If you enjoy applying classic scientific concepts to novel situations, then I must highly recommend this column by Janet Factor in The Flammifer. It was published back in August 2016 in a paper newsletter from the Center For Inquiry named Freethought In Action. Back then I just skimmed it and put it away for later examination, which has now arrived. First, she gives an admirably abstract and concise definition of the process of evolution (which will upset those folks who think evolution only applies to biological processes), and then she describes the candidacy of Donald Trump in evolutionary terms:
The Republican party is in disarray because its leadership has failed to grasp the fact that Trump is not interested in playing politics. Donald Trump is playing evolution instead. …
Now we can see what an enormous advantage a complete indifference to actualities is to someone generating political memes. Being willing to say absolutely anything enables one to maximize the number of variants produced; it removes any limit on the mutation rate and opens up many more avenues for movement more quickly. Even someone who is crafting convincing lies is at a disadvantage to someone who constantly and swiftly generates random changes of all sorts. The raw material of available elements is hugely multiplied thereby. …
When it comes to selection, Trump’s utter lack of consistency is an advantage. If an idea does not work for him, he immediately abandons it. He feels no need to defend any position. Far be it from Trump to sacrifice popularity for principle! He pours his energy into whichever random offspring multiply, and wastes none on making the case for those that falter. Thus he pays almost no price for mistakes, and never expends any political capital. There is no limit to his adaptability. Rather than struggling to overcome selective forces, he rides them wherever they go.
What an irony that so many of Trump’s supporters are creationists! He is living proof that a totally mindless process can lead to runaway success. Donald Trump is running a memetic evolutionary algorithm that is optimized to create mass appeal quickly. Does this mean he will inevitably win the presidency? No, but it means it may be incredibly hard to stop him. The usual tactics will not work, because he is not playing the usual game.
And, as we saw, he won by the slimmest of margins.
It’s one of those quietly marvelous columns which generates ideas hours after you’ve read it. I particularly like the schadenfreude inherent in the idea that the GOP, which generally rejects the idea of evolution, finding itself victimized, even destroyed, by a veritable avatar of evolution. While basic knowledge of evolution would not, on its own, have saved them from their fate, the inevitable accompanying devotion to tangible, reality-derived truth might have given them the inclination to demand Trump conform to the generally accepted norms of political campaigning – and not indulge, for instance, in fake math, which has now even leaked into Trump’s budget. In other words, they should have bounced him out on his ass as soon as it became clear he wasn’t a serious debater.
The loam of creationism does appear to be rich for Mr. Trump, but the garden plot of the credulous does have its limits. Janet closes with a warning:
This is a test of our success in educating and socializing our population to a level commensurate with continued civilization. If our failures in that effort over the last few decades have been too great, if in our complacency vigilance has flagged for too long, the ship of state will founder. There will be no “Women and children first!” this time. We will all go down together into waters icy, dark, and deep.
Trump’s election is not necessarily our doom. Outside of his little garden plot of sadly credulous supporters, his vast and continuous incompetence, dismaying as it is, is also exposed for all to see, thus depriving him of the soil he needs. I will borrow a philosophical concept to describe him, that of the tabula rasa, or blank slate, upon which many choose to read in him what they wish to see: white supremacism being victorious, American weakness being remedied, evil immigrants on the rampage. But his inability, even disinclination, to deliver on many of his promises must inevitably penetrate the consciousness of all but the most credulous & foolish Trump supporters – not as fast as I could wish, but with certainty.
Go read her column. If you don’t recall evolution so well, maybe refresh first on that.
