It’s All About Status…

In 2017, Robert P. Jones, head of the Public Religion Research Institute, published The End of White Christian America. He presented copious evidence that demographic change was eroding the hegemony of the White Protestant males who had exercised social–and often, legal– dominance since the founding of the United States. He also provided evidence that awareness of their impending loss of status explained  most of their political hysteria.

Last week, New York Times columnist Thomas Edsall revisited the issue of status, or more accurately, fear of its loss.

More and more, politics determine which groups are favored and which are denigrated.

Roughly speaking, Trump and the Republican Party have fought to enhance the status of white Christians and white people without college degrees: the white working and middle class. Biden and the Democrats have fought to elevate the standing of previously marginalized groups: women, minorities, the L.G.B.T.Q. community and others.

The ferocity of this politicized status competition can be seen in the anger of white non-college voters over their disparagement by liberal elites, the attempt to flip traditional hierarchies and the emergence of identity politics on both sides of the chasm.

Researchers have begun studying what we have come to recognize as one of the most powerful motivations of human behavior. That research tells us that perceptions of diminished status is a source of rage on both the left and right. Add American divisions over economic insecurity, geography and values, and that rage only deepens.

Status is different from resources and power, although possession of those assets certainly contributes to it. It is based on cultural beliefs rather than material wealth or position.

Edsall quoted a Stanford professor who studies the subject.

Status has always been part of American politics, but right now a variety of social changes have threatened the status of working class and rural whites who used to feel they had a secure, middle status position in American society — not the glitzy top, but respectable, ‘Main Street’ core of America. The reduction of working-class wages and job security, growing demographic diversity, and increasing urbanization of the population have greatly undercut that sense and fueled political reaction.

People convinced that their status is low tend to gravitate to “anti-establishment” and radical candidates on both the Left and Right. Those fearing loss of status are different. One Harvard researcher explains that people  drawn to right-wing populist positions and politicians, such as Trump, usually “sit several rungs up the socioeconomic ladder in terms of their income or occupation.”

My conjecture is that it is people in this kind of social position who are most susceptible to what Barbara Ehrenreich called a “fear of falling” — namely, anxiety, in the face of an economic or cultural shock, that they might fall further down the social ladder,” a phenomenon often described as “last place aversion.

Apparently, the more socially marginalized people are, the more likely they are to feel alienated from the country’s political system — and the more likely they are to support  radical parties.

Radical politicians on the left evoke the virtues of working people, whereas those on the right emphasize themes of national greatness, which have special appeal for people who rely on claims to national membership for a social status they otherwise lack. The “take back control” and “make America great again” slogans of the Brexit and Trump campaigns were perfectly pitched for such purposes.

Other researchers emphasize that populism and fear of losing status are not the same thing. Populist movements stress group cohesion and equality; dominance, they point out, leads to self-promotion and support for steep hierarchies. That said, the research confirms that it is almost exclusively right-wing political actors who actively campaign on the status issue. 

The research confirms that it is fear of losing status, not actual status, that is the key political motivator.

I was particularly struck by this observation from a researcher at Duke:

Those who cannot adopt or compete in the dominant status order — closely associated with the acquisition of knowledge and the mastery of complex cultural performances — make opposition to this order a badge of pride and recognition. 

Dismissing journalists as “enemies of the people,” denying the reality of climate change, and refusing to wear masks and engage in social distancing are all part and parcel of this opposition to “elitists.” 

Edsall’s column has much more detail on the research. It explains a lot of America’s current polarization. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell us what we can or should do about it.

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Elementary Ethics

Yesterday, I posted about generalized social trust–its importance, and some of the reasons for its recent decline. Today, I want to focus on the role played by ethical behavior–in this case, the lack of ethical behavior–in the distressing and accelerating erosion of social trust.

One of the most obvious ethical principles is avoidance of conflicts of interest. I believe it was John Locke who noted that a person (okay, back then he said “a man”) could not be the judge in his own case, and that is really the heart of the rule against conflicts. Elected officials are not supposed to participate in decisions that will affect them personally and directly.

If a state official approves a purchase of land for a highway, and that highway will run through land owned by members of his family, that’s a conflict of interest. If a United States Senator relies upon information not yet shared with the public to sell stock holdings before the news gets out, that’s a blatant conflict. (And yes, Senator Perdue, we’re all looking at you.) When a President refuses to divest himself of business interests that will be directly affected by his decisions in office, that’s a huge departure from ethical behavior.

