Comment by khawkins | Hacker News Reader

Comment by khawkins | Hacker News Reader

What we're seeing isn't a breakdown in "rationality" or "care for truth", we're seeing a global breakdown in the trust of authority. Vast numbers of people, including the president of the country and his supporters, aren't rejecting truth or rationality, they have so little faith in the supposed arbiters of truth, the mainstream media and academia, that they're willing to accept shoddy reporting that confirms their worldview. Indeed, what rational individual would trust a person who regularly shows prejudice and open contempt for their political beliefs, worldview, and concerns.

Instead of trying to to repair that trust, pieces like this hand-wring about "fake news" and the rise of anti-intellectualism:

"Why won't these dumb bigots listen to us? Don't they know we have their best interests at heart? If only they were more educated, like us, they'd accept our reporting and science uncritically!"

People like the author are unwilling to see how focusing on the "truth" of trite, inconsequential "facts" like whether Trump's inauguration was the biggest ever is pointless when compared to issues that really affect people. The fact that so much media attention was devoted to such a trivial dispute is a testament to the devolution of national dialogue and debate. Instead of digging deep into the meat of issues that affect people and addressing the central argument, it's a never-ending labyrinth of "gotchas":

"So and so was false when he said 64%, it's actually 55%."

"So and so said this, and this group came out demanding an apology."

This sort of reporting might be more forgivable if the rest didn't read like propaganda, twisting news stories into things that are "technically true", but designed to give readers a false impression. Media writers have realized that most read only the headline and maybe the first few lines before clicking away, and the writers see this as an opportunity to inject hyper-partisan deception into the minds of their readers this way.

> People like the author are unwilling to see how focusing on the "truth" of trite, inconsequential "facts" like whether Trump's inauguration was the biggest ever is pointless when compared to issues that really affect people.

I believe the notion is that if people are willing to commit themselves to boldfaced, objectively false (by any measure) lies, that's exceptionally strong evidence about their honesty and sincerity regarding more complex topics--topics that are much more difficult to pin down with simple facts.

But you're right--the constant stream of fact checking at this point is just exhausting and pointless and merely serves to drive ad revenue. Hugo Chavez fairly won election after election with endless rivers of rhetoric and excuses every bit as bombastic as Trump's. Indeed, Chavez had his own TV program during his presidency, something Trump can only approximate. I'll bet that most Venezuelan voters never truly believed most of what Chavez said; they just didn't care. He embodied a fantasy to which they had wedded themselves. Charismatic leaders do that, especially populist ones.

At some point the aggregated, revealed concerns of the body politic shift from reality (facts, hard-nosed politicking, etc) to fantasy. And I don't mean fantasy as in not objective--the life of every community is a reflection of various narratives. I mean fantasy as in the rules for decision making are intrinsically different; consequences become completely divorced from causation. America seems to have made that shift.

especially populist ones

That word is used by people for politicians they don’t like.

Can you give me an example of a politician who is not populist?

I have nothing wrong with populist presidents. In fact, I want populist presidents, as until Trump the Republican party was dominated by ideologues. The Democratic party has begun descending down that path, which IMO is one reason why Jerry Brown--or his more ethically challenged twin, Willie Brown, for that matter--isn't getting many visitors in retirement.

A good leader is responsive to manifest problems, as opposed to problems in the abstract (which are often manufactured and non-existent); prefers evidence-based policies; and most of all is willing and eager to make course corrections (reality is messy and dynamic). In general it's difficult to do that today without being populist, as a populist almost by definition enjoys greater independence from the political machine and special interests. (Not that political machines aren't important! Hillary was nominated by the DNC machine over Sanders because the DNC machine was built to prevent someone like Trump from being nominated.) Of course, being populist doesn't mean you'll be a good leader; it depends on the character and ability of the person in power, and the extent to which their personal ambitions can be checked by the system--i.e. by making success the only option, as opposed to permitting a populist leader to manufacture success through lies and deceit.

