Sometimes all it takes is someone listing information to raise awareness. Steve Benen just did that:
What’s more, as regular readers know, Trump’s contempt for American journalism is deeply at odds with our constitutional principles, including his assertion in 2017 that he considers it “disgusting” that the press “is able to write whatever it wants to write.”
That came on the heels of the president suggesting he might want to challenge the broadcasting licenses of outlets that run stories he doesn’t like.
Which came on the heels of Trump calling on Congress to investigate American media outlets that publish news he disapproves of.
Which came on the heels of Trump telling a rally audience that journalists are “really, really dishonest people” and “bad people,” who “don’t like our country.”
Which came on the heels of Trump describing the media as “the enemy of the American people.”
Which came on the heels of Trump asking whether it’s time to “change libel laws,” presumably to allow him to target news organizations he doesn’t like in court.
And more and more.
Quite a few years ago, close observers of the Republican Party came up with the label epistemic closure to describe the tendency of Republicans to talk only to each other, and in fact to really believe that only they had a grip on Truth. Why is this important? Think of it using a biological analogy. The more opinions one fully and honestly considers on a topic, the better the competition between those opinions. The better the competition, the more likely the flawed opinions will be flawed. Much like breeding between families, this generally leads to more improved outcomes, aka offspring.
Edward’s Dodo, by Roelant Savery.
But epistemic closure? This is akin to incest. The opinions, not having to compete with much of anything while within the context of the entity afflicted with epistemic closure, only must face criticism by those who may have formed them in the first place. And in a world of team politics, that criticism will be muted or non-existent because of the hierarchical nature of the context. Thus, lower-quality opinions, which we might define as those which do not conform well to a reality that can be hard to perceive (thus the need for a cross-breeding analogy), have no competition which might vanquish them. They may be dodo birds[1], but while they exist on the islands of epistemic closure, they are safe.
But it’s a rare opinion that does not eventually collide with reality and find its general regard reduced as a consequence, and that’s one of Trump’s biggest problems. The opinions of the Republican Party, and those introduced[2] by Trump, do not exist shorn of context. At some point, they will be put into effect.
Which means they’ll come into contact with cold, remorseless reality.
We’ve seen this happen several times already, haven’t we? I’ll cite the easy example, the debacle in Kansas. The Republican Party opinion? Tax reductions always pay for themselves. Except when they don’t, and the State finds itself in a hole[3].
Governor Brownback, the principal driver behind the tax reduction, never yelled Uncle, never had the nerve to admit defeat, but the Kansas Legislature rolled back the tax reductions and is hoping to get Kansas back on track.
How does this all connect to epistemic closure? Epistemic closure is one of the crucial tools President Trump uses to keep his base loyal, which is to say that exposing the opinion, the Holy Tenets, of the Republican Party, as failures is simply unacceptable because the base may then have doubt about the political leaders.
How does the base get information? Through the media. The problem for the Trump is that the media tries to find facts and tell the truth, and that cannot but cast a dark shadow over his reputation and eventual legacy, not to mention his immediate prestige.
Therefore, the media must be discredited at every turn. Not just because the media may strip the clothing from Trump, but because the base cannot be exposed to the failures of those opinions formed in the bubble of epistemic closure. If that base realizes those supposedly sacred doctrines are wrong, then not only does Trump fold, but so does all the rest of the GOP.
This is how Trump controls the GOP, by being the guy who’s frantically patching the holes in the bubble that keeps the Republican Party more or less together. If they don’t support him, all these elected officials, at all levels, could easily face political death and dismemberment as disillusioned members of the base, realizing that their Holy Tenets are little more than frantic chants of fake spells, lose their faith and stop voting for those who really didn’t know any better than themselves – but had been better butt-kissers.
I suppose it’s not a big surprise, but it’s worth noting that not all information comes through media. Sometimes, it just comes through life. When you get fired from your job, or can’t sell your crops, for instance. That’s when the whole schlepping scheme might collapse and leave the President.
Naked.
1 The dodo was a flightless avian, native to and found only on the island of Mauritius. It was hunted to extinction by humans and invasive species. It is the symbol of a creature so impotent and incompetent that it did not survive.
2 Or at least quasi-legitimized by Trump’s endorsement, real or postulated.
3 The same lesson is being writ large for the United States as a whole in the wake of the 2017 tax reductions. United States debt is growing at an alarming date, the Trump Administration is pushing Congress to do something to raise the borrowing limits, and the GOP? Not making a peep about the debt that they proclaimed would sink the nation a few trillion dollars ago.
