The likely outcome is that the administration will have meager results in advancing it's policies simply because of Trump himself. The last year of the previous administration is in my view telling about what Trump II administration will be. First of all, Trump will likely appoint yes-men and then get unsatisfied with their inability to get things done. Hence the Trump administration can continue to be a place where people go in and out. I assume Trump has lost his love affair with appointing military personnel into positions. — ssu

This time around he's surrounded not by yes-men, but by people of similar or worse ideologies. And the reason things didn't get done last time around was that the rest of the government could block his worst policies. This time, the house and senate are aligned with Trump and he's already been blessed by the supreme court that a president can do whatever he wants without legal repercussions.

Trump was weakened last time because he didn't have the same support around him as he does now. And he were going into a new election trying to appeal to voters he had lost. So he toned down his worst behavior.

What do you think will happen now that he does not have a new term after these four years? When he's aiming to replace the permanent staff in the white house (which requires policy change)?

He has nothing to lose and also almost no one standing in his way, as well as a hold on the supreme court that's going to back him up if he crosses the line.

It's nowhere near how it was the last time he was in office and I don't think people have really and fully understood this.

I'd wish that he's just gonna clown around and be embarrassing, but I fear he's become far more of a proper fascist these recent years as the world overall has adopted similar tendencies.

Just as people underestimated this election result, I don't think it's a good idea to just adopt a new set of coping mechanisms and arguments in which we ignore the possible consequences of these four upcoming years.

And perhaps the media simply won't give him the attention that he desires. — ssu

That won't happen... at all. American media is a market driven reality TV trash pile. It needs a reform into actual news. The problem with media, but primarily how media is in the US, is that they're desperately trying to compete with YouTube, social media and other online outlets. In doing so they've doubled down on the emotional, opinion driven bullshit and abandoned much of the investigative and critical force that were on the side of the people. They are only critical from an ideological perspective or market driven perspective, while trying to entertain in order to keep the attention of people.

What we need is organized, neutral and fact oriented media on YouTube. And while many have a presence there, I'm talking about big media channels that are respected and trusted by verifiable means. Something that fundamentally competes against traditional media, not in attention, but in quality that gains viewers long term.

But we also need to see the Democrats reform themselves. Get rid of the Clinton ties, put actual progressive politics into the forefront in order to exist FOR something and not just be the unmoving centrist "whateverist" that tries to win the votes of everyone.

If you try to please everyone you will please no one.

The Democrats need to be more left in their economics. They need to fight for free health care, need to be progressive in human rights, to help the middle class workers and don't ignore the homeless and opioid epidemic by just ignoring it. They need to be the party that help and enrich the majority of people and pushing back against the billionaire elits.

And they need to dare lose on those terms. Because this catering to the right wing voters to gain votes only seem to have gained around 5%. Compare that to how much voters on the left that they've lost due to abandoning more left-leaning policies.

The problem with Biden wasn't his age or anything, it's that he's an outspoken centrist. He rejects the more progressive left, he wanted to get into office in order "for the progressives not to destroy the democratic party".

But that's a fools errand.

There's nothing in the center but mediocrity. You don't have to be a political extremist to move society in a direction, you just need to have some direction.

If Trump and the republicans have fallen so far to the right they're basically becoming right wing fascists or christo-fascists, then the democrats can't solve that by also moving more to the right, they need to step more to the left. At least one step to the left of centrists.

When listening to someone like Bernie-Sanders, it's exactly the kind of left politics that the democrats need. The problem is that people are so politically illiterate that all they do is regurgitating influencer rhetoric against the kind of socialism he proposes, and in so labeling him as some kind of extremist. He's more in-line with the right wing politics in Scandinavia than anywhere near any communist socialist extremists. Any time that he speaks to actual people about their real world problems, it's like they get confused because of how rational his arguments and ideas are for actual working people.

On top of that, the democrats are so fucking bad at marketing. They're basically rich people trying to appeal to workers.



The democrats need to rid themselves of charlatans of left politics and actually have someone with more left leaning politics. There's a lot of people who want that kind of pushback that actually counters republicans... not just trying to get their voters.

