Democracy, Plutocracy, and Oligarchy

Democrats have been sounding the alarm that Donald Trump and the movement behind him poses a threat to democracy.  The concern is real, of course, but we should note that it threatens an already flawed democracy -- a democracy more accurately called a "plutocracy."  Our plutocracy is a result of public elections being funded through virtually unlimited private contributions.  Unlike our school districts, our police departments, our fire departments, and other public sector institutions, our electoral system lies squarely in the private sector and is subject to all the inequities in that sector.

The intrusion of vast sums of private money into our elections privileges the wealthiest individuals among us.  When campaigns rely on private funding, a candidate must gain the support of those people in control of significant wealth to run an effective campaign.  Candidates who cannot, simply can't compete.  Privately funded electoral systems undermine ostensibly equal political liberties in which each person's political preferences weigh equally.  They inevitably produces a plutocracy:  a system in which the wealthy political donor class collectively guarantees the viability of candidates that protect their class interests.  In a plutocracy, a person's potential political power is equal to their wealth.  This is bad enough, but recently, our plutocracy has begun devolving into an even more undemocratic system:  an oligarchy:  a system in which not a broad, wealthy social class, but super-wealthy individuals exercise extreme influence on political campaigns.  

According to OpenSecrets, up through the 2010 election cycle, no individual or couple made contributions to federal elections of more than $20 million in a single election cycle; however, as a result of the 2010 ruling in Citizens United, the American oligarchy got underway.  In the 2012 election cycle, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson made political contributions amounting to $93.1 million, Harold and Annette Simmons contributed more than $27 million, and Bob and Doylene Perry contributed $24.5 million -- all to Republican candidates or Republican causes.  Democratic oligarchs responded in the following election cycle.  Tom Steyer contributed $75.4 million and Michael Bloomberg contributed $28.5 million -- all to Democratic candidates and Democratic causes.  After that, well, Katie bar the door.

The U.S. private system of campaign finance has given super-wealthy individuals the power to affect elections that no ordinary citizen has ever had.  Since Citizens United, 33 individuals or couples contributed more than $20 million to candidates and political causes in a single election cycle.  In the 2020 cycle, 15 individuals or couples contributed a combined total of $912 million.  In the 2022 cycle, 19 individuals or couples contributed $861.9 million.  Based on data released by the Federal Elections Commission on Feb. 2, 2024, in the 2024 cycle, 12 individuals or couples had already contributed $542.2 million.  Since Citizens United, people donating $20 million or more in a single cycle have contributed over $3.3 billion to candidates and political causes.

The partisan breakdown of donations is also revealing.  After Citizens United, Republican donors contributed over $1.95 billion.  Democratic donors contributed $1.42 billion.  One might conclude from this that while the Republicans have an edge, the rough equality of these numbers means that our system is not especially skewed against either political party; but that overlooks the bias against candidates who aren't popular among wealthy donors.  There can be vigorous disagreement between Republicans and Democrats regarding many issues, but there will never be serious threats to the wealth of oligarchs or the system that created it.  According to the Pew Research Center, roughly a third of Americans have a favorable view of socialism.  It's unlikely that a third of our oligarchs have a similarly favorable view.  

Only a few politicians will succeed by taking positions that are critical of the private interests that fund our elections.  Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are notable here.  Their success, however, is due to the size and demographics of their constituencies.  Ocasio-Cortez represents a single, urban congressional district, populated by an electorate that is unlike the wider U.S. population.  As such, she is more able to defeat the influence of big money.  The same is true for Sanders.  After all, Vermont's population is no larger than a single congressional district.  Consequently, Sanders is able overcome the interference of outside, big money; but the general political economy of campaign finance ensures that Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders will be rare exceptions. 

Opensecrets.org has done a good job of examining campaign finance records to identify the most prominent oligarchs.  To make the short list, I have set a bar of contributions of at least $20 million in a single election cycle going back to 2010 -- the earliest data published by OpenSecrets.   Here are the 33 campaign finance oligarchs that make the cut and their total individual contributions since Citizens United:

