Democracy and the Demagogue by professor Jason Stanley of Yale University
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/12/democracy-and-the-demagogue/#more-158204
“Since the beginning of the Civil Rights movement, every presidential campaign has included accusations that candidates use code words so they can appeal to antidemocratic sentiments without violating what the Princeton political scientist Tali Mendelberg has called a “norm of racial equality.” This strategy was made explicit as early as 1981, when the Republican strategist Lee Atwater explained in a radio interview that politicians, who by around 1968 could no longer use the word “nigger” to denigrate black people, turned to abstracting the issue by talking about “forced busing,” “states’ rights” and “cutting taxes.” Such terms, he said, are “totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.” Violations of this sort have surfaced as recently as 2012, when Mitt Romney faced criticism for the claim by his campaign in South Carolina that President Obama wanted to eliminate work requirements from welfare.”
Since the Civil Rights movement the censorship has begun cracking down on hate speech; i.e. stating straightforward truths has become a faux-pas. Not allowed to talk about what is really affecting the situation, people have started commentating and addressing the symptoms, rather than the cause. But of course, as Jason points out, all people really wanted to do was say nigger, which is hate speech now. So they invented a code like ‘cut taxes’ to refer to nigger. But was it not the word’s (in this case nigger) connotation that made it hate speech? Rather than to what it referred? Since one can still refer to ‘black people’, or has that also become hate speech? So his claim appears to be complete and utter nonsense, if nigger has a racist connotation, it can only be uttered by using the word, not by using other words referring to black people; unless he wants to argue that referring to black people is itself racist.
“So far, the current presidential campaign has been different. A CNN/ORC poll from May 29-31 registered Donald Trump at 3 percent support. In his speech on June 16 announcing his candidacy, Trump made the following, now infamous, statement: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” The word “rapists” is in no sense code. It is far from an “abstract” reference to Mexican immigrants. Yet instead of being punished, he was rewarded. The next CNN/ORC poll, from June 26-28, had Trump at 12 percent, behind Jeb Bush (17 percent). A poll conducted July 22-25 had Trump leading the G.O.P. pack with 18 percent.”
So Trump talks straightforward truths and people like it. Yawn.
“On Sept. 20, the Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said: “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.” He also said that Islam, as a religion, is incompatible with the Constitution. Those too are not code words; they are direct attacks on one of the country’s minority religions. In a CNN/ORC poll from Sept. 17-19, Carson had registered 14 percent, in third place, 10 points behind Trump. By the end of September, Carson’s support had risen, and his high favorability rating was not dented. [In fact, this newspaper reported today that Carson’s aides believe that his inflammatory remarks are actually helping him in the polls.] “
More truth, more win. How dare they.
“Liberal democratic rhetoric is supposed to unify citizens with diverse perspectives and backgrounds, and make visible previously discounted perspectives (for example, the perspective of women during the struggle for women’s right to vote). Trump’s and Carson’s comments are explicitly antidemocratic. The fact that they seem to have been rewarded — at least in immediate improvements in poll standings — confronts defenders of the American political system with two questions. There once was a facade of equal respect that required political strategists to use code words to avoid accusations of violating it. What has caused it to crack? And what are the risks for our democracy? I begin with the first.”
Saying people outside your country are rapists; is undemocratic, or so Jason says. Maybe the professor should look up who gets to decide in democratic elections in his country; I shall give you the answer: not the Mexicans outside the country. So it can hardly be an undemocratic statement – perhaps calling half your country a basket of deplorables is exactly that though – oh wait that was someone else who said that. No problem there, carry on; those brain seizures make her say all kinds of crap, nothing to see here. So Mr. Stanley is going to analyse why people prefer people speaking truth (as they perceive it, all men are prone to error) and speak in a straightforward tone to speaking code. Now he is pretending as if he liked it better when people lied. Oh right, that way the pack of liars and frauds could still win elections. Nothing gets the liberal to scream that democracy is under threat than democratic elections of which he does not like the outcome.
“In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison argued that the United States had to take the form of a representative democracy, in which it sought to elect leaders who best represented the values of democracy. An election campaign is supposed to present candidates seeking to show that they have the common interests of all citizens at heart.”
True statement, strange way of wording here and there though, lets give it a pass and see where it goes.
