Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
We spoke last week about language, and its use to communicate – and, more importantly, NOT to communicate or to miscommunicate and deceive. Also, to send messages that are implicit but not spoken; such messages are usually emotional rather than rational in nature, and received by the amygdala rather than the rational brain. For this reason, though they are transmitted by language, it’s not easy to counter them with language. Anyone who is sufficiently competent to recognize them as the deceptions they are is going to be competent – and inclined – to use language rationally, and that is just what does not work against these messages.
I think it may represent a recognition of that truth which leads Chauncey DeVega to write in the tone he uses addressing Trump’s comments on football, football players, the flag, and protests. I suspect he is going to get labeled “hysterical.” He isn’t. He is trying to reach sane people by communicating at least some of the raw emotion with which Trump fills his followers.
Here’s part of what Trump said this week:
You have to stand — proudly — for the national anthem or you shouldn’t be playing, you shouldn’t be there, maybe you shouldn’t be in the country.
Here’s a hint from DeVega on what this implies:
Patriotism is compulsory. Freedom of speech is undermined if not wholly overturned — especially for those who dare to criticize or otherwise oppose Donald Trump, his allies or his public. In a version of “blood and soil” racism, those who protest or otherwise dissent are to be expelled from the country — especially if they happen not to be white.
I am aware that there is no way in law that an American who has birthright citizenship can be stripped of it, and no way that a citizen can be legally deported. But – so what? We have laws against profiting from public office. We have laws against accepting any form of aid from any non-Americans in election campaigns. We have these and other laws which are being broken in plain sight every day. Why should we think this person who sits in the White House will not strip people of birthright citizenship by executive order? There is no guarantee of that.
DeVega quotes from Talia Levin on dissent, and also from Masha Gessen – actually from the same article I refer to (almost) every week in the first paragraph of this series – the section he quotes here is “Believe the autocrat.” And he raises – or attempts to raise – the alarm that Trump – and the Trump followers – are not just going to go away somehow. Authoritarian doe not JUST mean the person in power. It is a known personality type which also has follower sub-types, and it always has been and always will be with us. And in groups, it can wreak immense havoc unless it is stopped first.
Meanwhile, over at Mother Jones, there’s an interview with former FBI Special Agent Clint Watts, who, along with colleagues JM Berger and Andrew Weisburd, was among the first to notice what was going on with Russia and the Internet.
Watching this troll army inundate social media into 2015 and 2016—including rising attacks on Hillary Clinton and promotion of Donald Trump for president—Watts realized a new information war was underway. As he tracked false news stories from Russian state media that were repeated by the Trump campaign, he was surprised to see that Kremlin-linked disinformation was sometimes even driving the campaign’s own narrative. Two days before Election Day, Watts and his fellow cybersecurity analysts JM Berger and Andrew Weisburd warned that the Kremlin wasn’t just backing Trump but was seeking “to produce a divided electorate and a president with no clear mandate to govern. The ultimate objective is to diminish and tarnish American democracy.”
Mr. Watts has a book out now, Messing With the Enemy: Surviving in a Social Media World of Hackers, Terrorists, Russians, and Fake News. And possibly the most important thrust of what he has to say is – don’t get too hung up on the Russians. Yes, they started it. But what they started was a tidal wave in which every authoritarian in the world is now getting involved.
[W]e are incredibly stuck on 2016. Russia is not going to be the biggest player in this space. Russia kicked off the tidal wave, but now they just ride it. There have been a lot of authoritarians who’ve adopted their approach, with more devastating effect on their domestic populations. Cambodia, the Philippines, and Myanmar are three great examples.
And then there’s what I call “trolling as a service.” If our politics take on this information annihilation approach, we are in real trouble…. That’s the real fear everyone should look at: not Russian active measures, but American active measures through the hiring of cutouts, contractors, and tech companies.
It’s been a bumpy ride for the last year and a half – three and a half if you count the 2016 campaigns. And it’s only going to get bumpier. I can’t ask the Furies to do for us what we need to be doing ourselves – but Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone – I can ask you to work through journalists to alert us to the dangers we are facing as they come up (or maybe just a little before they come up). And what we need to know even more is, how we should meet these dangers. Because what we are doing now is not working very well.
The Furies and I will be back.
Cross posted to Care2 HERE.