1. Sheldon & Miriam Adelson (Rep.)  $542,711,025 
2. Michael Bloomberg (Dem.)  $350,224,779
3. Tom & Kathryn Steyer (Dem.)  $312,394,765
4. Richard & Elizabeth Uihlein (Rep.)  $293,341,633
5. George Soros (Dem.)  $221,066,069
6. Timothy Mellon (Rep.)  $216,884,270
7. Kenneth Griffin (Rep.)  $215,446,668
8. Jeffrey & Janine Yass (Rep.) $157,449,281
9. Fred Eychaner (Dem.) $97,154,090
10. James & Marilyn Simons (Dem.)  $97,067,551
11. Donald Sussman (Dem.)  $95,845,250
12. Paul Singer (Dem.) $87,383,278
13. Dustin & Cari Moskovitz (Rep.) $77,569,612
14. Stephen & Christine Schwarzman (Rep.) $72,857,142
15. Karla Jurvetson (Dem.) $58,905,366
16. Laura Perlmutter (Rep.)  $44,461,791
17. Sam Bankman-Fried (Dem.) $40,743,790
18. Peter Thiel (Rep.) $35,373,342
19. Lawrence Ellison (Rep.) $31,007,943
20. Rob Bigelow (Rep.) $29,641,500
21. Shirley Ryan (Rep.)  $28,206,300
22. Harold & Annette Simmons (Rep.)  $27,066,900
23. Diane Hendricks (Rep.)  $25,742,500
24. Reid Garrett Hoffman (Dem.)  $25,701,401
25. Robert & Diane Mercer (Rep.)  $25,620,300
26. Bernard & Billi Wilma Marcs (Rep.)  $24,736,435
27. Felicia Horowitz (Both)  $24,529,147
28. Bob & Doylene Perry (Rep.)  $24,509,200
29. Marc Andreessen (Both)  $24,452,665
30. Ryan Salame (Rep.)  $24,053,000
31. James & Mary Pritzker (Dem.)  $22,305,000
32. John & Marlene Ricketts (Rep.)  $21,555,750
33. Deborah Simon (Dem.)  $20,006,173

As mentioned before, the total amount donated by these 33 oligarchs exceeds $3.3 billion, but these totals do not include the vast amount of money that the oligarchs might well be channeling through "dark money" committees that are not required to disclose their donors.  Nor do these totals include donations to state and local elections; so, for example, the $323.6 million J.B. Pritzker spent of his own money on his two campaigns for governor of Illinois are not included.

One way to support democracy and mitigate the power of oligarchs is to remove political campaign funding from the private sphere and establish a workable system of publicly financed elections.  The best method I know of for doing this was suggested by Lawrence Lessig in his 2011 book, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress and How to Stop It.  See my review of it at books, etc.

Briefly, Lessig proposes that each voter be granted a $50 voucher they can use to contribute to any candidate or candidates they choose.  Additionally, any voter may contribute an additional $100 of their own money as long as they make no other, political donations.  This would ensure that candidates that are genuinely popular are able to run effective campaigns.  Assuming every registered voter made use of their voucher, it would cost the Treasury about $8.4 billion which is about 58% of the total expenditures for all federal elections in 2020.  Under this system, elections would be funded by voters, not oligarchs.

      

Law and Disorder

Donald Trump was convicted of Class E felony charges related to the falsification of business records with the intent to cover up other unlawful actions. This has put a spotlight on our judicial system and has raised a concern among many pro-Trump Americans that the judicial system has become corrupted by political ambitions.  It adds to their concern that the FBI and the Department of Justice have become tools to persecute Donald Trump and that the 2020 election was stolen.  Many pro-Trump Americans believe that our democracy is on the ropes.  

Ironically, Americans who oppose Donald Trump agree that our democracy is on the ropes, but for quite different reasons.  They point to concerns ranging from attacks on our electoral processes, disinformation spread by both traditional and social media, and violations of the law by Trump and his supporters during the January 6th assault on Congress.  Anti-Trumpers are especially concerned about the use of mob violence and intimidation by Trump supporters to achieve political goals. 

One does not have to take sides on which of these critiques is valid to recognize that our democracy is genuinely under stress.  The very fact that the two dominant political parties in the country each are squaring off to defend American democracy is a prescription for disaster.  When so much is at stake, scruples might seem like a luxury.  Consequently, it's worth looking carefully at what democracy is and asking what currently are the most significant genuine threats to it.  

Three features characterize a (liberal) democracy:  (1) free and fair elections, (2) protections for basic civil rights, and (3) the rule of law.  Societies in which these characteristics are comparatively robust can be described as democratic.  These features distinguish democracy from other forms of political authority, e.g., aristocracy, theocracy, ethnocracy, plutocracy, and oligarchy.

Free and fair elections help to ensure that governing authorities will exercise power with the consent of the people or at least with the consent of most of the people.  With a mandate from the majority, we can expect officials will implement public policies that are in accord with the will of the majority.  This, of course, will not always be true, but free and fair elections are our best avenue toward the implementation of popular public policies.  

Granting unlimited, sovereign power to the majority is not, however, an unambiguous good.  As modern liberal democracies came into being centuries ago, many people expressed concern that the majority might pursue its favored public policies at the unjustified expense of the minority.  Such a circumstance was labeled, "the tyranny of the majority."  To guard against this, democratic societies established lists of civil rights which were to be protected against the majority will.  The U.S. Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen are two such lists.  These new democratic states were founded on both the will of the majority and the rights of individuals and minorities, thus creating an unavoidable tension.  Where the authority of the majority ends and the rights of the individual and minorities begin will always be contested.