“Two factors have eroded the protections that representative democracy is supposed to provide. First, candidates must raise huge sums to run for office. They therefore represent the interests of their large donors. However, because it is a democracy, they must also try to make the case that they represent the common interest. They must pretend that the best interest of the multinational corporations that fund their campaigns are also the common interest.”
Indeed a huge problem, and since the second world war only one candidate was not funded by big multinational money; Trump. Hilary’s speech to Goldman and Sachs was quite telling in this way (i.e. the two-policies, public and private).
“Second, some voters do not share democratic values, and politicians must appeal to them as well. These voters are simply more attracted to a system that favors their own particular religion, race, gender or birth position. When large inequalities exist, the problem is aggravated: People tend to take out their resentment on groups they believe don’t share their way of life. Candidates must appeal to these voters while appearing not to flout democratic values. So many politicians use coded language to exploit resentment, in order to avoid the charge of excluding the opposing perspectives of other large groups.”
Apparently Jason is also a psychologist! So much speculation it makes my head hurt. I guess he is talking about himself; Trump won (or at the time of writing was going to win), so he does not like democracy and would rather have Trump removed? Is that what you are saying Mr. Stanley? Anyway, speculation on human’s evil nature is boring; there is more than Hobbes, try reading a book written before 1960 (or 1650). Classic sophistry by Stanley. And for the idea he described, it’s hogwash. He’s moving away from democracy to some kind of tyrannical democracy – not all candidates are equal and can be voted for! But that is the essence of democracy! Categorise it with the other “Democracy is only nice when my candidate wins!!!!!111” (let us see how many we can put in that basket).
“On top of these very real pressures to engage in insincerity, there is our media culture, which fosters extreme distrust in the political class. That a majority of Republicans think the President is a Muslim underscores its profound effects.”
A couple of paragraphs after he described how politician used to use ‘code’ to describe things he is surprised people distrust them. What exactly did you expect? But I guess there is a lot of pressure to engage in insincerity; how else is CNN going to give a positive image of you!
“For these reasons, our politics right now appear insincere to many voters. And they are sick of it – they crave principled, honest politicians. They want politicians to tell it like it is. And they will seek such candidates even in the absence of a clear set of values they share. But how can politicians signal that they are not hypocritical, especially when voters have grown accustomed to what seems, for both real and contrived reasons, to be a deep stratum of hypocrisy?”
To tell like it is, yes! Is that not exactly what you said Trump and Ben Carson were doing? Scroll up if your little brain cannot remember what you just wrote Mr. Stanley. Well, since Trump is quite popular, and you yourself said he was speaking without code, voters seem to be understanding it quite well! Phew, dodged a bullet there, CNN brainwash almost made people not recognise political sincerity.
“One way for candidates to address the widespread disgust with hypocrisy is to represent themselves as champions of democratic values. In a democratic culture, such candidates would theoretically be the most attractive. However, this is not a promising strategy in the current climate. It does not appeal to voters who reject such values. And there will be fierce competition for voters who support democratic values between candidates representing themselves as their champions. This will occur in a media environment devoted to conspiracy theories leveled against anyone claiming to represent the common interest rather than special interests. It is difficult in such a situation to represent oneself as genuinely representing the common interest.”
Complete garbage paragraph, what the fuck are you trying to say Jason, take a writing 101 class please. This is not how you present ideas to the public. Let us delve into the madness that is the psyche of our master ‘opinion writer’ so we can try to put some meaning into this verbal diarrhea. So we have on the one side those who present themselves as champions of democratic values and those who present themselves as champions of themselves. Okay… And those who say they present the common interest will have conspiracy theories thrown at them. It all seems very easy this way; we have two types of candidates, the good and the bad and the bad only like themselves! Perhaps this sentence of ‘champion of themselves’ is indeed most fitting for someone “who’ll say anything to get elected”! Let us just leave this paragraph for now, dichotomies that a two-year old could make up are no use in political analysis. But we’ll take note of your elementary categorisation when it is put to use by yourself (which is never, since half of this article goes nowhere and leaves loose ends all over the place).