It is hardly a secret that the Trump Administration has been brazenly unethical. Last year, Pro Publica noted that the administration itself had reported (quietly) numerous ethical breaches. The report noted that President Trump’s ethics pledge had been considerably weaker than previous pledges, but that the government ethics office found violations of even those watered-down rules, particularly at three federal agencies: the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior and the National Labor Relations Board.

Just one example: At the NLRB, Republican board member William Emanuel improperly voted on a case despite the fact that his former law firm, Littler Mendelson, represented one of the parties. (The firm represents corporations in labor disputes, and he also voted to eliminate regulations protecting unions.) Conflicts at the EPA have been widely covered by the media; numerous EPA officials chosen by Trump have come from fossil fuel companies and/or the law firms that represent them, and those officials have rolled back nearly 100 environmental regulations.

Then there’s former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who is being investigated by the Justice Department’s public integrity section over allegations he lied to his agency’s inspector general’s office. There are also two separate probes by the Department’s inspector general about Zinke’s ties to real estate deals in Montana and a proposed casino project in Connecticut. 

As for Trump, there is at least one lawsuit charging violations of the Emoluments Clause still working its way through the courts–although the current composition of the Supreme Court doesn’t bode well for the outcome. 

The White House has refused to impose any sanctions for officials found to have committed ethical violations. That–as observers have noted–has sent a message of tacit approval, not just to the officials violating ethical standards, but to citizens who are aware of the breaches.

It isn’t just government. Cable news companies and social media giants routinely behave in ways that violate both journalism ethics and strictures against conflicts of interest. Facebook employs a rightwing internet site, The Daily Caller, as a “fact checker” despite the fact that the site is supported financially by the GOP. A story originally published by Salon reports that “The Daily Caller has taken tens of thousands of dollars to help Republican campaigns raise money while performing political fact-check services for Facebook.”

The Caller, a right-wing publication co-founded by Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, has also since 2016 sent dozens of emails “paid for by Trump Make America Great Again Committee,” a joint fundraising vehicle shared by the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, according to Media Matters.

Media Matters also revealed that The Daily Caller has sent sponsored emails on behalf of a number of Republican candidates this year. Media Matters posted screenshots of the emails, from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C; Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; the Senate Conservatives Fund; and the Bikers for the President PAC.

Asking the Daily Caller to fact-check political posts is like asking a wife-beater to evaluate spousal abuse cases.

When ethical principles are routinely flouted by a society’s most powerful institutions, is it any wonder that Americans don’t know who or what they can trust?

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Trust

In 2009, I published a book with Prometheus Press. It was titled “Distrust, American Style: Diversity and the Crisis of Public Confidence,”  and in it, I explored–and disagreed with–the then popular political science theory that America’s growing levels of social distrust and corresponding loss of social capital were a reaction to the country’s growing diversity, and the increasing numbers of neighbors who didn’t look like “us.”

My contrary conclusion could be summed up by an old adage:  fish rot from the head. 

By 2009, the failures of our social institutions had become more and more obvious–we had just had the Enron and Worldcom scandals, the Catholic Church was dealing with publicity about priestly child molestation, there were scandals in major league sports…and much more. Furthermore, as I wrote in the book, thanks to the Internet and the 24-hour “news holes” on cable television, it was the rare American who wasn’t bombarded daily with news of corporate malfeasance, the sexual escapades of “pro family” legislators and pastors, and the identity of the latest sports figure to fail a drug test.

At the same time, the Bush Administration was engaging in what then seemed an unprecedented assault on competent governance (who knew it could get worse?), exemplified by, but not limited to, the war in Iraq and the administration’s disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina.

In the face of so much evidence that Americans couldn’t trust our country’s most important institutions to operate honestly and effectively, is it any wonder that people were becoming wary, skeptical and distrustful? 

To say that things haven’t improved since 2009 would be an enormous understatement.

This lack of trust matters. It has allowed Trump’s accusations about “fake news” to resonate, it has encouraged acceptance of conspiracy theories and dismissal of warnings about the pandemic. The incredible growth of internet propaganda and social media since 2009 has only added to the cacophony of sources, voices, points of view–and levels of distrust. Too many Americans no longer know who or what to believe. (For many of those Americans, the Supreme Court’s predictable dismissal of Texas’ ridiculous lawsuit yesterday probably came as a surprise.)