Finally, the rule of law is foundational not only to democracy, but to any well-ordered society.  It is nearly axiomatic that in a liberal democracy, no one is "above the law."  Each person must be subject to the law equally.  Their rights as individuals or as members of minorities must not be abridged, and their right to participate in the selection of government officials must be guaranteed equally.  

However, non-democratic forms of government also can operate under the rule of law, just a different rule of law.  In non-democratic societies, laws might be established solely by members of a certain political party or elite, unelected religious leaders, members of a specific ethnic group, the wealthiest class of citizens, a few extremely wealthy individuals, or even by a single totalitarian ruler.  In each of these societies, the will of the majority and/or the rights of individuals are not fully respected.  So if we prize liberal democracy, we must defend a rule of law that is consistent with liberal democracy, not just any rule of law.  

Beyond protecting the will of the majority and basic civil rights, valid democratic laws are the product of institutions that are characteristic of a democratic order.  Imagine a society ruled by a benign dictator who just so happens to enact popular policies and protects basic civil rights.  While this might be superficially satisfactory, such a society is not democratic.  Its benefits are contingent upon the will of the dictator.  In contrast, a society governed by institutions designed to protect the power of the majority to enact public policy and to protect basic civil rights provides a more stable guarantee of democratic legitimacy.  Laws and judicial decisions that are a product of such institutions enjoy the presumption of validity, and the authorities acting within those institutions have a prima facia claim to legitimacy.    

Returning, then, to the concerns of both pro-Trump and anti-Trump Americans, which group has a better claim to understanding the real threat to democracy?  The answer seems clear.  Pro-Trump Americans assert that the institutions of democracy have become corrupted.  They claim that mail-in balloting which was expanded during the covid pandemic allowed voter fraud to undermine our elections.  Additionally, or perhaps as a result, they claim that millions of ineligible voters cast ballots in our past two presidential elections.  They say at very least, enough voter fraud occurred to defeat Donald Trump and elect Joe Biden.  Furthermore, they claim that a Democratic "deep state" intent on prosecuting Donald Trump and his allies have "weaponized" the Justice Department and the FBI, including state and federal prosecutors and judges.  

The complaints made by pro-Trump Americans are aimed at both the electoral system and judicial protections of civil rights.  Pro-Trumpers have, however, provided little to no evidence that significant changes to our institutions have taken place beyond Biden's victory and the indictments and convictions of Trump and his allies.  The results of an election and/or the prosecution of any individual or individuals alone provide no reason to believe either that our institutions have or have not been corrupted.  Without evidence, these attacks on our institutions themselves constitute a threat to democracy.

Our electoral system has been in operation for more than two hundred years.  It has, over time, been reformed again and again by competing interests to help ensure that it accurately counts our votes.  Elaborate mechanisms monitored by everyone involved in the electoral process help ensure its integrity.  This gives our electoral system a strong prima facia claim to accuracy.  To date, every examination of the electoral processes in 2020 (and 2016) have uncovered no reason to doubt its accuracy. 

Pro-Trump criticism of our judicial processes also fall flat, even if they contain a kernel of truth.  Disdain for Trump by Democratic prosecutors might well be a motivating factor in bringing charges against him and his allies, but just as with our electoral system, our judicial system has been shaped and reshaped over more than two hundred years in an effort to reach fair and accurate judgments.  Most importantly, it includes trials by juries.  The determination of the guilt or innocence of the defendant is entirely separate from the motives of the prosecutor.  In the case of criminal charges, the prosecutor must convince each of 12 jurors -- selected with the input of the defendant -- that there is no reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt.  Any prosecutor motivated by political goals will need to demonstrate their case within these established procedures.  Trump's prosecutors have done just that.  It is noteworthy that at the time of this writing, 42 jurors have found Trump guilty of charges against him with none dissenting.

What differentiates pro-Trump and anti-Trump concerns about our democracy is their relationships to our institutions.  Pro-Trump criticisms rely on the claim that our institutions have become corrupted.  Anti-Trumper reply that those complaints about our institutions are unjustified.  Until pro-Trumpers can offer evidence to support their views, it is reasonable to assume our institutions have not meaningfully changed over the course of the last eight years.  Whatever legitimacy they afforded the election of past presidents, they afford Joe Biden.  And whatever legitimacy they afford the countless judicial decisions made daily, they afford decisions in the Trump trials.

