How Trump Voters Forgot The First Rule Of Politics And What We Can Do About It (VIDEO)

Democracy sucks. It always has and it always will. Just ask Plato. Back in the middle of the fourth-century BCE, the greatest and most influential philosopher of all time spent his days mulling over what could loosely be described as some pretty ‘heavy shit.’ Ethics, moral psychology (and the kind of metaphysical soul-searching that keeps 1-800 psychic hotlines in business even to this day,) was married to a deep love of epistemology; the study of knowledge itself.

And that was just what he had for lunch.

Well, that and moussaka.

Because Plato attempted to weave these disparate ideas into a cohesive understanding of the world. And one that had practical application at that

Take politics for example. Political philosophy begins and ends, with one simple, easy to digest question.

‘What ought to be a person’s relationship to society?’

It took over 2000 years to come up with a cogent answer.

Truth Trumps Lies

You see, truth was a big deal for Plato. It wasn’t just that he was frustrated by the inability to see the truth with any real clarity. In his view, our senses revealed to us only a pale imitation of reality anyway. The true world, the pure, eternal, and unchanging world of the ‘Forms,’ as he called it was forever denied us.

But it was more than that.

Plato was a realist; he admired the concept of perfection and yet understood that it was an unattainable aspiration. Society was no exception. the moral and physical degradation of human life was one of perfection decaying into something… Well, something less than it had been. Something flawed.

Image By All-Len All.

Like an apple browning into mush in the sunlight, society was doomed to decay, destined to fragment into a pale shadow of its former glory.

Take democracy.

Mob Rule

The word itself is taken from the Greek word for people ‘demos.’ Plato was no fan of letting the people have any real say in what should be done. He had reservations about offering political power to what he saw as slack-jawed, mouth-breathing rustics with less political acumen than the average slab of feta.

Car breaks down? Go see a mechanic. Contracted a UTI? Go see a urologist. Eaten Taco Bell for breakfast on three consecutive mornings? Go see a proctologist.

A neurologist knows about neurology, an engineer knows about engineering and an actor — Matthew McConaughey aside — knows how to act. Simple, yes?

But the passage of H.Res.221 (Waiving a requirement of clause 6(a) of rule XIII with respect to consideration of certain resolutions reported from the Committee on Rules, and providing for consideration of motions to suspend the rules.)…

That? That needs a show of hands. We need to get in a huddle before we do anything about that.

Oh, no, “fuck that,” said Plato.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Why?

Because that’s obviously a terrible idea.

We have our own shit to contend with on a daily basis without worrying what the hell H.Res.221 is all about. We keep our eye on the big-ticket stuff but the day-to-day minutia of politics should be left to the professionals.

Plato was all for this. He even set down the kind of things that good leaders were made of. He envisioned a philosopher-king who selflessly eschewed worldly pleasures in order to work for the common good.

Such a leader should be in possession of a love of knowledge. They should be keen-eyed, intelligent and reliable and above all, they needed to be satisfied with a simple life of quiet contemplation.

In other words, they had to be the direct opposite of President Donald J. Trump.

Speak Loudly And Carry A Big Schtick

Plato knew this might happen. He knew that the system of representative democracy he proposed was vulnerable to attack. He even directed our attention to the most obvious threat and issued a warning.

“Beware the sophist.’

The sophists were professional teachers, wise men, and all round smarty pants who hung around Athens in the second half of the fifth-century B.C.E in much the same way flies hang around a freshly laid turd. For a fee, they would champion pretty much any cause you could think of.

Via a heady combination of right-angle reasoning, intellectual charlatanism, and moral ambiguity they were able to take a weak argument and use it to destroy or defame a strong one. Throw them a few drachma and they’d happily sell ice to an Alaskan for you.

And if any of this sounds familiar to the world of modern politics it’s only because this is exactly what has, in fact, happened to modern politics. Whilst the Democratic Party has at least attempts to fulfill the role of the philosopher-king, the GOP has been engaging in full-on, hell for leather, dicks strapped to the thigh sophistry for the best part of three decades now.

Promissory Bloat

Trump promised the sun, moon and the stars as most politicians do. But his tactic was to do more than simply throw a wish list at a bunch of swivel-eyed monster truck enthusiasts.

He promised to build a wall in order to stem an already diminishing tide of immigration that produced net gains to the country. He promised to put America first without understanding the loss of geopolitical influence that would entail. Trump offered a vision of America where everyone got their old jobs back and the automation of the car industry and looming automation of American truckers be damned.

In their desperation, people found themselves replying to an email from a Nigerian prince. They were sucked in by solutions to problems that sounded OK to those not trained to sift through the inherent intricacies of political realities.

They were conned. Some of them are already beginning to figure it out.

Debate Train

It’s sad, and it’s depressing, and it’s also far from hopeless.

Because Plato’s ideas — profound as they are — were not left to stagnate or wallow in their own sense of self-satisfaction. On the contrary, they form the backbone of all western philosophical thought. And as they were developed, reprised, and at times even contradicted, they were also refined, purified, and ultimately applied to issues that sprang from the jaws of modernity.

Like free speech.

The great British philosopher John Stewart Mill knew all about the pitfalls of sophistry. His answer to the threat was simple as indeed all sublime ideas are.

He advised:

‘Debate the fuckers,’

No really, those were his exact words. Had quite the potty-mouth did Mill.

For him, the debate was always a win-win situation that offered but two opportunities. Either you reaffirmed your belief in something that you believed to be true or…

You were denuded of a falsehood.

Either way, the truth won out.

Forget Me Not

Liberals have forgotten the lesson of Mill as readily as Conservatives have forgotten Plato’s. Around the country, people march in demonstrations that demand the silencing of unpalatable views.

Racists are denounced down, not intellectually trounced. People who feel threatened by a societal change are not offered the opportunity to express their views. The thought police are ever vigilant. Ready to condemn a tweet or to shout down an opinion. Ready to lob obscenities at any opinion that differs from their own.

And so, we get Trump.

The strong argument — Plato would tell us were he here today — is the superior one and it’s for that reason that history will always be on the side of the progressives.

And as the GOP bring knives to gun fight after gun fight Liberals only need to do one thing.

Just show up.

Watch Peter Hitchens’ willingness to debate with the most loathsome of characters way back in 1991.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSBHsElmkiA

 

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I'm a full- time, somewhat unwilling resident of the planet Earth. I studied journalism at Murdoch University in West Australia and moved back to the UK where I taught politics and studied for a PhD. I've written a number of books on political philosophy that are mostly of interest to scholars. I'm also a seasoned travel writer so I get to stay in fancy hotels for free. I have a pet Lizard called Rousseau. We have only the most cursory of respect for one another.