They need a liberal populist "news" channel to compete with Fox News. Bit of competitive propaganda and empty soundbites will do wonders.

That just erodes truth more into the post-truth environment that makes people unable to know what is true and facts. We've already seen what catering to populist rhetoric to counter populists is doing to society... giving birth to more populists.

Fighting fire with fire needs to stop. There has to be a movement that rejects post-truth ideologies.

Fighting fire with fire needs to stop. There has to be a movement that rejects post-truth ideologies. — Christoffer

"They go low, we go high" just ain't working. The problem is that Democrats haven't been fighting fire with fire.

Populism is fine, just so long as it's good policies.

Populism is fine, just so long as it's good policies. — Michael

I reject this on the basis that it's short sighted for short term effects. Because in the long term it's eroding society. Going low does not mean just catering to post-truth narratives and populism, going low can be political strategies in the halls of power that sabotage right wing policies.

But going "low" can also mean speaking the damn truth, not twisting and turning to try and cater to everyone. But straight up call out the consequences of right wing politics. Tell the people straight what the consequences are and what the democrats will do to stop it. It's not really "low", but it's saying the hard truth straight in a way that's not trying to compromise itself to death.

The democrats have nothing but meaningless fluff in their speeches and communication to the people. There's nothing to hang onto. Like, stop bullshitting and just say straight "we're gonna make healthcare free for all! Into the best healthcare in the world" and dare to actually make that into policy.

Why is the choice to go actual dirty the first strategy when failing to fight back against the dirty? Maybe they should try to actually go higher rather than just talk like they do.

They're not going higher, they never really did.

The majority respond to populist, easy answers. They're not going to understand or want to hear complicated proposals that aren't going to give them everything they want. So the side that gives them what they want is the side that is going to win.

A bit of pragmatism over principle shouldn't be ignored.

Hah! No, just the simple vague stuff. "I'll make you better off, we'll stop giving away American money to foreign counties, you can keep driving you cars and not feel guilty or judged, I'll keep foreigners away, all the things you are scared of I'll protect you from, all the things you want I'll give you."

That kind of policy. And it is policy, even if it is of the vaguest kind. The democrats didn't say any of that, they didn't compete on those grounds, nor did they effectively undermine Trump's simplistic message.

The majority respond to populist, easy answers. They're not going to understand or want to hear complicated proposals that aren't going to give them everything they want. So the side that gives them what they want is the side that is going to win.

A bit of pragmatism over principle shouldn't be ignored. — Michael

Oh, you got there first. Yes I suspect this is exactly right.

The majority respond to populist, easy answers. They're not going to understand or want to hear complicated proposals that aren't going to give them everything they want. So the side that gives them what they want is the side that is going to win.

A bit of pragmatism over principle shouldn't be ignored. — Michael

The reason more and more respond to populism is due to the consequences of the rising post-truth environment. By aligning with what further enforces it, we're only digging that grave further.

We're not getting anywhere by using the tools that created this mess in the first place. We're only going to create more fact-resistant people who have no clue how to find out what's actually going on and the disdain for politics and people in power will only increase until there's nothing left.

It's absolutely the wrong path to lower yourself to their level. We need to get back to valuing truth, facts, science, research, proper journalism and rational reasoning over got damn reality television.

Can't you see what the actual consequences are for what you're proposing? How it's just further polarizing and feeding into the problems that is the foundation for the global rise of populist extremists?

You speak of pragmatism, but this is like saying that because they are extremists, we should be extremists. To be blunt, it's childish logic. And missing that upholding and elevating truth and facts back to its higher valued position as a foundation of society isn't a principles... it's defending the core of a functioning society. It's the foundations and pillars of a free society.

Your argument is unfortunately part of the problem. Keep lowering the bar until all we have are populists on each side, nothing gets done and people are left in a hell in which no one is able to find a trustworthy source of information for any actual truth.

Sorry, but in my opinion, that is an appalling scenario and I don't feel like people are really thinking things through enough when reacting to the rise of people like Trump.