A non-populist president would be someone like George H. W. Bush (the first Bush), who clearly represented elitist interests, albeit an enlightened elitism. America has a long history of this sort of elitist politician, largely to our[1] long-term benefit, starting most famously with George Washington. But H. W. Bush was the last one. Now we have a mix of ideologically (George W. Bush, on balance) and populist (Obama, on balance; Trump as an archetype) driven leadership, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

[1] Notwithstanding that some groups do better than others. But so much about healthy democracy is about minimizing the risks of majority power, and minorities are often at their most vulnerable when populism controls. See, for example, Andrew Jackson, whose politics and character may be the closest to that of Trump. Or consider that during the heyday of union power mid century, big business and African Americans sometimes had an enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend relationship, as unions were notoriously racist. Look at how minorities have faired in the Middle East when populist governments come into power in Iran, Iraq, Israel, Egypt, Turkey, etc.

> Can you give me an example of a politician who is not populist?

One example that comes to mind is states with both a president and prime minister, and the president is meant to remain somewhat outside the political fray.

Perhaps the opposite of a populist is a technocrat: a leader who works quietly behind the scenes to build trust and consensus with other parties and stakeholders, while respecting constitutional norms and the separation of powers.

As such, good examples of non-populist politicians would be, by definition, leaders that don't generate a lot of clickbaity headlines and don't achieve a great deal of global attention, although perhaps Angela Merkel is a good example.

The defining characteristic of a populist leader is that they claim to have the backing of The People (often, in practice, a minority of voters, much less of the populace) who uses this supposed mandate to dismiss any checks and balances against their power, while consistently presenting a divisive "us versus them" narrative often one-way directly to the public through uncritical broadcast media or rallies, rather than accepting public scrutiny from journalists or opposing politicians.

But sure, maybe you think all politicians are equally bad that way.

> Perhaps the opposite of a populist is a technocrat.

Aside from possibly Angela Merkel, can you name some technocats that are good examples of what you describe?

My impression is that technocrats, generally, are just as populist as all the others, if not more deliberately so.

The amount of time spent on voter sentiment and polling data, not to mention a target audience of 'intelligent, enlightened voters', makes me almost as suspicious of 'technocrats' as they make of the typical populists.

Many examples:

Angela Merkel - formidable and respected even by her opponents, but never one to take the easy, populist route. Has called populism "poison"

Tsai Ing-wen (Taiwanese president, running for her second term this weekend) was a law professor. She's not a great public speaker.

Malcolm Turnbull, former Australian Prime Minster. Former investment banker. Had a tendency to have complicated policy positions which most people who worked in whatever field he was forming policy for would consider technically correct, but were hard to explain.

Hillary Clinton - terrible public speaker, overly concerned with polling and unable to read people (in complete contrast to her husband who was very much the populist)

Mario Monti - former Italian Prime Minster and economist.

I've tried to find examples from all sides of politics.

This is so well said, and I think it actually points to a larger problem that was happening with authority forever and has now been exposed:

Most authoritative sources are lying a huge percentage of the time, even if the lying takes the form of misrepresenting a situation, cherry picking data, begging the question, etc.

Everyone says news has gotten worse, and I’m sure there’s some basis for that claim, but also you couldn’t as easily check how wrong a news source was until recently.

> What we're seeing isn't a breakdown in "rationality" or "care for truth", we're seeing a global breakdown in the trust of authority.

I really used to like the "This Week Tonight" show. I used to watch it all the time.

Then they misrepresented or they didn't research a band I liked. So I thought "If they are this wrong about a band, what else are they wrong about?".

> People like the author are unwilling to see how focusing on the "truth" of trite, inconsequential "facts" like whether Trump's inauguration was the biggest ever is pointless when compared to issues that really affect people.

Also this article and many others like it constantly ignore the fact that Trump almost always uses hyperbole. It is obvious it is hyperbole. However it seems it is expedient for the author to ignore this.

> People like the author are unwilling to see how focusing on the "truth" of trite, inconsequential "facts" like whether Trump's inauguration was the biggest ever is pointless when compared to issues that really affect people.

I expect an administration to be truthful in both important and trivial matters. If they lie about trivial ones, folks at the time knew they’d lie about important ones (see attack last week, child separation, etc)

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