater awareness of the need to update representative democracy. Nonetheless, I hope that this is not done through a major crisis that may even lead to a regression towards a pre-democratic state of affairs.  

Because it has become obvious that an autocrat can be elected through popular vote in the U.S., this means that the U.S. is not internally safe while functioning under its current system. But it has to be changed in a healthy way by greater awareness and agreement from within strengthening a connective way of thinking and mutual recognition, rather than the downward spiral of unending dichotomous doctrinal blaming.

Most Americans haven't experienced how Democracy itself is high jacked by a demagogues through elections. Most may erroneously think that if someone is elected, then Democracy is safe. But the "hijacking" has happened in other semi-established and even well- established western democratic countries and the recurrent tendency is once again (in an era of competing values, greater complexity and rising infotainment) on the rise. Moreover, the rise seems to cater to a zeal for nativist, isolationist, new fascist forms of government.

To counter-up this citizens need to learn to think integratively to catch up and to function in a complex world system.  It doesn't matter whether the overtaking of Democracy by using democratic processes is done by right-wing or left-wing charismatics. It can happen, has happened, is happening; endangers the continuity of civilization, its gains in emancipatory freedoms and rights, the overall reduction of violence occurring over centuries as Steve Pinker has pointed out and it diminishes the quality of rational and civil human life.

Besides many Middle Eastern, African and Oriental countries that still have to stabilize within serious levels of democracy under their own cultural contexts, too many of them already with older, established democracies are being overtaken or are close to being overtaken by charismatic demagogues. Instead of leading the international order into more intelligent forms of cooperation and an integration that doesn't extinguish local contexts these retrograde political forces are excessively atomizing. They form around democracy manipulators. These democracy manipulators offering skewed, doctrinal, emotionally-ladden and locally-resonant solutions in a time when we need a more rational, wholesome, altruistic figure heads  chosen by a genuinely educated public; a time in which both must be able to responsibly perceive vaster swaths of the whole picture overcoming the tribalistic tendencies of hunter-gathering and more animalistic eras.

But the U.S. shouldn't fall for this now already "classical" manipulation!  It is quite serious and dangerous! By using democratic procedures and speaking to the disaffected and their frustrations; by selling a comforting narrative and a desirable image that looks suitable, the authoritarian demagogue will then move on to really entrench himself within the system and rig it even but under his own style, dangerously eroding Democracy worse and/or in conjunction with how elite interests were doing before.

But the U.S. really should not and must not fall for it. In spite of its foibles, the world needs the stability and reference of its highest democratic values. And an irascible, chameleon-like, self-serving man that resents any contradiction that injures his self-image at the helm of the executive, in a country with the most nuclear weapons cannot be allowed to endanger the world or faith in the U.S.' stated commitments to peace and a sane human future!

However, an effective, opinion-convincing, authoritarian salesman waging psychological war against recognizing failure in himself can project a resonance that entrances too many frustated individuals whose personal power has been diminished. And, if in a presidential power, he'll likely promote unrealistic, destabilizing narratives once the dream of his election is over and reality set in; doing it by divisively blaming others, manipulating opinion, perhaps establishing and empowering more organized, militant support groups. He will also continue supporting benefits to his socio economic level above others, even if -like today - using parts of the "defense of the common man"  democratic sales pitch.

He can cater to a popular attraction towards the heroic and powerful, a dream-like, pre-rational tendency living beneath the veneer of civilization, a tendency  speaking to a basic in-group/out-group, animalistic, survival, win-lose, gut level, thus convincing enough individuals to empower him as THE solutions figurehead that will fix it all by doing as he wants.

And he is someone asking for FAITH, blind faith in him when he says "Believe Me." He is someone SELLING hope and images in the public imagination as well as dangerously over-simplistic, solutions to a segment of society that needs recognition, faith. He is someone already questioning due process and explicitly or implicitly provoking rebellion. And he is attractive to various segments, including those that (in differing healthy and unhealthy degrees) is populated by individuals who are (psychologically-speaking) more prone and attracted to less ambiguity through easy-to-understand straightforward presentations and authority figures.

But upon a careful analysis of several issues pertaining to his story - an analysis such as the one carried on by David Cay Johnston and other authors writing for magazines such as "The Atlantic," "The Economist," "The New Yorker," "The Washington Post" - the bloated, super human achiever image sold to millions doesn't hold up. Can it all a big media conspiracy to explain away the loss of points? Not likely at all. There are too many serious, independent, analytical voices pronouncing themselves. The number of suspicions coming together and holding up against the public story line are far greater than that of the other candidate. This is becoming a test aboutthe degree of denial or of closed minded fanaticism among supporters, including political leaders that should know better.  it is also an opportunity to re-evaluate, reality check and re-think...carefully. It is an opportunity for many of us to consider why we believe what we believe while easily dismissing those who believe in things that seem completely incompatible.

