In the United States, the extreme right in both political parties no longer needs the comfort of a counterfeit ideology in which appeals are made to the common good, human decency, and democratic values. On the contrary, control is in the hand of relatively few ultra-wealthy individuals and corporations, while power is global and free from the limited politics of the weakened democratic state. In fact, authoritarian hierarchies consolidate, state and corporate power increasingly merge. These processes only serve to further normalize the militarization of local police forces, the increasing invasiveness of the surveillance state, and all of the resources brought to bear by a culture of national insecurity aligned with the war on terror. Informed judgment has given way to a corporate-controlled media apparatus that is enriched by the theatrical bullying and turmoil that bigoted intolerance clearly seems to generate, all the while reinforcing the racialized class war and value systems of the white-dominated financial elite.
Following Arendt’s description, a dark cloud of political and ethical misinformation has descended on the United States, creating a crisis of memory and agency. As I have stressed throughout this book (America at War with Itself), intolerance has become something that now occupies a privileged, if not celebrated, place in America’s increasingly authoritarian landscape. A new kind of infantilism and culture of ignorance now shapes daily life as agency devolves into a kind of anti-intellectual cretinism evident in the babble produced by Fox News and other mainstream media, celebrity culture, the cult of high-stakes testing, and politicians and pundits who support creationism, argue against climate change, and denounce almost any form of reason. There is a growing body of scientific evidence that concludes that the financial elite and ultra-rich “are, on average, less likely to exhibit empathy, less likely to respect norms and even laws, more likely to cheat, than those occupying lower rungs on the economic ladder.” It should not be surprising that when a group of narcissistic and militantly self-interest billionaires use their power and influence to reorder society, public goods are defunded in favor of private rights, just as citizenship is dismissed in favor of consumerism. Intolerance reorders society in ways that serve to further gentrify education and democracy, as civil rights, privacy, and civic power fold before the trump card of national security played out on a daily basis.
Politics has become synonymous with a culture of warfare, just as systemic economic predation and state-sponsored violence increasingly find legitimation in the discourse of fear and insecurity. Too many people today accept the notion that their fate is solely a matter of individual responsibility, irrespective of wider structural forces. This much-promoted ideology, favored by the rich, suggest that human relations boil down to competition and combat. People today are expected to inhabit a set of economic relations in which the only obligation is to fight for one’s own self-interest. Yet there is more at work here than a flight from social responsibility, community, and the common good. Also, lost is the importance of those social solidarities, modes of community, public spheres, and cultural apparatuses crucial for a sustainable democracy-centered society.
The egalitarianism of democracy and its promise of social protections are among the first forms of collateral damage lost to a new corporate Gilded Age and its fantasy worlds of passive consumption, free social media celebrity, and entertainment for the masses, along with more privatization, deregulation, and wealth for the few. At the same time, the civic and formative cultures that make social protections and community central to democratic life are in danger of being eliminated altogether. As militarization and market-centered authoritarianism tighten their grip on all aspects of society, democratic institutions and public spheres are being choked off, downsized, and defunded. As these institutions vanish—including public defenders, housing, schools, and libraries—there is also a serious erosion of the discourse of community, social justice, equality, compassion, economic cooperation, environmental preservation, and the common good. – America at War with Itself
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