The concern about the fragility of our democracy among anti-Trumpers stems not from the state of our institutions, but from the direct attacks on them.  Those threats are undeniable.  Trump repeatedly has voiced unsupported attacks on our political and judicial institutions and encouraged political violence.  He, furthermore, has made statements threatening to transform our institutions by putting in place procedures that undermine their democratic nature.  Tellingly, many of his supporters openly advocate disregard for the law in a misguided effort to defend democracy.  They appear to be willing to push our political system toward what they might see as a temporary, benevolent dictatorship, but a dictatorship nonetheless.  They seem unconcerned that their actions would in fact deny the will of the majority, shred protections for civil rights, and undermine the rule of democratic law without guaranteeing an avenue back to democracy.  

We should recognize, however, that actual societies are never purely democratic or non-democratic.  They can only be characterized more or less so.  Forms of authority are not like tree species.  Maple trees are different from oak trees which are different from pine trees, etc.  For all common purposes, any individual tree can be categorized as squarely within one or another species of tree.  In contrast, categorizing a political order as democratic, plutocratic, ethnocratic, oligarchic, etc. admits of degrees.  All states are a mixture of at least some of these forms.  At best, we can compare existing political orders to each other and describe one as, say, more democratic than another.

So just as there are non-democratic features to our current political and judicial institutions, e.g., privately financed political campaigns and unequal access to a capable legal defense, there will remain democratic features to any political order instituted by a second Trump administration.  In the event Trump is again elected president, we must make the most of these democratic features to limit what damage he does.

The Political Geography of Chance

What are Joe Biden's and Donald Trump's chances to win the 2024 election?  The answers depend on their ability to win in seven "swing states" that collectively account for 93 electoral votes:  Pennsylvania (19 votes), North Carolina (16 votes), Georgia (16 votes), Michigan (15 votes), Arizona (11 votes), Wisconsin (10 votes), and Nevada (6 votes).  Setting these states aside, Biden can expect 226 votes and Trump can expect 219 votes from the “safe states.”  

The results in each of the swing states in 2020 were extremely close.  Each was decided by less than 3% of the vote, giving both candidates a realistic chance of winning any of them this year.  What follows is an a priori assessment of the candidates' chances based on two assumptions:  (1) outcomes are in doubt in only the seven swing states listed above and (2) Biden and Trump have an equal chance of winning any of them. 

With seven swing states, there are 128 possible scenarios that could produce the final Electoral College totals. These range from Biden winning all seven to Trump winning all seven and any win-loss combination between.  Among these scenarios, Biden wins in 71 and Trump wins in 57.  This gives Biden a 55% (71/128) chance of winning and Trump a 44.5% (57/128) chance.

The "coin flip" assumption I am making, giving each candidate an equal chance of winning in any particular swing state, is important.  Most prognosticators look beyond the mere logical possibilities and speculate as to why one candidate or another has a greater or lesser chance of winning in a swing state.  They look at polling results, economic conditions, concurrent ballot initiatives, campaign spending, and other factors to handicap the race.  That is, they look for reasons to reject the coin flip assumption.

This is a perfectly good enterprise, but with more than seven months until Election Day, it's hard to know how political conditions will unfold in any particular swing state.  Furthermore, any argument I have seen for or against Biden or Trump comes with noteworthy caveats.  Right now, a coin flip doesn't seem to be a bad estimate of the chances in any particular swing state.  

In any case, the coin flip assumption provides a baseline upon which we can do additional analyses.  For example, we can see how a candidate's chance of winning it all changes when we assume a victory in any one of the seven swing states.  Recall, considering only safe states, Biden's chance of winning is 55.5% and Trump's is 44.5%.  If we assume a candidate wins one swing state, the possible scenarios are reduced to 64, and his chance of winning it all increases as follows.

If Biden wins PA, his chance increases to 79.5% (51/64).
If Biden wins NC, GA, or MI, his chance increases to 72% (46/64).
If Biden wins AZ or WI, his chance increases to 65.5% (42/64).
If Biden wins NV, his chance increases to 61% (39/64).

If Trump wins PA, his chance increases to 69% (44/64).
If Trump wins NC, GA, or MI, his chance increases to 61% (39/64).
If Trump wins AZ or WI, his chance increases to 54.5% (35/64).
If Trump wins NV, his chance increases to 50% (32/64).

We can do a similar calculation assuming a candidate wins not just one swing state, but two.  Assuming a candidate wins two states, the possible scenarios are reduced to 32.  Since PA is the biggest prize, we’ll assume it is one of those two states.

If Biden wins PA and NC, GA, or MI, his chance increases to 94% (30/32).
If Biden wins PA and AZ or WI, his chance increases to 90.5% (29/32).
If Biden wins PA and NV, his chance increases to 81% (26/32).

If Trump wins PA and NC, GA, or MI, his chance increases to 87.5% (28/32).
If Trump wins PA and AZ, WI, or NV, his chance increases to 78% (25/32).