You don't have to be a damn populist yourself to fight back against populism and fascism, you need to shout the truth as it is, in a raging fire! No one is doing this! And that's the problem. Everyone is catering to the manipulation of the stupid, everyone tries to trick people into a certain vote. Just tell the damn truth and make policies that actually help people and stop being afraid of the fascist monsters.

Just do the damn work instead of empty fluff talk, that's the democrats needed to fight the right.

What you are promoting is basically equivalent of carpet bombing the whole society just to win. Winning isn't enough, there need to be something left that wins.

He took on both parties, destroyed them both, and ended many despicable political dynasties. But most of all the behavior of his opposition pushed me to support him. One has to oppose an evil movement like that. Some of the policies were an added bonus.

This time around he's surrounded not by yes-men, but by people of similar or worse ideologies. And the reason things didn't get done last time around was that the rest of the government could block his worst policies. This time, the house and senate are aligned with Trump and he's already been blessed by the supreme court that a president can do whatever he wants without legal repercussions. — Christoffer

Do not forget that in 2016 Trump already had Republicans in power in both houses,

Trump had the backing already of the congress and he still squashed it away, basically. We are talking about Trump here, remember, attention span of a poodle, except when it's about himself. And what do you mean worse? I urge not to fall to Democrat propaganda, but truly look at just what would be that far worse.

What do you think will happen now that he does not have a new term after these four years? — Christoffer

A premature lame duck period starting sometime in 2025. Or you think that Trump is interested in something else than himself, like his successor and GOP winning in 2028? Hah!

I'd wish that he's just gonna clown around and be embarrassing, but I fear he's become far more of a proper fascist these recent years as the world overall has adopted similar tendencies. — Christoffer

Trump isn't a man with a mission. Trump can be vengeful, but he hasn't got a mission. Just look at it: in the first administration, the four years, he was incapable of building that big beautiful wall. He even stumbled in the financing of that contraption. How do you assume he'll transform the US into a fascist state? It's really nonsense.

Just as people underestimated this election result — Christoffer

People aren't underestimating this election result. In fact, there's no question about the elections results.

There's nothing in the center but mediocrity. You don't have to be a political extremist to move society in a direction, you just need to have some direction. — Christoffer

Isn't Trump moving in some direction?

If Trump and the republicans have fallen so far to the right they're basically becoming right wing fascists or christo-fascists, — Christoffer

Have they? And what is christo-fascism? I haven't heard that term. Is everything right-wing fascism now? I think it would be good to give some concrete examples here and not loose terms. Just like Harris in my view wasn't favoring socialism.

When listening to someone like Bernie-Sanders, it's exactly the kind of left politics that the democrats need. — Christoffer

For an European, Bernie Sanders sounds like a typical mainstream centrist social-democrat. The kind of politician that once in power is then accused of selling the ideology to and not left leaning enough. Well, modern social-democrats don't try to erase capitalism, but just "correct it's excesses", just like Bernie tries to do.

This is just the typical American polarization at work. Bernie or similar guys are totally electable. Bernie Sanders isn't some Marxist. But he will surely portrayed as the worst kind of maoist or whatever, just like Trump will be called a fascist. But that's just American politics.

On top of that, the democrats are so fucking bad at marketing. They're basically rich people trying to appeal to workers. — Christoffer

The old people ruling the two parties are basically bad at marketing. Trump as a great orator and a populist just seized one party, which basically saved the whole system as now people genuinely think that they can have change through the two-party system and simply don't understand that they can easily simply form a new party and win both parties. Because remember, Trump wasn't the candidate that the old GOP wanted. Please don't give a lecture on the legislative hurdles and the stranglehold that the two parties have over the system. When there really a will, there's a way.

But most of all the behavior of his opposition pushed me to support him. — NOS4A2

It is difficult to experience and perceive all of that when I don't live in the USA. Do you imply that their opponents play dirty to poisoning the people? I thought the main point of voting for Trump was economic features, but I wasn't aware that the attitude of Democrats was also a reason.

It's a good idea.

But it would go against monied interests, so it can't happen. At least not through Cable News.

His opponents come from all parties, so it isn’t really about parties.

