|
The American electorate has become so divided in 2016 that those who don’t plan to vote for DT have been puzzled and distraught by how so many— seemingly 45% or more of voters— can be willing to support him. This succinct analysis highlights some of the reasons as to how this situation has come about. |
The reasons why someone like DT can rise to power in the contemporary United States— and shockingly enough, gain so much traction in the polls in a matter of days before the election, after Clinton held a substantial lead after the debates— are complex and somewhat unprecedented.
Some of the main ones include:
• Relativism (or ‘Radical Subjectivism’) sweeping the world as the prevailing philosophy in the last half-century— contributing to a diminishing of reason and anti-intellectualism
• Acculturation by and addiction to Media over the last century (especially with the advent of the Internet and Social Media over the last 25 years)— much of which is sensationalistic and manipulative
• Fear of suffering in myriad forms (shame, injury, poverty, unneededness) and death (ego dissolution)— some of these fears natural, some culturally constructed
• Threats of Futuristic technologies, human redundancy through Automation and Globalization, and seemingly random Terrorism
• The rise of the automobile and related infrastructure, as well new cultural norms, leading to a loss of community and increasing isolation and loneliness
• Consolidation of power, and subterfuge, coercion, and oppression (economic and emotional) by large corporations and wealthy vested interests and their media and governmental outlets and connections
Leading to:
• People only paying attention to media outlets that already ratify one’s own opinions—
many of which are intentionally untrue and manipulative
• Ignorance (diminished education)
• Primarily responding through emotion
• Diminished capacity for reason (loss of discrimination)
• Centring on the self and stifled sense of empathy (diminished empathy, intersubjectivity, and ability to take other perspectives)
• Only short-term attention span (loss of long-term memory span)
• Addiction to regular sensationalism (as an escape from one’s fears)
• Total identification of one’s ‘self’ with one’s thoughts and opinions (most of which come from media and society)
At this crucial juncture, let us hope that, nonetheless, the balance tips in favor of Reason and Compassion, and a person whose actions are inveterately fascist, racist, sexist, derogatory, sexually predatory, swindling, paranoid, vindictive, and pathologically lying does not become the leader of the most economically, militarily, and technologically powerful country in the world— which could easily lead to darkly dystopian, World War, and armageddon scenarios, setting back civilization for decades and centuries— and that just as many of these detrimental forces emerged in the last centuries, many equally beneficial ones conflux and civilization evolves for the better and effloresces in the 21st century
– Nov 7, 2016
Leave a Reply