The Millstone Times July 2018

Galvanizing the Heart of the Public By: Norman Gabriel

The recent surge of the right throughU.S. andEurope has reignited a longstanding debate amongst commentators and pundits. What drives political change? Culture or Economics. The cultural determinists attribute the success of Brexit and MAGA to recent populist movements of nativism, nationalism, and lingering racism. While economists say the change is the by-product of a newfound public anxiety; The working class will soon be obsolete if the trends of Globalization and Deindustrialization continue. Much like any debate I partake in, I’ll use the Socratic Method to structure my argument. Looking at them side-by-side, the obvious answer would be both. Both thought camps indulged in divisive rhetoric, both sides gained from the advantages of fear-mongering and both take credit for swinging political sentiments. Culture dictates economics and vice versa. But I’d like to align my answer with that of Immanuel Kant, who wrote on this debate 200 years before. In his book “A Critique of Pure Reason”, Kant takes a dogmatic approach to analyzing logical fallacies of political misdirection. And even after 200 years, one topic remains relevant now more than ever. It isn’t a coincidence that in the era of social media and the proverbial peak of Humanity’s narcissism; these

types of leaders thrive. Figureheads such as Farage, Le Penn and Trump have gained massive bases off of a sense of ‘realness’. That they were the answer to politics becoming so far removed from the people they serve. And the chord they strike isn’t a massive agreement of ideas and policy, but appealing to a sense of majority identity. I’ll use the example of Trump’s recent G7 trip to better illustrate my point. Upon first arriving in Canada, Trump didn’t wait to stir the pot amongst world leaders, demanding that Russia be readmitted into summit negotiations. This was followed by a proposal to lift all tariffs amongst G7 members (a proposal that was refused unanimously). Until finally leaving the Summit early after Justin Trudeau took a harsh stance on U.S. trade. Funny enough, Trump had left Canada with more tariffs than he arrived with. FOX news described his behavior in the G7 as “Slaying the Lions den.” And praised him for his harsh stances. “Finally, a President with Bravado”, they exclaimed, “True American grit…”. Even in Trump’s missteps, his actions indemnified what fierce, American business drive looks like, and that’s all what the MAGA camp needs to keep supporting. They need Trump to remain authentic to them, but there is a subtle danger to this kind of support. Kant wrote, that authenticity, or the idea of authenticity, remains one of the most effective and dangerous tools when galvanizing populous support. The theory in summation goes: A Politician could never be authentic, since authenticity is decided by the past experiences of each individual. To define a politician as authentic, means they have won over the relatability of the masses, but this does not mean authenticity. They have simply won over the voter’s vanity, an identity projected onto a stage that they perceive in themselves. Once they remain authentic, any mistake they make won’t be perceived from their base, because to accept a fault in an authentic politician is to accept a fault in themselves. FOX has been the most notorious culprits of the fallacy, but this is an issue that both sides of the aisle suffer from. Politics and individual identity are quickly approaching synonymy, and I believe 2020 and beyond will be more about relating to certain crowds, rather than party platform. In the era of pragmatic self-interest, it isn’t enough for a politician to play on voter incentives, but they most reflect voter identity.

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The Millstone Times

July 2018