The Epistemological War on Trump

As the war between #MAGA and the Deep State careens towards what appears to be at least a preliminary climax with the midterm elections, I've been reflecting a bit on what I consider to be a lack of understanding of some of those on "our side" of how much all of this turns on epistemology, i.e. "how do we know what we know".

I heard Rush comparing Trump's circumstance with Nixon's during Watergate, and pointing out that during Nixon's time, what we know now as the "mainstream media" had complete epistemological control; they controlled what was and what wasn't. Nixon had no way of fighting back once the mainstream media was trumpeting that they had him in the "cover up", and thus he resigned. But thinking back, his resignation actually short-circuited a process where his opponents would've had to legally (and politically) impeach and removed him from office based on the facts in evidence. But at that time, even a Republican President did not hesitate in accepting the verdict as rendered by the mainstream media.

Fast forward to today, the mainstream media celebrated this week as if they had finally gotten Trump just like they Nixon. But the media landscape has changed dramatically since the early 1970's, and they no longer have an epistemological monopoly. They continue to act as though they solely determine what is and what is not for everyone, but well over half the country doesn't trust them and is not buying it. DJT knows this better than anyone, and thus he's fully engaged in fighting back against them and their perception of things.

I wasn't really sentient during Watergate due to my age at the time, but it does make me wonder what would've happened had Nixon ignored the media and fought that battle in the courts and in Congress. But more importantly, this epistemological war highlights I think a stark dividing line between the GOPe and the #MAGA movement: the GOPe is "conservative" (in some cases, sometimes, but that's another discussion) but they accept the reality of the world as defined by the mainstream media. We are conservative too, but we reject reality as defined by the mainstream media, and instead look to a variety of other sources from talk radio to Fox News to internet sites like Free Republic to Trump's Twitter feet, etc., to come to our own understanding of reality.

But the epistemological nature of this battle does also dramatically raise the stakes; whoever wins not only gets to hold power politically, but in the process also gets to define reality for everyone. The mainstream media has pronounced DJT dead quite a few times now and each time that it turns out not to be the case, their ability to define reality is eroded. I thought that given their blatantly biased covered during the election, all in an attempt to gaslight the population into accepting the inevitability of Hillary's coronation, that we'd see some reckoning with reality, but because of "Russia, Russia, Russia" and "racist, racist, racist", that did not occure, and they really just doubled down.

As the stakes keep rising, this sense of two contested realities is only going to intensify, and based on current trends, I really don't see where it stops. But the lesson for conservatives and Republicans has to be that we cannot allow our actions to be determined by their reality, and any one on our side who does so, needs to be ignored. Fundamentally, anyone on our side who pays attention to the mainstream media for any other purpose other than to mock them has already conceded defeat, and thus is of no use to us whatsoever.

I think the evidence is clearly in your favor, but as someone who lives and works every day “Behind the Blue Wall”, let me counter with a few reasons for optimism:

1. Conservatives have one giant honking massive advantage against the Left: human nature. The left has politicized all of those institutions to which you are referring because they are absolutely obsessed with their dissatisfaction with the way things are, and have always been. But they’re not just dissatisfied with, say, Bush’s war in Iraq or the fact that there are homeless people. They are dissatisfied with the fact that some people live better than others, that men and women play different roles in their families and in society, that there is suffering in the world, that nations compete against each other, sometimes violently. Conservatives understand that none of that will ever change, it’s inherent to who we are as human beings. Can you imagine how frustrating your life would be if you couldn’t accept that you were not tall and athletic enough to play professional basketball? Multiply that times a million and that’s the lot of the left.

2. Conservatives particularly in America have another closely related huge structural advantage against the Left: the status quo. You heard it from Governor Cuomo: “America was never that great”. The Left hates the Constitution, the flag, the anthem, capitalism, federalism, American exceptionalism, families, freedom, petroleum, automobiles, etc., . . . it’s not an exaggeration to say that “mom and apple pie” are not long for the good graces of the Left. We’re just defending all of that, and we’re also fortunate that the founders based all of that (and the modern day extensions on that list) on human nature. So the Left in America is going up against not only human nature, but a status quo structure of society that is based in an understanding of human nature otherwise superior to any other yet developed.

3. Over the long term conservatives have another big honking giant structural advantage: the Left does not value procreation. In fact, nearly everything they do goes against procreation and they’d be a tiny minority at this point absent their very smart strategy of importing millions of people from impoverished countries and cultures. This is why the immigration debate is so existential for them: cut off that spigot and down the drain they go in the space of a generation.

4. The last structural advantage that I’d say conservatives have is the argument. I can speak as someone who grew up knowing nothing about conservatism at all. For me, conservatism was just caricatured as Boss Hogg. But as soon as I was exposed (via the Internet) to the actual argument, it wasn’t very long before I flipped. I’ve heard zillions of stories of left to right transformations, but almost none of the opposite. I think any time we manage to level the playing field for argumentation, we will win 90% of the converts.

But yes, you’re right. There are long odds going the opposite direction.

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