Some of the 128 possible scenarios result in very close electoral outcomes.  There are four in which a change in just one electoral vote alters the outcome.  This would bring the results in Maine and Nebraska into the calculation, because Maine and Nebraska allot some of their electors by congressional district.  

Maine Congressional District 1 and Nebraska Congressional District 2 could possibly become meaningful.  Neither district is within the 3% threshold I am using to identify swing states, but I suspect congressional districts are more volatile than whole states; so these two districts might well vote differently in 2024 than they did in 2020.  Biden lost ME-1 in 2020.  If he wins it this time, he'll win in three more scenarios among the 128.  Trump lost NE-2 in 2020.  If he wins it this time, he'll win in one more scenario.  If both districts flip this year, then they will have no combined effect on the outcome.  This suggests that the Maine and Nebraska districts have only a very small chance of coming into play, but never say never.

One final comment:  Biden and Trump normally need to win at least four swing states to win it all, but there are some scenarios  in which they will prevail by winning just three swing states:  Biden wins it all by winning PA and any one of NC, GA, MI, plus one of the remaining five big electoral vote states ( (NC, GA, MI, AZ, or WI).  He also prevails if he wins NC, GA, and MI (without PA).  This gives him 11 3-state paths to victory.  In contrast, Trump has only three 3-state paths to victory which are by winning PA and two of NC, GA, or MI.  

So the math is pretty clear:  PA is uniquely critical to the outcome of the race.  

The results in PA have been razor thin whenever Trump has been on the ballot.  In 2016, Trump won PA by 0.724% (44,292 votes).  In 2020, Biden won PA by 1.165% (80,555 votes).  Of course, much has happened since the Election Day 2020, but as we have a rematch of the same, very well-known and polarizing candidates, PA is likely to be both close and decisive.  If we want to look beyond the a priori coin flip possibilities and examine substantive reasons why one of the candidates might win it all, looking at Pennsylvania is the best place to start.

Biden, Michigan, and Gaza

Last September, I posted to my other blog, "books, etc.," an analysis of the electoral paths to victory for Joe Biden and Donald Trump.  I assumed no significant change in historical voting trends which meant five "swing states," Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada would determine the result of the election.  Allocating the remaining "safe states" to their likely victors left Biden with a slight mathematical advantage over Trump.  

I also considered North Carolina and Michigan in my calculations, but I found good reason not to include them as swing states.  Trump seemed a pretty strong favorite in North Carolina and Biden was in a very good position to win Michigan.  This last conclusion no longer seems so likely in light of Biden's response to Israel's war against Gaza.

There are roughly 300,000 Michigan voters who claim Middle Eastern or North African ancestry and roughly 200,000 Muslim's registered to vote in the state.  Add to these voters younger Michiganders who disproportionately oppose Biden's policies toward Israel and Palestine and the total is quite significant. Recall, Biden's margin of victory in Michigan in 2020 was only 154,188 votes.  

In Michigan's Democratic primary, 100,000 voters cast their ballot for "Uncommitted" in protest of Biden's support for Israel's war against Gaza; and just to underscore the depth of feeling on this issue, 19% of Minnesota Democratic primary voters (more than 45,000) cast their votes for "Uncommitted" one week later.  It's hard to say whether a reversal in Biden's policies toward Israel will win over voters aggrieved by the war, but if Biden's policies regarding the war do not change before November, Michigan will certainly become a swing state and completely change the electoral math.

Conversely, it's unlikely that Jewish support for Israel's war will salvage Biden's prospects in Michigan.  The Jewish adult population of Michigan is about 100,000.  They overwhelmingly are or lean Democratic, and they are not uniformly in support of Israel's war against Gaza.  Furthermore, polls have shown that most Jewish voters do not make support for Israel a critical factor in their voting behavior.  

These are, however, unique times, and the past might be no indication of the future.  The reported rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the US has the Jewish community palpably frightened.  Given Trump's support for Israel, any perceived accommodation to pro-Palestinian concerns by Biden might be enough to swing votes away from Biden.  

The most significant pool of electoral support for Israel is, however, not the Jewish population.  It is Evangelical Christians, but they are the most loyal Trump voters of all, and aren't likely to make the war a decisive issue in their decision making one way or another.  Biden's current support for Israel is not likely to gain him any additional votes in Michigan and is likely to lose him a significant number of votes.

Leaving aside any judgement about the war, and considering only his political fortunes, Biden would do well to moderate his support for Israel's war on Gaza.  The growing international call for a ceasefire and the call by the International Court of Justice for an end to the killing, wounding, and terrorizing of the Palestinians in Gaza creates an opening for him to reconsider that support.

