Melisse H. Pinto, PhD
More than half of the US population views Trump and Trumpism as an unbelievablenightmare. His growing assault on every aspect of American democracy: the electionsystem, the rule of law, independence of courts, Congressional prerogatives, freedom of expression, international law, using law enforcement for politicalends, placing military troops in American cities, violating rights of immigrants, illegal-immoral wars, and more would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Every day, there are egregious new examples of the violation of American principles and traditions. Many of us are wondering how anyone could have voted for him when many of his intentions were clear at the time of his election, although he has turned out much worse than anyone imagined.
Even with his extraordinary violation of the norms and precedents at the heart of the American democracy, he apparently remains popular with over 30 % of Americans. The majority of Congress and much of the Republican establishment continue their virtually unquestioned compliance. To many of us it seems irrational, even crazy. But I will argue that from a certain perspective it is anything but irrational. Trumpism is designed to protect something, namely, a national and global order of privilege in the face of increasing evidence and rational analyses that it is no longer legitimate.
Early on in the development of Trumpism it was noted that it seemed to involve a bizarre rebellion against common sense and evidence. It seems as if substantial numbers of Americans are living in alternative realities. In a way, they are. Because, the real issue, of course, is not Donald Trump, but the forces that have given birth to him as a political phenomenon. We are in the midst of a radical change that is only gradually emerging, a truly post-modern world, the essence of which is yet to be decided. With extreme irony, the forces struggling to preserve some of the most fundamental features of the modern world are employing a pre-modern epistemology as a defensive tactic.
Rather unusually, many current political controversies appear to be based on epistemological conflicts. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the basis of knowledge, i.e., "How do we know what we know"? The modern world is generally described as being based on empiricism, drawing conclusions from logical analysis of sensory experience. The experimental process of the scientific method is based on empiricism.
But currently, the validity of knowledge based on empirical evidence is increasingly challenged. Trump and many supporters reject elements of empiricism frequently. They blatantly reject scientific evidence on Covid 19, climate change and many other things. They constantly challenge the authority of knowledge-based experts and treat them with contempt. They deny the truth of what they see with their own eyes, including the infamous example of rejection of the well documented small size of Trump's inaugural audience in 2016. The obvious question is "Why"?
To use the term that Al Gore used in the title of his book about climate change, the Trumpists challenge certain empirical knowledge because it asserts "inconvenient truth". In the narrowest and most particular sense, "inconvenient truths" are facts that don't support Trump and his power. But there is a deeper and broader understanding of the basis of "inconvenient truth'".
This understanding refers to facts that some see as undermining certain aspects of the American system and the legitimacy of its elites. The most basic aspect of this challenge is the structure of the socio-economic system and its relationship to the political.
To explain this phenomenon, I think it is useful to note a connection that a number of commentators have suggested, namely, that between Trumpism and a particular historical period. Since 2016 there have been a number of articles in the media which have drawn a parallel between the ideas of the Counter-Enlightenment movement of the eighteenth century and the Trump campaign and presidency. The Enlightenment was an eighteenth-century philosophical movement, centered in France, that challenged traditional sources of knowledge and celebrated the power of the human mind.
Significantly influenced by the developments of modern natural science and Cartesian rationalism, the leaders of the Enlightenment believed that Reason with a capital R, that is a combination of empiricism and rational deductive argument, is a valid and reliable source of truth. And since they believed that this process of empirical observation and reasoning was based in the individual mind and was thus at least potentially open to all men, however unequal in their potential, this opened the possibility to a sort of democratizing in the assessment of the legitimacy of all kinds of authority structures.
By legitimating individual judgement and choice making, a pandora's box was potentially opened that resulted in traditional institutions being forced to convince ever broadening constituencies that they had the right to rule.
It was precisely for this reason that the Counter -Enlightenment developed. The Enlightenment was destroying the traditional authority structures (both Church and State) that maintained the order on which the entire society depended by challenging its epistemological basis. The Enlightenment thinkers were undermining the entirety of the authority structure by, quite simply, raising the question of "Why"? Why should the Church tell us how to live our lives? Why should the King rule? Why should the father have sovereign authority in the family? Why should there be hierarchy and domination? And, crucially, they were challenging the traditional answers to these questions and thereby disrupting the legitimacy of the entire social order.
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