One of my Drinking Liberally friends has it in his head that I’m always wrong, but I disagree strongly. However, I’m sometimes wrong, and it’s time for me to confess a major blunder. Back around December of 2019 I predicted that Biden would win the presidency. I was right about that. But I was wrong when I predicted that the former guy would quickly be consigned to the memory hole by Fox, the Republican Party, and the media generally, where he could keep George Bush company.
It didn’t work out that way, primarily because he refused to concede what was by any measure a blow out election, thereby giving the right wing establishment a choice: try to push him into the memory hole and risk the wrath of the whackjobs upon whom they depend to keep them in power or continue to kiss his ass despite any bad taste that might leave in their mouths.
We all know what choice they’ve made.
What brings this to mind is an excellent Paul Krugman column in today’s Times, in which Krugman distills lessons he gleaned from The Mechanisms of Cult Production, a book by Xavier Márquez, a sociologist from New Zealand. It seems that there’s actually nothing unusual about the sycophantic behavior on display from so many on the right:
Signaling is a concept originally drawn from economics; it says that people sometimes engage in costly, seemingly pointless behavior as a way to prove that they have attributes others value. For example, new hires at investment banks may work insanely long hours, not because the extra hours are actually productive, but to demonstrate their commitment to feeding the money machine.
In the context of dictatorial regimes, signaling typically involves making absurd claims on behalf of the Leader and his agenda, often including “nauseating displays of loyalty.” If the claims are obvious nonsense and destructive in their effects, if making those claims humiliates the person who makes them, these are features, not bugs. I mean, how does the Leader know if you’re truly loyal unless you’re willing to demonstrate your loyalty by inflicting harm both on others and on your own reputation?
And once this kind of signaling becomes the norm, those trying to prove their loyalty have to go to ever greater extremes to differentiate themselves from the pack. Hence “flattery inflation”: The Leader isn’t just brave and wise, he’s a perfect physical specimen, a brilliant health expert, a Nobel-level economic analyst, and more. The fact that he’s obviously none of these things only enhances the effectiveness of the flattery as a demonstration of loyalty.
Does all of this sound familiar? Of course it does, at least to anyone who has been tracking Fox News or the utterances of political figures like Lindsey Graham or Kevin McCarthy.
Apparently this sort of thing has been going on at least since Caligula, and probably even longer.
What is so puzzling about it is that, at least in the case of Trump, and quite likely in most other such situations, the loyalty only goes one way, and nothing you do or say can ever truly guarantee that the object of your feigned attention won’t turn on you. Just ask Mitch, Mike, and Bill.
Post a Comment