Pronouns

In 1978, I was in my college library tracking down journal articles via Psychological Abstracts.  I loved the experience of being surrounded by its huge blue volumes, discovering tantalizing titles, and tracing them to our library's holdings.  It was then that I first encountered the use of "she" as a gender neutral pronoun.  At the time, the idea of "he" being used in a gender neutral way was certainly criticized, but no serious replacement was commonly offered.  "He or she," or sometimes "she or he," have become common, obvious options.  Some authors mix the use of "he" and "she" in their writing or simply make occasional use of "she" examples when "he" might be expected, but I saw none of that until after my first experience of this little bit of linguistic, gender rebellion in the psychology literature.

Reading the gender neutral "she" in a peer reviewed article was quite mind expanding.  It made me take the whole pronoun question more seriously.  Eventually, I came to adopt "s/he" in my writing.  It was short. It didn't generate the numerical ambiguity that "they" creates, and it could easily be read as "she" while simultaneously preserving a masculine element; but it doesn't really work in conversation.

It's amazing that it took almost 50 years for a gender neutral alternative, i.e., "they," to really begin to take root.  Granted, I encounter mostly liberal and progressive people in my Zoom meetings, but people now very frequently indicate their preferred pronouns in those meetings.  It shows a growing sensitivity to the experience of non-binary people and the problems our language creates.  The increasing use of "they" is certainly a good thing.

Nevertheless, I remain not entirely comfortable with it.  Old linguistic habits really do die hard.  "They" is likely the best we have, but, yes, it creates a clumsy, numerical ambiguity.  This isn't unique.  Consider the singular and plural uses of "you."  Numerical ambiguity here doesn't usually pose a huge problem, but different places do make distinctions.  Some regions make use of "y'all," other regions make use of "yous guys" to indicate plurality.  

I've never heard a term that gives a satisfactory solution to the gender neutrality/numerical ambiguity problem, but in thinking about alternatives, I tried out "we."  Like "they," "we" (and "us," "our," "ours," "ourself," and "ourselves") are gender neutral, but also creates numerical ambiguity.  "We" really isn't an improvement over "they."  In fact, "we" is worse.  "They" preserves the third person character of "he" and "she," while "we" replaces third person pronouns with a first person pronoun.  Despite this -- or actually because of this -- I noticed a very peculiar shift in my thinking when considering "we" as a third person pronoun.

Using "we" instead of "he" and "she" had me identifying with the person I was referring to.  So instead of thinking, "he rang up the groceries," I thought, "we rang up the groceries."  I seemed to be doing the job with him.  I was inside his skin.  Instead of "she fell down the steps," I thought, "we fell down the steps."  Using the first person plural to refer to a separate, other person creates a feeling of commonality or at least intersection -- a shared being.  It breaks down the psychic barriers between people.  I think it fosters empathy.

Imagine if everyone used "we" this way.  I suspect our world would become quite different.  The gender neutral use of "he" provides subconscious support for patriarchy; the use of "he" and "she" normalizes a binary conception of gender; but a ubiquitous use of "we" as a third person pronoun just might produce a widespread sense of community, human connection, and empathy.  It just might make it clear that our lives and our fates really are shared.  

When Is a Ceasefire Order Not a Ceasefire Order?

 

On Jan. 26, 2024, the World Court ruled against Israel.  It determined that South Africa’s allegation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is plausible.  The Court then ordered Israel to take measures to ensure that it is not committing genocide while the Court considers the merits of the case. 

The Court ordered that Israel must take all measures within its power to prevent 

• the killing of Palestinians,
• causing bodily or mental harm to Palestinians, 
• deliberately inflicting on Palestinians conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and 
• imposing measures intended to prevent births among Palestinians. 

Additionally, Israel must "ensure with immediate effect that its military not commit any of the acts" described in the order above, and it must "take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."  

Press agencies around the world are asserting that the Court "stopped short of calling for a ceasefire."  This is a stunning misrepresentation of the Court’s ruling.  It's true that the Court made no use of the term “ceasefire” nor did it directly quote South Africa’s request that Israel “immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza,” but Israel cannot comply with the Court's orders and continue its military operations against Gaza.  

Israel has been ordered to immediately ensure that its military not kill, wound, or terrorize Palestinians.  The Court has specified no condition under which Israel may be excused from these requirements.  The Court has effectively -- in the first and second directives of its ruling -- ordered an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.  Despite this, Israel is continuing its war and continues to prevent urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance from reaching Palestinians in Gaza. 

Israel's response should be no surprise.  In advance of the Court proceedings, Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that Israel would disregard any adverse ruling from the World Court, saying, “Nobody will stop us.”  If he is right, it will be because the Biden Administration will continue to provide military and diplomatic support for Israel’s war.  During an earlier press conference, Netanyahu thanked Biden for his support, saying the U.S. has provided an essential “diplomatic Iron Dome,” without which Israel could not carry on its war.  He also thanked the U.S. for “constantly sending us vital munitions” and for deploying two aircraft carriers, a submarine, and support vessels to the Eastern Mediterranean.  As long as Israel continues to receive U.S. support, Netanyahu is right: no one will stop them.