“But there is a way a politician could appear to be honest and nonhypocritical without having to vie against other candidates pursing the same strategy: by standing for division and conflict without apology. Such a candidate might openly side with Christians over Muslims or atheists, or native-born Americans over immigrants, or whites over blacks, or the rich over the poor. In short, one could signal honesty by openly and explicitly rejecting what are presumed to be sacrosanct political values.”
He is always speaking of ‘present themselves’ ‘signal honesty’, as if all politicians ever do is signal and present themselves. What about those who just are themselves and say whatever they want to say without code, signals and representations. Perhaps this is a classic case of projection. Anyway, more theoretical hogwash that goes nowhere.
“Such politicians would be a breath of fresh air in a political culture that seems dominated by real and imagined hypocrisy. They would be especially compelling if they demonstrated their supposed honesty and sincerity by explicitly targeting groups that are disliked by the voters they seek to attract. Such open rejection of democratic values would be taken as political bravery, as a signal of sincerity.”
More, more, get to the point. The speculation is through the roof, I am not going to accept this many speculative steps in reasoning before you get to your point. But he does seem to be setting up the text for calling someone, who appears honest and speaks honest, a liar and a fraud. Once again, targeting people outside your country, can never be anti-democratic, they are not part of your democratic elections (unless you are planning on importing them?). “Democracy is only nice when my candidate wins!!!!!111”
“The desire for politicians who are sincere explains not only the strategic value of demagoguery (and hence the campaign choices of candidates like Trump who may not in fact believe their own demagogic bombast). It also explains the desire for politicians who will not compromise or bend; that is, it explains the attraction of the “true conservatives” of the Tea Party movement. It is often said that governing is the art of compromise. But this is not a statement about governing; it is rather about the values of democracy. Legislating in the common interest means not confusing one’s own values with the common values. It requires giving equal weight to values that one does not share. But too often, commitment to this principle appears weak – a failure to stand by one’s principles.”
Values, which Jason does not like himself, are not for the common interest, all values Jason likes are for the common interest. I hope this little hidden premise makes it more readable to y’all! Seriously, when you can think your values are sound, the majority of the voters think so and you can rationally support them in argument, there is a high chance of them actually being sound (although we are all human and prone to failure, unlike all-knowing Stanley who is always right!). And in that case defending them against lies and assault might be the right thing to do. Of course you can also rig a supreme court over time and just say fuck you to democracy and let them activists do the work. An approach well-approved by le Jason. “Democracy is only nice when my candidate wins!!!!!111”
“When voters are so concerned about authenticity, it obscures the fact that commitment to the common interest is a strength, not a weakness. Such a commitment requires more strength, not less, than commitment to almost any other value one can imagine (including for example the values of one’s particular religion). It is much easier to declare that one’s own interests are all that matters. Giving equal weight to a very different perspective requires considerably more strength than simply ignoring it.”
Apparently being concerned by authenticity is a problem. Translation: “Why don’t y’all just accept them candidates we give ya, goddamn racist bigots, here have some more Bush and Clinton.” We do find another interesting insight by Jason here, apparently voters do not know themselves what is good for the community as a whole, but only for themselves. His opinions on the other hand are, of course, for the whole of the community, unlike those of hard working and honest folk. Once again weird ideas about human nature, ‘everyone is selfish except for those who share my opinion!’. “Democracy is only nice when my candidate wins!!!!!111”
“Willingness to compromise is a natural expression of a commitment to equal respect. What we are seeing in both Congress and the presidential campaign is a yearning for politicians who reject commitment to the democratic value of equal respect. (This value requires particular attention to the voices of those not at the top of the social and economic ladder – the voices of the wealthy and powerful have far too long been given outsize weight in American politics.) And this brings us to our second question, about the risks to our democracy.”
The part about the wealthy and powerful is of course true and highly problematic. It is indeed time for change. Willingness to compromise or not depends entirely on the situation; if someone wants to kill 200 people you should not compromise for a number between 1 and 200, but you should keep your opinion steady on 0 and not take any compromise. When you want to talk in theoretical and abstract language, professor, then get it right. Either you talk practical and you can have some nuance and things are not that exact or your talk in abstract terms and things have to be completely sound without any counter-example. Did they not teach you at Yale? No, wait, you teach there. Hm. Not good. Anyway on to the good stuff; risks for our democracy! “Democracy is only nice when my candidate wins!!!!!111”
“Since candidates who reject equal respect win office by explicitly flouting democratic values, there is no reason to think that, once in office, they will suddenly embrace them. There is no reason to think that any democratic value, such as free and fair elections, will be safe from them. We can expect such politicians to engage in undemocratic practices like voter suppression and gerrymandering, all in the service of protecting the perspectives of their voters. For this reason, one might think, a healthy democracy would ban antidemocratic speech from politics. For example, the first amendment to India’s constitution does not guarantee free speech; rather it restricts it to prevent its abuse.”
