This correlation of populism and profit in fact marks a worrisome historical shift. At the end of the 19th century, when populism first emerged as a coherent political force in the United States, it acted in large part as a check on the dominant capitalist forces of the day. The People’s Party platform of 1892 attacked monopolies, championed workers’ rights, and declared that “the fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind.” Populists campaigned for government regulation, not against it. Today, populist furies constitute a direct source of profit for some of the most dynamic and economically important companies on the planet. The Koch brothers do not even bother to squirm away from this obvious fact. Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg do squirm, but it is becoming increasingly clear that they do not control the forces they have unleashed.
Faced with this very real crisis, what should we do? At the end of her book, Rosenfeld quickly runs through a number of worthwhile initiatives: working to preserve judicial independence and the integrity of elections, fostering and protecting investigative journalism and higher education, and so forth. She also argues that, to counter the unruly economic forces that have helped to generate the current crisis, the most important answer lies in political action and government regulation. “We in the United States and elsewhere need to think long and hard,” she writes, “about the pitfalls of allowing a fully free-market approach, where money is unlimited,” to dominate the mechanisms by which we arrive at political truths. “Enhanced rules and regulations for communication are required if truth is to be either the starting point of our political process or the aim.”
This is, admittedly, a project fraught with peril. The line between enhanced rules and regulations for communication and the repressive abridgment of free speech can all too easily be transgressed, especially when the power to regulate falls into the wrong hands. In addition, such projects can easily backfire, as increasing regulation feeds conspiracy theories about government control and makes it easier than ever for populist firebrands to depict mainstream reporting and opinion as “fake news.” In the end, the most effective way to address the problem is to restrain the economic power of the companies and interests that profit most directly from populist attacks on epistemological authority, as well as the underlying distributions of power that have led to the current popular discontent.
But even as progressive forces work toward this long-term goal, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News are not about to start moderating their opinions, and Facebook and Twitter are unlikely to do much to regulate themselves, no matter how much earnest criticism they receive in The New York Times. It is also time to start serious discussions about how to keep the immensely powerful communications forces unleashed in the past generation from immeasurably harming the public good. These are discussions to be entered into carefully, judiciously, moderately. But they are important to have.
- Where does truth fit into democracy?
Faced with this very real crisis, what should we do? At the end of her book, Rosenfeld quickly runs through a number of worthwhile initiatives: working to preserve judicial independence and the integrity of elections, fostering and protecting investigative journalism and higher education, and so forth. She also argues that, to counter the unruly economic forces that have helped to generate the current crisis, the most important answer lies in political action and government regulation. “We in the United States and elsewhere need to think long and hard,” she writes, “about the pitfalls of allowing a fully free-market approach, where money is unlimited,” to dominate the mechanisms by which we arrive at political truths. “Enhanced rules and regulations for communication are required if truth is to be either the starting point of our political process or the aim.”
This is, admittedly, a project fraught with peril. The line between enhanced rules and regulations for communication and the repressive abridgment of free speech can all too easily be transgressed, especially when the power to regulate falls into the wrong hands. In addition, such projects can easily backfire, as increasing regulation feeds conspiracy theories about government control and makes it easier than ever for populist firebrands to depict mainstream reporting and opinion as “fake news.” In the end, the most effective way to address the problem is to restrain the economic power of the companies and interests that profit most directly from populist attacks on epistemological authority, as well as the underlying distributions of power that have led to the current popular discontent.
But even as progressive forces work toward this long-term goal, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News are not about to start moderating their opinions, and Facebook and Twitter are unlikely to do much to regulate themselves, no matter how much earnest criticism they receive in The New York Times. It is also time to start serious discussions about how to keep the immensely powerful communications forces unleashed in the past generation from immeasurably harming the public good. These are discussions to be entered into carefully, judiciously, moderately. But they are important to have.
- Where does truth fit into democracy?
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