Netanyahu's remarks underscore Biden’s complicity in what is, according to the Court, plausibly genocide.  If Israel continues to kill, wound, and terrorize Palestinians or ignore other orders of the Court, further military support from the Biden Administration will make the U.S. a party to the violation of the Court's orders.  Moreover, if the Court ultimately rules that Israel is indeed committing genocide, the U.S. will be complicit in that crime and will be vulnerable to the legal and reputational consequences.

The U.S. can avoid this by immediately suspending military assistance to Israel.  It could then argue that while it supported Israel’s war when genocide was still in question, it withheld that support once the World Court ruled that Israel plausibly is engaged in genocide and enjoined Israel from killing any more Palestinians.  It's highly unlikely that Biden will follow this course, but a lot depends on what he does, particularly for the people in Gaza.

For the record, here is a summary of the key judgements made by the World Court.

• South Africa has standing to bring a complaint against Israel for genocide. 
• South Africa’s case that Israel is committing genocide is plausible. 
• Some of the provisional measures South Africa is asking the Court to order are relevant to Israel’s alleged genocide; however, the Court has the authority to order whatever provisional measures it deems appropriate.
• The threat to the purported rights of Palestinians in Gaza is urgent and capable of causing them irreparable harm.
• Conditions exist that justify ordering provisional measures to protect the purported rights of the Palestinians in Gaza. 
• The World Court orders that

(1) The State of Israel shall, in accordance with its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of this Convention, in particular:

a.      killing members of the group;

b.      causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

c.      deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and

d.      imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (15-2)

(2)  The State of Israel shall ensure with immediate effect that its military does not commit any acts described in point 1 above; (15-2)

(3)  The State of Israel shall take all measures within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip; (16-1)

(4)   The State of Israel shall take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip; (16-1)

(5) The State of Israel shall take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Article II and Article III of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide against members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip; (15-2)

(6) The State of Israel shall submit a report to the Court on all measures taken to give effect to this Order within one month as from the date of this Order. (15-2)

Propaganda, All Is Phony?

How do you know?  That's epistemology's central question.  

Rene Descartes inaugurated the modern era of epistemology with two important works, Discourse on Method (1637) and Meditations on First Philosophy (1641).  In Meditations, he systematically challenged anything we might think we know, leaving his readers to doubt everything.  Then with his now famous argument, "I think, therefore I am," he claimed to have salvaged one bit of knowledge:  his own existence.  From this, he claimed to prove the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the reliability of our perceptions of the external world.  Later that century, others developed principles for uncovering truths about the world, thereby establishing the basis of the scientific method.

Scientists and philosophers of science have been developing and refining the method ever since.  Consequently, our understanding of the physical world has advanced by leaps and bounds, but the rigor employed to investigate the physical world can not always be applied to the social world.  We commonly find ourselves with unique, anecdotal perspectives, subject to information thrust upon us by agenda-driven mass media and largely unregulated social media.  In this context, methods for justifying beliefs about the social world are hard to formulate and even harder to put into practice.  For many of our beliefs, the question remains:  how do you know?  

I. Epistemic Constraints

There was a time when most of us were told about the world by three television news departments, a few radio stations, and a local paper.  The topics they covered and the how they covered them were often fairly indistinguishable.  Some people lament the days when this small number of media sources provided us with a common set of beliefs that gave us a shared understanding of the world.  The Fairness Doctrine, abolished in 1987, required licensed broadcasters to present controversial issues in a manner that fairly reflected different views.  This alleviated most people's concerns about the systematic indoctrination of the public.

In their book Manufacturing of Consent (1988), Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky explain why the Fairness Doctrine had been incapable of preventing a small number of media corporations from narrowing the boundaries of public discourse.  Their central thesis was that media corporations constituted an oligopoly.  Its main purpose was to sell audiences to advertisers.  To be as profitable as possible, they would have to attract a wealthy audience, and their programing would have to ensure that the audience would have a favorable view of the companies that bought time for ads.  Limited time for advertisements meant that most of the nationwide advertising was done by large national corporations.  Consequently, a media ecosystem arose in which large media corporations sold wealthy audiences to other large corporations.  News departments were, of course, free to broadcast what they wanted, consistent with the Fairness Doctrine; but the system in which they operated precluded any serious, consistent criticism of corporate America. 

The proliferation of cable stations began to destabilize the ecosystem.  It became even more unstable with the advent of Web 2.0 in which anyone could become a content creator.  Suddenly, millions of people operated in the system without a monetary stake.  Optimists believed that over time, Web 2.0 would democratize the system.  People would be able to publish information and ideas that were not constrained by the media oligopoly; but this information utopia never arrived.  

