We have seen various flood metaphors used to describe ways to distort and destroy the democratic project in the Trump era. Scott Morrison’s accusation that he is the subject of a “political lynching” in the Robodebt inquiry fits neatly into the paradigm.
One of the strategists at the centre of creating President Donald Trump is Steve Bannon. He encouraged Trump to escalate his firehose of lies. The concept of a “firehose of falsehood” is a form of propaganda exploited by Putin constantly. The Rand corporation identified it and gave the device that label. The strategy involves a figure or regime lying hard and long enough, echoed through various platforms, to confuse the public.
Not only does the strategy escalate way beyond the ability to fact-check, but the public’s entire sense of faith in the institution of government is destroyed. This promotes helplessness and apathy.
Bannon encouraged the mendacious Trump to “flood the zone with shit” to neutralise the impact of a media that could not be controlled and intimidated in quite the way that Putin’s media could. The Democrats did not concern Bannon as antagonists: removing the ability of the media to expose Trump’s hollow venality and vindictiveness in any powerful way served the team better.
Flooding the zone with shit involved maximising the use of Trump as an outrage generator. The more totally unprecedented and unhinged actions and quotes he spewed, the harder it has been for any media outlet or individual to maintain horror at a single instance. The new “normal” becomes something that would have been unthinkable a single presidential term back.
The Dark Money funded “think tanks” and strategists had spent decades creating an alternative reality for the “conservative” voter. With the aid of social media, Trump’s presidency took that basis and forged an epistemic crisis. There is no longer a shared knowledge base or ethical framework for making decisions about what a society needs to accomplish.
Trump and team’s lies about the 2020 election theft have led to the shattering of faith in the electoral process amongst Republicans. It is a dire development. The irony is that Republicans have been working for decades to tilt the electoral playing field even further in their favour than even the original structure had leaned. It is the Republicans who consistently “steal” elections.
All these lies have created a divorce between realities that it is fostering a second American civil war. The MAGA world believes that demonic forces of “woke” are an existential threat to themselves and the nation. The fact-based world fears the cultish MAGA Right will bring their guns to destroy what they fear.
One outcome of the firehose of lies and flooding the zone with shit is the discovery that breaking norms and the law are more tolerable if heaped up. A single wrong held to account is something society understands. When many wrongdoings are held to account, the situation can look like a “witch-hunt” by the opposition. One impeachment is comprehensible: two must mean the Democrats are anti-democratic.
The reward lies in doing as much wrong as can be managed.
The MAGA Right believes that old-school Republicans and the Democrats are lying about Trump’s crimes. The more repercussions he faces for the many norm-shattering acts and crimes that he has committed, the more certain they become that Biden leads an authoritarian state that works to try to destroy its opposition rather than contest it fairly.
So at every stage, Trump messages to that MAGA base that he is the target of a witch-hunt, or subject to the kind of horror perpetrated by Nazi Germany. Not only does he feed the grievance that enrages the crowd, but he also fundraises off it. It’s a lucrative con.
Australia is somewhat protected by compulsory voting, preferential voting and our independent electoral commissions from the perversions of democratic process that so mar the American system. The Albanese government is slowly deciding whether and how to tackle money and lies in politics to help arm us against America’s fate.
We have much to undo. The Coalition had taken us far down the competitive authoritarian pathway to illiberalism, echoing the Republican Party’s strategies. Corruption was so widespread in the Coalition decade that the National Anti-Corruption Commission is set to struggle to select the most pressing of the high number of referrals it has received.
Like the MAGA Republicans, Right wing figures here have begun to discredit the integrity of our elections.
Scott Morrison’s government used enough misleading material to warrant the publication of a book on the topic.
The US culture war “idiot balls,” like gas cooktops, keep bobbing up to distract from the monumental challenges that our era is facing. Even more shocking is the decision to use the benign Voice to Parliament both as a weapon against Albanese and to enrage their base with lies.
We must not allow our politicians to copy the MAGA Republicans’ despicable strategy that dictates a single wrongdoing is a mistake, but multiple wrongdoings can become the weapon to achieve victory. This is so even if politicians are only trying to save their reputations.
A firehose of wrongdoing must not become good political strategy here too.
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