I remember in 2016 they were chasing down Trump supporters and beating them, attacking them, or otherwise harassing them with impunity. It wasn’t just the routine bigotry you’ll read from people on here, but it was pervasive movement throughout the United States. It has captured the big institutions, the press, academia, government. There is a moral panic occurring and I naturally side with the victims of it, and it looks like the tides are turning.

It is interesting to read your testimony because the brief information that arrived here told basically otherwise. Republicans—or Trump supporters, specifically—were the ones who went against the other. We didn't have a great live follow-up American election because the press was covering the flood disasters in Valencia. But most of the time it seemed that Democrats were labelled as chill people who voted against a liar and felon.

It’s called “churnalism”. The press in other countries parrot the press from the United States. This way they can save costs on doing their own journalism. Understandably, most people do not have the time to look for the truth so the accept the skewed view.

He took on both parties, destroyed them both, and ended many despicable political dynasties. But most of all the behavior of his opposition pushed me to support him. One has to oppose an evil movement like that. Some of the policies were an added bonus. — NOS4A2

That's really interesting thanks. I can understand that appeal. Do you see both major parties as a kind of pro status-quo, pro establishment interest, and Trump as a figure who can smash it up (to an extent)?

Are you strongly distinguishing Trump from the Republican party, or at least how the republican party was before Trump?

Yes to both questions. The GOP of Bush and the neoconservatives is largely over, with many of them now voting Democrat. I hope the Democrats can have the same evolution but voters can’t even have the same candidate everyone voted for in the primary.

The majority respond to populist, easy answers. They're not going to understand or want to hear complicated proposals that aren't going to give them everything they want. So the side that gives them what they want is the side that is going to win. — Michael

I don't think this is what is actually going on, at least it's not the complete picture (although I find it highly pertinent to explore why some people think this way).

Rather, I find most people operate by the priciples of socioeconomic hierarchy. That is, they listen only to those they consider higher than themselves. Most people are not convinced by arguments, but by the other person's status (as they interpret it).

Saying, for example, "Who do you think you are that you think you're even allowed to talk to me, when I make ten times as much as you do??!!" sums up this principle very well.

It's a pragmatic cognitive heuristic that safeguards a person's internal consistency in terms of the thusly selected input from others that they allow into their lives.

That just erodes truth more into the post-truth environment that makes people unable to know what is true and facts. We've already seen what catering to populist rhetoric to counter populists is doing to society... giving birth to more populists.

Fighting fire with fire needs to stop. There has to be a movement that rejects post-truth ideologies. — Christoffer

Philosophers should know better than to try to reach people through arguments.

Most people respond to (perceived) status, not to arguments. Respect for power is paramount.

(This is true even in academia. Just imagine a student majoring in philosophy daring to disagree on a claim made by her professor in a lecture. This amounts to risking failing the exam.)

@Wayfarer
"Yeah! Hate wins! Lies, division and dishonesty carry the day. Don't it make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, Baker?"

It's not Trump's fault that you're a maladapted idealist.
Brouhaha!

Philosophers should know better than to try to reach people through arguments.

Most people respond to (perceived) status, not to arguments. Respect for power is paramount.

(This is true even in academia. Just imagine a student majoring in philosophy daring to disagree on a claim made by her professor in a lecture. This amounts to risking failing the exam.) — baker

I'm not sure how what you say connects to what I said there? What I'm saying is that the way to defeat populism and post-truth degrading of the importance of facts is to return back the status of truth and facts as the highest value and something to care for, not to misuse. Post-truth ideologies use bad faith arguments to reduce facts and truth down to imaginary relativities, making any statement that is actually based on facts into equal to a statement based on nothing but a made up foundation or misunderstanding of a source.

This isn't about reaching people, it's about dismantling an ideology or behavior that is the driving force behind the inability of people to gather around truth and facts about the world. Without that, society has nothing to build on and we erode any form of ability to have justice, health, economy, security or knowledge overall.

One example of this is how some would respond to a factual statement with "facts are just something that enough people agreed upon", not as a definition, but as an argument for why we shouldn't trust a fact. And this type of reasoning is done without any form of nuance with respect to evaluating the initial facts first or understand that consensus-formed conclusions made by experts in a field still is the most optimal way for how we humans form a body of knowledge and what we define as a scientific fact used to further build knowledge.