Previously marginalized voices remain marginalized, since only large corporations have the resources to reliably reach a mass audience.  Ordinary individuals can reach anyone on the internet, but in practice, they are lost in the ocean of other ordinary individuals.  Just as once upon a time, marginalized voices could mimeograph their message and distribute it on streetcorners, they now can establish their own domain where they can post reports and opinions.  That is, they can distribute their message on their own little cyber-streetcorner.  In contrast, well-financed content creators can push their content to a wide, mass audience.  Web 2.0 has not given us an information democracy.

II. Epistemic Chaos

The failure of the democratic promise is not, however, the worst outcome.  Social information siloes have formed as social media platforms intentionally partition the consumer market to sell specific markets to advertisers.  By customizing search results to feed different information to different people, they create more or less mutually exclusive consumer communities, with natural relationships to specific political messages.  For example, people in the market for guns are a target for NRA propaganda.  People in the market for electric cars are a target for green energy propaganda.  

Parasitic on these consumer/political communities, Web 2.0's millions of new content providers have produced a cacophony of often dubious information sources on the Web, some having no integrity at all.  The lack of any serious online interaction among these information sources and the persistent influence of confirmation bias among people searching the Web have created more than a few contradictory siloes of self-indoctrinating communities. 

It's here that epistemic chaos is born in the creation of "information bubbles."  As described above, bubbles come about through both our own search habits and the algorithms used by search engines.  The result is that different segments of the population are presented with different caricatures of the world containing contradictory basic facts.  People in each bubble come to think their own beliefs are obvious and well-justified.  Anyone outside one's bubble appears to be utterly deluded.  It is true that some bubbles are more misguided than others, but none have a god's eye view of the world.

Beyond these systemic distortions, conscious efforts to shape public opinion are not new in the U.S.  In 1917, Woodrow Wilson created the "Committee on Public Information," aimed at generating support for U.S.'s involvement in World War I.  Since then, the U.S. government has engaged in numerous efforts to influence public opinion.  A briefly declassified 1979 Army field manual on psychological operations (PSYOPS) describes three types of propaganda: white, grey, and black.  White propaganda is truthful information disseminated to conscientiously inform people, grey propaganda is truthful information which, by not telling the whole story, leads people to false beliefs, and black propaganda is, well, simple flat-out lies.  

The PSYOPS manual explicitly forbade targeting the U.S. population with black propaganda; however, in his book, In Search of Enemies, former CIA agent John Stockwell described the common use of black propaganda in foreign countries.  Stockwell worked for the Agency for 12 years in Congo, Burundi, Vietnam, and Angola.  He noted that black propaganda disseminated in foreign countries would inevitably be picked up in the domestic media when they report stories sourced abroad.   

With the advent of Web 2.0, the problem has become compounded by individuals and private organizations -- including political parties and campaign committees -- that intentionally promulgate grey and black propaganda.  With specific strategies to make their messages "go viral," individual and corporate disinformation is passed on unwittingly by others.  In the new Web 2.0 ecosystem, truth has taken a backseat to persuasion, and openly lying about the most well-established facts has become common in politics. 

The license to lie is bad enough without the advent of artificial intelligence.  The internet has been a cesspool of disinformation in politics for a number of years now, but AI now provides people with the ability to create "deep fakes," i.e., fabricated images, videos, and sound recordings that will escape all but the most sophisticated digital forensic scrutiny.  The likely result of the widespread use of AI is that people will have even greater reason to reject any evidence that they choose to disagree with.  We will all become more and more deeply entrenched in our information bubbles, falling prey of confirmation bias and immune to counter arguments.  The answer to the question, "how do you know?" will become, "Well, you never do;" so you might as well believe what is commonly accepted in your social milieu. 

III. Epistemic Virtues

Is there a way to retain some semblance of a connection to reality?  I think at this point the answer is more or less "yes," but one must make a diligent effort to cultivate epistemic virtues.  That's a fancy way to say, one must create habits that allow you to recognize unfounded claims and to establish reliable beliefs.  This involves many things, including the vigorous examination of one's sources of information, their prior perspectives, their institutional limitations, and their track record for accuracy.  It involves high standards for accepting testable claims, appropriate respect for expertise, and the recognition of gradations of justification.  Most importantly, it requires a healthy dose of critical self-examination.  

Maintaining a system of beliefs that roughly conforms to reality is like gardening.  You must prepare the soil to create good conditions for desirable beliefs.  You must keep them healthy and remove any weeds as soon as they appear; but the real problem is global epistemic chaos.  None of us alone can solve that, no matter how diligently we tend our personal gardens.  If there's a broader, social response that can mitigate the growth of the chaos, it certainly isn't clear to me.