David Brooks largely absolves the internet of blame for the knowledge gap through the spread of disinformation and the creation of echo chambers. "Why would the internet have corrupted Republicans so much more than Democrats, the global right more than the global left?" is his rhetorical question and answer to J'Accuse the www. Brooks' column is informed by three scholarly sources, the 2020, with "limitations", Lynn University study on which the previous post paused, a 2019 Niskanen Center paper called "TheDestiny Divide" and "The Constitution of Knowledge" published in 2018 at AEI with which Brooks starts and which has the most weight in his thought.
Curious though, for Jonathan Rauch, author of Constitution of Knowledge, decidedly does not absolve the internet. Brooks' rhetorical question is too facile, insufficient. There simply is no doubt of the key role of alt-right outlets like Fox and Breitbart as sources, and as amplifiers, of the alternative reality that resulted in the undemocratic Trump getting 63M votes in 2016 and 74M in 2020.
Anyway, David Brooks likes everything else that Jonathan Rauch wrote in The Constitution of Knowledge. Check this out and see Dave have to change his underwear:
...We need an elite consensus, and hopefully also something approaching a public consensus, on the method of validating propositions.
A critical mass needs to agree on what it is we do that distinguishes truth from falsehood, and more important, on who does it.
A more convincing explanation of the variance--and please, it is not right-left, it is democratic-undemocratic--is that the Establishment's gates did keep out hare-brained alternatives, it was "The End of History!--there was elite consensus on issues such as globalism, social democracy, interdependence, climate science, and ascriptive characteristic inclusiveness. Were those not the hot button issues of today and of 2016? The problem was that the Establishment's gates did not prevent the growth of a populist, undemocratic, unscientific, anti-knowledge, disinformation sub-universe outside the gates. Ascriptive "Identity" politics and faith-based nationalism have had their adherents throughout modern Western history. For godssake Trump's "America First" approach was lifted in toto from the 1930's. It has always been in the American people, in other words. What happened in 2016 and 2020 was the emergence of a Leader who, by sheer trial-and-error, tapped into that historical strain.
I remembered to question Dave's sources. Right after discussing the happiness study conducted at the Harvard of Boca, Dave writes,
People need a secure order to feel safe.
In brackets by me: WHO SAYS THIS? Not the happiness scholars. In fact, the exact opposite:
If Americans without a college degree – who remain the majority of the population – are increasingly unhappy, politicians who promise change may be more attractive, [BROOKS SAYS THE OPPOSITE “SECURE ORDER” BELOW!] and there will be growing class polarization in views of political candidates. Growing dissatisfaction among those with less income may also make political systems such as socialism and government policies such as universal basic income more popular. [bracketed comments mine]
I also read closely the entirety of Jonathan Rauch's twenty-one page article and didn't remember reading that. I then searched the document for "security","Social Security" came up, Social Security for Elvis, and for "secure" the word does not appear, "order," ditto. I did not read Density Divide soup to nuts, that's the 79-pager, but last night I did the same search of that article. Dave's sentence is Lippmann-esque, Stalin-esque. Nothing like it appears in any of the sources cited. I can see a Jewish elite thinking that's what he read or putting it all together and inferring it but it's really not there, nothing even close. In other words, the fear may be Dave's, not the average Joe's. This is from Density Divide:
Declining public faith in democracy and the rising global tide of populist nationalism have kindled a widespread and mounting sense of dread that the liberal order is unraveling.
The "dread" is among the elites! Notice also "declining public faith in democracy." Democracy is not faith-based, it's fact-based. Of course, evangelicals don't place their "faith" in democracy but up until 2016 they accepted democratic facts.
Anti-knowledge: In the Lippmann-Dewey debate Dewey argued that expanded education was the only solution necessary for the masses to vote in their rational interest. More instruction from the consensus manufacturers. Lippmann believed that no amount of education could prepare the masses to understand modern economics. It's a full-time job. The average Joe has got a real job to go to, a family to care for, baseball to watch, beer to drink, and so on. As I wrote yesterday, I agreed with Lippmann's diagnosis but not with his prescription. Since 2016 I also disagree with Dewey's prescription. Look, we have had a century of Dewey's civics classes; those without college degrees have still been instructed in responsible citizenship in a democracy. And 63M and 74M are proof that the instruction didn't take. Trump voters at a church in Iowa in 2016 heard Trump say that his followers were so loyal he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and not lose their support, but that did not make the impression on them that another Trump statement did, that in a Trump presidency, "Christianity will have power." That was talking their language! That is Christian Identity politics, Christian Nationalism, faith-based politics. If politics is based on faith, what is politics not based on? Facts. Voters in the Bible Belt know their civics, they reject knowledge for faith and power.
Which is the gravaman of The Density Divide. Population density; city versus rural. Black and Brown versus White. Harvard versus Iowa State. Power versus impotence .
the rise of populist nationalism a [is]a surprising and overlooked side-effect of urbanization...self-segregation of the population, I argue, created the polarized economic and cultural conditions that led to populist backlash.
Brooks:
People need a secure order to feel safe. Deprived of that, people legitimately feel cynicism and distrust, alienation and anomie. This precarity has created, in nation after nation, intense populist backlashes against the highly educated folks who have migrated to the cities and accrued significant economic, cultural and political power. Will Wilkinson of the Niskanen Center calls this the “Density Divide.”
That can properly be inferred from Wilkinson. But he wrote something more nuanced also. An inconvenient fact of current White attitudes is that uneducated Whites are not bad off! Wilkinson massages this as yes, they're doing okay; yes, a rising tide lifts all boats, yes, they are not living hand to mouth, yes, they have Social Security, Medicare, etc., but they're unhappy because those Black and Brown and non-Christians in the cities are really doing well: so it "can feel like loss." You see what he did there? Reality: they're not losing but they feel like they're losing. Their feelings become their reality. Wilkinson is conceding their alt-reality. It's bullshit. This is about White power.
Brooks:
For those in low status groups, [conspiracy theories] provide a sense of superiority: I possess important information most people do not have. For those who feel powerless, they provide agency: I have the power to reject “experts” and expose hidden cabals. As Cass Sunstein of Harvard Law School points out, they provide liberation: If I imagine my foes are completely malevolent, then I can use any tactic I want....
In the fervor of this enmity, millions of people have come to detest...the [elites in the cities],... who appear to have it so easy, who have such different values [democratic], who can be so condescending.