It's used as blanket statements, mostly by people deep into echo chambers, to dismiss any factually based reasoning. In essence, it is a constantly repeating weapon to shoot down anything that is a threat to their made up delusions about the world.

This has become the kind of behavior that feeds the post-truth society. In which experts are lowered to the same level as amateurs and no one either listens to actual facts, or has any ability to collaborate with other in the pursuit of actual truth. It's a breeding ground for conspiracy theories and an inability to see through lies of charismatic people.

When Trump blames the bad economy on Biden, that's a false statement that ignores the global reasons for inflation and the work Biden's government has put in to mitigate it. But the bulk of his voters (not the evangelical christo-fascists, but the seemingly normal voters) voted because of the economy, because they wanted Trump to fix "the economy that Biden destroyed". It doesn't matter if experts point out that this is a faulty narrative, it doesn't matter if they try to inform; the people do not value expert's input anymore because they have, through the constant erosion of definitions, lost their ability to spot when something is true, something is an actual fact, or how to check if something is.

It's basically a lynching of the concept of truth, facts, rational reasoning and scientific methods, all in favor of the masses sense of individualism forming an arrogance by making their ego feel like the protagonist who knows better than everyone else, rejecting any ideas that do not fit their world view by bad faith grinding down the defining elements of knowledge into absolute noise.

This has to stop.

This isn't about reaching people, it's about dismantling an ideology or behavior /.../ — Christoffer

How do you propose to "/dismantle/ an ideology or behavior" without reaching people?

You can write a book where you "/dismantle/ an ideology or behavior" all you want, but if people don't read your book or don't heed it, how have you accomplished anything?

Seriously Michael, for someone intelligent (it seems), this ridiculousness of this post is utterly perplexing.

How do you propose to "/dismantle/ an ideology or behavior" without reaching people?

You can write a book where you "/dismantle/ an ideology or behavior" all you want, but if people don't read your book or don't heed it, how have you accomplished anything? — baker

Ok, now I get what you were asking. And it's the problem. If anything, it's a problem in society that I think should get more attention.

One strategy is marketing.
The only problem is that the reach of marketing as an educational form for the masses is very expensive as it needs funding that will never have any money-based ROI. We can argue that the ROI is rather that society will function better, but even the governments might not have the interest in it since much of their current policies and communication is now dependent on post-truth rhetoric while facts are only so good as those who can promote their own party.

Such marketing is sometimes done by organisations that work to mitigate and inform about disinformation and misinformation. But their reach is so limited that they drown in the current attention economy. So it would need billions in funding to reach large and wide and it needs to keep going for years in order to become part of societal norms.

Another is laws and regulations.
Stronger enforcements on social media platforms to mitigate spread of disinformation and misinformation. To mark not only disinformation, but also statements and info that are factual. It's also possible to criminalize participation in the spread of disinformation and misinformation; meaning, virally shared clips will charge everyone who spreads it, not just the initial source. If a 100 000 people spread it, they can be charged a fine. This would incentivize to better check what it is you are sharing and make sure viral clips, especially marked as factual or official, gets promoted. We can also enforce algorithms to not promote conflict language, as this has been used for algorithms as conflict language drives engagement. Promote level-headed discussions over conflict, even if it doesn't drive engagement as much; as well as promote people who generally has a better ability to form proper arguments (AI can analyze and form such an algorithm easily today).

That's just what I can think of, but there are so many laws and regulations that can be put into place that promote both verified information and better civil discussions, which helps form a better attitude and behavior around the concept of discussions that are civil and fact based. Flipping the current status quo of the worst shit being put at the top of the page and the better people and arguments being almost invisible.

Just think about this forum, there's no algorithm that promote certain language over others. Imagine if mostly the people who're referenced in the "Bannings" thread were the posts that dominated the front page and how that would affect the general language of others and how they treat arguments. It might be that we don't even need algorithms for promoting good behavior, ban promoting algorithms altogether and we will still get a better atmosphere on social media.