I recently read an article comparing contemporary features of what the author called our “post-truth society” to Dante’s Inferno. The article pointed out that, to Dante, anyone who corrupted or discredited the institutions that support society was doing something gravely wicked, and would surely be consigned to the lowest circle of hell, the 9th. (The 9th, as I recall, is for treachery, and it is where Satan lives…)

Granted, the image of Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump dealing with Satan in that lowest circle gives me a “warm and fuzzy,” but I really don’t think Americans should defer remediation based upon belief in a just afterlife. We need to work on repairing the here and now.

When citizens cannot rely on the integrity of government officials, when they no longer expect those officials to enforce the rules against corporate and business malfeasance, when they see McConnell’s Senate confirming judges chosen in the belief they will be willing to corrupt the impartiality of the bench and tilt the scales of justice in the GOP’s favor–who should they trust?

Americans’ ability to trust each other depends upon the ability of our governing and social institutions to keep faith with the American values set out in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Those values include equal treatment and fair play, and especially fidelity to the rule of law–the insistence that no one is above the law and that the same rules should apply to everyone who is in the same circumstances (or as we lawyer types like to say, everyone who is “similarly situated.”)

Allowing the rich and connected to “buy” more favorable rules is a massive violation of those values, yet that is what millions of Americans see happening every day. 

When governments and important social institutions all seem corrupt, trust evaporates, taking  social and political stability with it.  If the Biden Administration restores visible competence and  integrity to government, it will be the beginning of a long and urgently needed process of Institutional repair.

And hopefully, a restoration of trust.

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The Next War

The extreme polarization America is experiencing is, as many have noted, more than just political. People–not just in the United States, but globally–seem to be choosing identities–tribes– that include but go well beyond partisan affiliations. 

It’s difficult to imagine how a “war” could be fought between these contending ideological forces, which overall tend to be rural versus urban in nature. Would Red rural inhabitants attack Blue cities, or vice-versa? How would that work? 

Rather than armies, will we see increasing acts of terrorism from gangs of Neo-Nazis, Incels, or self-identified “Patriot Militias”?

This admittedly strange mental exercise was triggered by a letter to Talking Points Memo. The writer worried that– between relief that Biden had won, and what he characterized as Trump’s “essential absurdity”– we are insufficiently prepared for what he fears will come next.

Specifically, I keep thinking back to Trump’s attempt to turn Lafayette Square into a mini version of Tiananmen, complete with importing troops from a far-off province (the Bureau of Prisons) to lay waste to the locals. It wasn’t that Trump hesitated, or Barr, or any of them — it was that the military leadership, ultimately and publicly, refused to play along. (The same leadership that Trump is now gutting with a month and a half to go in his presidency.)

Following Trump’s defeat we are seeing what I have rapidly come to think of as secession-in-place, which also applies to the greater Republican Party over the past fifteen years. The Tea Party wasn’t so much a domestic political movement as a psychic break in response to having a Black man in the White House, and since that moment the post-policy Republican Party has never retreated from that view. (In that context, Trump is the leader they were waiting for, not some charismatic fiend who led patriotic Republicans astray.)

What we’re watching is a percolating cold war which Trump keeps trying to ignite. The Republican base has checked out, Trump is leading them and shows no sign of faltering, and the Republican Party is almost entirely complicit and stands in silent support. And I see no way that this gets better no matter what Biden does over the next four years.

The most troubling part of these observations, at least to me, was the fact that they seem obviously and objectively correct. What part of this analysis can we dismiss as fanciful? Overblown? 

An essay from The Week, titled “The Hidden World War,” only added to those concerns.  

The author began by discussing earlier hopes for globalization–the once widely-held assumption that technological advances in communication and  transportation would lead to more open societies and improved cultural understanding globally. As he recognized, that didn’t happen–at least, not in the way it was envisioned. 

The recent shocks to both the international system and liberal expectations for the future haven’t turned back globalization entirely. They have revealed, instead, that the technological advances that were once considered a gateway to a more homogeneous world actually encourage and foster the creation of new, potent forms of cross-national solidarity and political conflict.