You have to win elections by gaining more than half the votes (more or less, it’s somewhat different due to electoral colleges and there being some small independent’s, but for simplicity’s sake we can say so), this means more than half of the fucking people support you, that IS democracy. Ok, so first some accusations for no reason, ironic since it’s his side that is so good at it (cf. Veritas undercover project), and second how free speech should not be free. A highly ironic thing happened as I was writing this commentary, I had to google Veritas undercover project for the previous sentence (was unsure about the exact name); I could not find it! Google censored it and I had to utilise duckduckgo to find it! I kid you not. Jason’s got his wish, there is no free speech anymore. Think about that for a second, why should a thing as Veritas project which just gives us some undercover videos, ever be censored? Ask Mr. Stanley I guess.
“There is however an excellent argument that it is not possible to prevent politicians in a democracy from endorsing antidemocratic attitudes. A chief value of democracy is liberty. Liberty is the freedom for all to pursue their own paths; the common interests are to be found where these diverse paths intersect. But liberty centrally includes freedom of political speech. One might legitimately wonder whether a society that bans antidemocratic speech in the political realm is genuinely a democracy. We cannot force politicians to commit to protecting democratic values by restricting their democratic freedoms, chief among them the freedom of speech.”
Blablabla, this is partly true, but it will just end up with him saying that the ones he does not like should be censored. I do not get why he is writing this, he is the one advocating for code, he was, in the previous paragraph, the one advocating for the restriction of free speech. I guess what Mr. Stanley wants to say is that he is undemocratic? Could you explain this better professor. “Democracy is only nice when my candidate wins!!!!!111”
“In Book VIII of “The Republic,” Plato is clear-eyed about these perils for democracy. He worries that a “towering despot” will inevitably rise in any democracy to exploit its freedoms and seize power by fomenting fear of some group and representing himself as the protector of the people against that fear. It is for this reason that Plato declares democracy the most likely system to end in tyranny. Plato’s prediction is most dramatically exhibited by Weimar Germany. But more mundane recent examples of his description of democracy’s breakdown and descent into tyranny exist to varying degrees in the cases of Hungary and Russia. The fragmentation of equal respect is a clear alarm for the United States. We must heed it by categorically rejecting politicians who seek to gain office by exploiting the mistaken belief that democratic values are weaknesses.”
This representation of Plato is vulgar and a complete lie. He clearly never read a full paragraph of Plato else he would not write crap like this. I cannot go into detail on Plato right now as this would far exceed this little commentary (Plato is quite authoritarian himself and despised democracy, which he ridiculed as a regime before discussing the transition to tyranny; even more so the type of insight into human nature professed by professor Stanley earlier is exactly what Plato sees as the basis of people believing in tyranny. Remember this: Stanley is the sophist, Plato is the philosopher, Trump is the average Joe, his heart is in the right place, but he’s not perfect). A professor in philosophy that writes such a paragraph on Plato should probably just resign. There was a time when not being able to summarise a paragraph of Plato would make it hard for you to take up a chair in philosophy (see the letters between Eric Voegelin and Leo Strauss on Karl Popper; Voegelin tells Strauss how Popper is so poor a philosopher he would not even be able to summarize one paragraph of Plato; Strauss showed this letter to the head of the faculty and this lead to Popper not being considered for a chair in philosophy in Chicago). Times have changed.
Jason Stanley is a professor of philosophy at Yale University. He is the author of several books, including, most recently, “How Propaganda Works.”
Weep, weep, as the world is crumbling in front of you. This is what you children are being taught in school. These are the professors of our time.
Fyi, this piece I wrote a commentary on was written by Jason in October 2015. He wrote plenty more of cringe-inducing articles afterwards, but all to no avail!
Truth and Order 