Kane View

Chaos, Crisis And The Collapse Of Democracy

Propaganda seeks to create in the public a chronic sense of crisis, which in turn justifies the expansion of executive power and the secrecy surrounding it.
The executive then asserts his “presidential” qualities by conveying his determination to rise to crisis, whatever the crisis of the moment happens to be… .

Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations (1979)

Catherine Rampell, opinion writer with the Washington Post, asked the question two years ago: “When the facts don’t matter, how can democracy survive?”

Writes Rampell: “Offered sober-minded, nonpartisan analyses that Trump’s fiscal plans would add trillions to deficits and jeopardize the economy, his supporters claim these assessments must be lies because (A) the analysts are biased against him, and (B) Trump would obviously never let bad things happen to the economy…”

You can, in other words, give Trump supporters all the facts, all the empirical data, all the scientific evidence, all the expert testimony and they will without any sense of embarrassment turn it all into a scenario which portrays their fuhrer as the victim of fact-bias.

What then…?

Intel Officials Stunned by Trump’s ‘Truly Damaging’ Declassification Order

Ken Dilanian, National security reporter:

“Current and former intelligence officials I’ve talked to are stunned” by the president’s decision to “overrule his own intelligence and law enforcement professionals.”