In other words, in much the same way that social media has allowed geographically-distanced like-minded people to forge alliances in the U.S., it has facilitated international right-wing alliances that cross national borders. Technology has made it possible–really, simple–for populists living in the mostly rural areas where such sentiments are strongest to link up with far-flung likeminded compatriots. The author argues that the internet has  galvanized anti-establishment movements around the world.

The American-focused far-right QAnon conspiracy theory has spread to countries around the world, including Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Brazil, and Finland. Even more widespread have been kindred protests against COVID-19 restrictions, and especially mask mandates, in dozens of nations. Trump has even found expressions of support for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election on the streets of Tokyo.

The same cross-national affinities have occurred on the left. The bottom line?

Thanks to the flood of information and images flowing ceaselessly into the incredibly powerful compact computers we carry around with us everywhere we go, political and cultural identities, affinities, and animosities are now constantly being forged and activated on a global basis. Humanity is uniting and dividing in new ways that transcend national borders. 

Again, I find it difficult to argue with the analysis–and more difficult still to picture how this conflict will be waged, or how it will end.

And I have absolutely no idea what people of good will can do about it.

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Picturing Change

I know this blog can often be a downer. Especially during the Trump years, there has just been so much damage, so much polarization, so much hate–it’s sometimes hard to focus on areas of actual improvement.

Today, however, I want to do just that.

Social and cultural changes are almost always slow, but I am not the only observer who looked at the people protesting after George Floyd’s murder and saw multi-racial, multi-ethnic crowds who weren’t there during previous era protests. And much as I worry about disinformation in today’s fragmented media landscape, I firmly believe that certain of the changes in that media have prompted social change for the better.

Pictures matter.

Until he retired, I team-taught a course–Media and Public Affairs–with Jim Brown, then Dean of the Journalism School. We created the course, which was offered to both journalism and public affairs students. Thanks to Jim, I learned a lot–probably a good deal  more than the students.

Jim was a photojournalist, and thanks to his insights, I learned to appreciate the impact of pictures on social attitudes, and to see how photojournalism practices of the country’s newspapers had fed and supported racism. For years, the old media truism–if it bleeds, it leads–led to the publication of (often dark and grainy) photographs of people accused of crimes.  Those photographs tended to be disproportionately of Black offenders. Worse, in the early days of television and in rural areas of the country, those were often the only portrayals of African-Americans that white Americans saw.

There weren’t interviews with Black scientists or doctors, no “human interest” pieces about Black educators or successful businesspeople. Aside from sports, television didn’t feature talented Black performers. A recent “Sunday Morning” interview with Leslie Uggams included the story of her hiring by Mitch Miller; she was the first regular Black performer on a nationally-syndicated show, and a number of southern stations threatened to stop airing it if she remained. (Miller, to his credit, ignored the threat.)

Today, our televisions and newspapers, as well as our workplaces and other parts of our environments, are far more representative of American reality. There are African-American newscasters, entertainers, scientists…And that increased representation isn’t limited to Blacks. Women are now news anchors, weather-people and even sports commentators. Figures with Asian and Latino names are prominent.

For the past decade or so, the media has been delivering a far more accurate picture of America and American diversity.

If you look at the names on the list of credits accompanying a television drama or movie, you will see a wide range of ethnicities represented. Actors no longer feel the need to “Americanize” their names in order to be acceptable to folks who might be put off by anything stranger than Smith or Jones.

And then, of course, we had a Black President.

Granted, the response from the hard-core racists to all of this has been hysterical. When Obama was elected, the rocks lifted and the cockroaches crawled out in force. But for eight years, the rest of us saw a class act–a cultivated, brilliant lawyer with a great sense of humor, an impressive way with words, an equally accomplished wife and an impeccable family life–a vivid contrast with his crude, inarticulate and ignorant White successor.

This forced encounter with the reality of America’s diversity has been anything but smooth or easy. Those old White guys of a certain age (and plenty of younger ones) have looked at the pictures that are everywhere–uppity women executives, newscasters of all races and genders (many with Latino or Asian names), Black people famous for something other than sports (and uppity women who are famous for sports!)–and seen only their own loss of dominant status. They’ve resisted. Some violently.

But the pictures are there, not just in the traditional media, but in the viral testimonies captured by those ubiquitous cellphone cameras. The visual environment has changed, and with it, the broader culture. Americans are talking about privilege. We are talking about injustice. About representation. We’re seeing the world–and ourselves–far more accurately.

We aren’t nearly “there” yet. But we’re picturing it.

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