When enough facts are known blind support is bound to falter. Ultimately enough people that ultimately care more about facts and about what is convenient for them than about emotionally-driven blind faith that speaks to their frustrations will triumph. The U.S. needs to be saved. Americans wake up!  They quickly need to reassess and not vote for a falsely idealized authority as they have thus far intended.

I have been an Independent until 2016. Republicans need to search deep within their strategies to figure out how we've come to this. What narratives and attitudes have they emphasized that have prepared the cultural terrain for Mr. Trump and other such extremists that debase public discourse to have a chance in the land of the FREE and home of the BRAVE? They have to change strategies gradually leading them to commit to the Party in denial of growing bigotry. Democrats also have to change strategies, for once not to add fuel to the fire!

Republican Shifts in Attitudes: But How Far Can This Go?

Since the successes of Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican Party/GOP shifted, steadily moving over decades toward an extremism the outcomes of which we are witnessing today. This is why a self-promoting, brand-image promoting person like D. Trump has been able to use this party by projecting an image that took advantage of general dissatisfaction.

The Republican Party known for its crucial role in liberating the black-American population and in maintaining the Union together shifted toward a new course first when it aligned excessively with big business and then (in the early 1960's) with the Southern States and anti Civil Rights positions of Senator Goldwater. This latter fact is a key observation made by E.J. Dionne Jr., author of "Why the Right went Wrong." And it explains the path taken over the years leading all the way to Donald Trump. And after Goldwater, the tendency to unravel Roosevelt's New Deal social measures grew for many moderate and "neocon" Republicans practically as an obsession, particularly gaining strength as a well-funded militant force in the 1980's.

Reasonable, more moderate Republicanism has been swayed by an overarching sense of 'mission' or almost faith-based cause and this has been exacerbated by a sense of peril since 9-11. Few are willing to question this. And, when many Republicans speak of decreasing taxes (and basically re-instating Trickle-Down Economics), they don't often qualify the fact that the ultra rich are bound to be the greatest beneficiaries, a fact that generates extreme income inequalities, less consumption, a weak, less productive Middle Class, and low wages because earnings are transferred to the wealthiest 1% or even the top 0.01% that may not be as effective to create business, growth and jobs (as Nobel Price economist Joseph Stiglitz demonstrates).

But the system-frustrated, low income, white working class is told that it can be blamed on the Democrats that have traditionally resisted granting these many benefits to the wealthiest. Thus, the system-frustrated, low income, white working class ends up voting against its best interests. It's not that conservatism is obsolete but that it has become a reactionary, dogmatic, pseudo-religious political force endangering progress in many ways. Is it a question of "the party right or wrong" like God, country and a typical closed-minded defense of a mom to her children?

Is it like Moral psychologist Johnathan Haidt shows? Yes, it is but that can be modified with education and the specific steps he also proposes. But thus far, in this polarized environment in which polarization is mostly due to the American right unable to adapt to a more pluralistic present, truth is becoming irrelevant. In this environment -God forbid - D.Trump will convince many that only wining and imposing matters as he seems to implicitly demonstrate and be an example for, affecting not only the low income, low-education frustrated but also intolerant individuals of many kinds resonating with his bossy tactics.

That is gravely dangerous for the continuation of a viable Democracy/Representative Democracy in the XXI Century complexity which requires the capacity for much greater nuance. Through those tendencies, The People are given the wrong example and being de-educated, un-prepared for sustaining liberty and democracy in today's world. That is a form of fascism creeping in. If enough voters are unwilling to open their eyes and are emotionally led to vote for a party "no matter what," then dangerous decisions can be made affecting us all. Another danger is the possibility that that partisan and dogmatic way of making decisions becomes institutionalized and structural.

According to moral and cognitive psychologists like Johnathan Haidt, the scientific observation is that conservatives TEND to emphasize power and power figures, order and control. Phrases like "fighting battles" inspire them as well, but (although there is a place for fighting battles) IT IS OVER-EMPHASIZED TO THE DETRIMENT of social evolution and an intelligent adaptation to current conditions.

I think that these issues also are important and necessary for a viable society. What worries me is that the tendency has been over-emphasized as there is psychological resistance to a culture evolving towards greater inclusivity. More reasonable conservative leaders - still capable of participating today in a healthier manner in necessary conversations and necessary political reforms- need to change strategies because by emphasizing extreme, intolerant positions they have lost political control whilst surrendering it to an impatient, altered, reactive and perhaps cubbish electoral base emotionally overtaken by an over-idealized power figure. Educated, reasonable Republican leaders should take the "bull by the horns" and educate minds away from diatribe.

As E.J. Dionne, Jr. suggests, reasonable Republicans should listen to that influential Irish Conservative thinker Edmund Burke who in various ways emphasized that, in order to conserve, sometimes you have to embrace change.