Are our problems too Complicated for Voters to Understand?

Are our problems too Complicated for Voters to Understand? • The anxieties of our times • The tribalism of our politics • The complexity of our challenges • Demagogues make it all simple • So what can we do with issues such as climate change and income inequality? • Living democratically in a connected world

“The Complexity Crisis” by Peggy Noonan Politicians are asked to make judgments on stem cell research, SDI, NATO, G-8, the history and state of play of judicial and legislative actions regarding press freedoms, the history of Sunni-Shiites tensions, Kurds, tax rates, federal spending, hurricane prediction and response, the building of a library annex in Missoula, the most recent thinking on when human life begins. . . chemical weaponry, the Supreme Court, U.S.-North Korean relations, bioethics, cloning, public college curriculums, India-Pakistan relations, the enduring Muslim-Hindu conflict, the constitutional implications of . . .campaign finance reform, Homeland security, Securities and Exchange Commission authority, energy policy, environmental policy, nuclear proliferation, global warming. . . and the future of Cuba after Castro.

The Increasing Complexity of Everything is good for liberalism (government should be vital, large, demand and bestow much) and not conservatism (government should be smaller, less powerful, less demanding of the treasure and liberty of the citizenry). When everything is a big complicated morass, regular normal people, voters, constituents, become intellectually disheartened. What is the answer to all this? • We must let as many questions devolve into the private sphere as possible. • Rely on simple common sense, which is common human sense • Do not let go of your faith. Do not lose it. In the age in which too much is demanded of the slim wisdom of politicians, it is our only hope, and theirs.

Trump Statement on Muslim Immigration December 07, 2015 A total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on. . . . there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. . . . Shariah authorizes such atrocities as murder against non-believers who won't convert, beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women. . . . Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.

“What We Talk About When We Talk About ‘Demagogues’”Atlantic (12/10/15)He’s been compared to HitlerVoldemort, Mussolini, an African dictator, and . . . mainly for aesthetic purposes, an orangutan. And yet recently a new epithet has emerged to describe Donald J. Trump, one that aims in its way to combine all those other comparisons into a single, sweeping dismissal: “demagogue.” “Textbook Demagogue.” “American Demagogue.” “Thug demagogue.” )

“The rhetoric of demagoguery” • Appeals to voters’ fears by using threatening language • Positions himself as the protector who can “Make America Great, Again.” • Confidence shows he is “really smart” and has big plans • Arrogance is forgiven because he is the real deal • He’s uncontrollable and therefore will bring change • Attacks opponents as stupid, weak, and corrupt, often with disclaimers about not wanting to hurt people • Cites polls and crowds to show he’s a man of the people Jennifer Mercieca“The rhetorical brilliance of Trump the demagogue”

DemagoguePeople, though tribe is actually closer (demos)Leader (agogos) In 1838, James Fenimore Cooper identified four characteristics of demagogues: • they posture as men of the common people; • they trigger waves of powerful emotion; • they manipulate this emotion for political benefit; and • they threaten or break established principles of governance. Michael Singer, “Donald Trump wasn’t a textbook demagogue. Until now”

Whether or not Trump is defined as a demagogue, he certainly fires up the imagination of a significant segment of the population. How the Government of Qatar Runs Hillary Clinton: Short of an armed revolution, Trump is the best answer (almost 1M visitors)

“Democracies End When There Is Too Much Democracy,” Andrew SullivanTo call this fascism doesn’t do justice to fascism. . . .But his movement is clearly fascistic in its demonization of foreigners, its hyping of a threat by a domestic minority (Muslims and Mexicans are the new Jews), its focus on a single supreme leader of what can only be called a cult, and its deep belief in violence and coercion in a democracy that has heretofore relied on debate and persuasion.

Do we face an “extinction-level event” • in our democracy? • What, one wonders, could be more impossible • than vetting visitors for traces of Islamic belief, . . Tha • a wall stretching across the Mexican border, • paid for by the Mexican government, and • paying off our national debt through a • global trade war? • In the emotional fervor of a democratic • mass movement, these impossibilities • become icons of hope, symbols of • a new way of conducting politics. • Their very impossibility • is their appeal.

Late Stage Democracy • The “acute frustration” of the “new poor” has been “mocked” and ignored by elites • The establishment, elites, experts and educated are attacked. • Income inequality concentrates political power (though “moneyed elites” are not in control according to Sullivan). • The “Media democracy” of the internet has leveled distinctions, undercut elite commentators, and fueled factional passions • “Macho media star” has flaunted his wealth and power. • Traditional communal venues such as churches, union halls and VFW halls are in decline.

“tyranny is . . . established out of no other regime than democracy”

Protagoras: Man is the measure of all things. Of the gods, I do not know, for they are too vast and life is too short.Truth is relative. Gorgias: Nothing exists If something does exist we can not know it .Even if we can know it we can not communicate it

Ancient Greek city-states were actually more likely to develop from tyrannies into democracies

Polybius (2nd C BCE) The Histories proposed mixed constitution with separation of powers to slow decline of democracy.

“Pericles’ Funeral Oration” (c. 1877) Jefferson founded republicanism in “in the spirit of the people.” Alexis de Tocqueville believed that democracy depended on “the whole moral and intellectual state of a people.” “There is nothing harder,” Tocqueville wrote, “than the apprenticeship of freedom.”

4th Congressional attempt at Washingonton monument, 1841

Federalist #10AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction . . . By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

Liberty is to faction what air is to fire. . . . an aliment without which it instantly expires.The most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.

“The Great Democracy Meltdown,” by Joshua KurlantzickShould the US “mind its own business” let other nations work out their own problems? Around the globe, it is democratic meltdowns, not democratic revolutions, that are now the norm. (And even countries like Egypt and Tunisia, while certainly freer today than they were a year ago, are hardly guaranteed to replace their autocrats with real democracies.) In its most recent annual survey, the monitoring group Freedom House found that global freedom plummeted for the fifth year in a row.

“It’s complicated” Samuel Arbesman Human ingenuity has created a world that the mind cannot master. Have we reached our limits? And when things get too complicated and we end up being surprised by the workings of the structures humanity has created? At that point, we will have to take a cue from those who turn up their collars to the unexpected wintry mix and sigh as they proceed outdoors: we will have to become a bit more humble. . . . Of course, we shouldn’t throw our hands up and say that just because we can’t understand something, there is nothing else to learn. But at the same time, it might be time to get reacquainted with our limits.

Are our problems too Complicated for Voters to Understand?