Another strategy is also a simple reform to education.
While schools under a good educational systems generally have critical thinking and media literacy built into parts of all parts of education, there may be a need to include critical thinking, media literacy and epistemology as a fundamental and large part of education overall. Education hasn't really kept up the pace with the rise of post-truth behavior, and so we need a much larger focus on forming a good protection against manipulation, propaganda, disinformation and misinformation, while forming an automatic response to statements that steers the person to fact check more often and not accept things at face value or just because the speaker is charismatic.

Failure of in education has also been attributed to why so many fall for leaders like Trump. But I want to take it further and improve even for those who get a good education. It needs to be even more focused on understanding all of this than just having fractions of such information spread out within existing curriculums.

---

I could go on, but the problem isn't that there is a lack of ideas, strategies or work that can be put into figuring things out, it's that there's not much push on figuring this out on a large scale, even thought this problem is on a global scale.

People are stuck within the post-truth behaviors, which means even the discussions on how to do this falls within similar bad faith arguments and ends up in irrelevant dismantling definitions among non-experts with the power to decide what to implement or not, and things stall and ends up not happening.

It kind of falls on those who can do this out of the will alone. Those who can start a non-profit to help work with this. But much of the funding for world scale changes is in the ten digits. No one will care until things collapse and people are forced to rebuild.

But we still need to do something.

When Trump blames the bad economy on Biden, that's a false statement that ignores the global reasons for inflation and the work Biden's government has put in to mitigate it. But the bulk of his voters (not the evangelical christo-fascists, but the seemingly normal voters) voted because of the economy, because they wanted Trump to fix "the economy that Biden destroyed". It doesn't matter if experts point out that this is a faulty narrative, it doesn't matter if they try to inform; the people do not value expert's input anymore because they have, through the constant erosion of definitions, lost their ability to spot when something is true, something is an actual fact, or how to check if something is.

It's basically a lynching of the concept of truth, facts, rational reasoning and scientific methods, all in favor of the masses sense of individualism forming an arrogance by making their ego feel like the protagonist who knows better than everyone else, rejecting any ideas that do not fit their world view by bad faith grinding down the defining elements of knowledge into absolute noise.

This has to stop. — Christoffer

I agree with most of what you said, except (what I perceive to be) the undercurrent of hopefulness.

Politicians have tended to elected by their electioneering practices. They don't get elected by proposing well thought out policies. They get elected by dumbing it down - distilling it to sound-bites that are directionally congruent with policy choices, while spun to be appealing. So (for most), the voting choice is based on the superficial. The problem: this has created the opportunity for a man to run entirely on the superficial - honing the message to make it more appealing.

The proper solution would be for the population to delve more deeply, to try to understand the impact of what is said - to demand more detailed policy positions, and also to understand that even the best policies will also have some negative consequences. The problem is, this isn't going to happen. People don't take the time, or they lack the skills, to understand. We will perpetually be at risk of being victimized by demagogues.

Politicians have tended to elected by their electioneering practices. They don't get elected by proposing well thought out policies. They get elected by dumbing it down - distilling it to sound-bites that are directionally congruent with policy choices, while spun to be appealing. So (for most), the voting choice is based on the superficial. The problem: this has created the opportunity for a man to run entirely on the superficial - honing the message to make it more appealing.

The proper solution would be for the population to delve more deeply, to try to understand the impact of what is said - to demand more detailed policy positions, and also to understand that even the best policies will also have some negative consequences. The problem is, this isn't going to happen. People don't take the time, or they lack the skills, to understand. We will perpetually be at risk of being victimized by demagogues. — Relativist

What you describe is our current post-truth environment. Above your post I've mentioned a few strategies to mitigate it.

The thing that is important to remember is that politicians and demagogues are only as powerful as the people let them. Even in states of high authoritarianism. What post-truth is doing is slowly eroding society into being more subservient to populists and demagogues, so fighting against post-truth is the way to heal back society into being more able and willing to put leaders under more scrutiny.

Movements can be run to fill the gaps that leaders don't take responsibility for. The key is for the people who haven't yet fallen into post-truth mentalities to organize and collaborate and install mitigation strategies against further erosion of knowledge.

Simply, get creative and organize, instead of waiting for someone to swoop in as some savior, there won't be one.