Playing with Fire

What happens when a country becomes so overrun with fantasy and magical thinking that a large portion of adults can no longer be counted on to make adult decisions, individually or in the aggregate?

We’re living through this scenario now and it’s not a hypothetical question. Americans are and have always been, peculiarly among the other developed nations, prone to delusion and childlike tendencies. It’s probably an ingredient in what’s made us exceptional, in a good way. I once posted John Steinbeck’s description of that exceptionalism, as related by his Chinese manservant character, Lee, in the novel East of Eden, written 50 years ago:

We’re a violent people, Cal. Does it seem strange to you that I include myself? Maybe it’s true, that we are all descendants of the restless, the nervous, the criminals, the arguers, and brawlers. But also the brave, and independent, and generous. If our ancestors hadn’t been that, they would’ve stayed in their home plots in the other world and starved over the squeezed-out soil.

Cal turned his head toward Lee, and his face had lost its tightness. He smiled, and Lee knew he had not fooled the boy entirely. Cal knew now it was a job—a well-done job—and he was grateful.

Lee went on, “That’s why I include myself. We all have that heritage, no matter what old land our fathers left. All colors and blends of Americans have somewhat the same tendencies. It’s a breed—selected out by accident. And so we’re overbrave and overfearful—we’re kind and cruel as children. We’re overfriendly and at the same time frightened of strangers. We boast and are impressed. We’re oversentimental and realistic. We are mundane and materialistic—and do you know of any other nation that acts for ideals? We eat too much. We have no taste, no sense of proportion. We throw our energy about like waste. In the old lands they say of us that we go from barbarism to decadence without an intervening culture. Can it be that our critics have not the key or the language of our culture? That’s what we are, Cal—all of us. You aren’t very different.

Lee means this as both a warning and a compliment to the boy he’s explaining it to – these tendencies to be imaginative and bold.

But there’s another edge to that sword. We’re exceptional in a different regard…

Kurt Andersen explains, in his incredible book Fantasyland, what’s been happening to this paradigm over the last twenty years. These inherent tendencies of ours have undergone a transmogrification, fed first by the media and then fueled by social media. We’re fucking crazy. Some of us more than others, of course, but all of us on a continuum. And in the post-economic crisis period, this craziness has sped up, amplified by the limitless choice of “news” sources, alternate reality echo chambers and financial desperation that have become the defining backdrop of the new century.

After the financial meltdown, in spite of our government’s actions to contain the damage and prevent a full-fledged depression – and because of those emergency actions – a rabid fraction of us, hysterical true believers as well as the merely pissed off, could no longer be controlled. Some called themselves the Tea Party and even engaged in cosplay, appearing at protests and community meetings in eighteenth-century military drag. Dozens were elected to Congress and became the convulsive tail wagging the Republican dog. They hate or think they hate the status quo, including government itself, so they’ve been delighted to make the federal government stop working when they couldn’t force it to give them total victory – to them, dysfunctional government is an end, not just a means. The reality-based Republican elite who’d kept the fantasy-based communities as their useful idiots had been playing with fire. The idiots finally understood that the people in charge considered them idiots – and grabbed the matches. 

This was a long time coming, but then it came on suddenly, like someone flipped a switch. The combination of the real estate and labor market collapsed, followed immediately by the election of a Harvard-educated African American for President, undoubtedly lit the fuse. Millions of Americans suddenly felt that they had woken up in an unrecognizable America, a country that no longer offered a future for them, where seemingly all prosperity was tilted toward the wealthier cities at the coasts. Popular culture, which inevitably caters to the younger and more diverse next generation all the time, was alternately excluding them or mocking them 24 hours a day. They’d lost both the culture and the economic prosperity of their fathers and their fathers’ fathers all at once, and it drove them insane.

It drove them right into the arms of the very types of people who knew just how to exploit that insanity. Just as the Far Left had gone completely off the rails in the 1970’s – yes, the American left was once the bastion for bizarre cults of personality, bombers, terrorists, conspiracy theorists, mass murderers and such – this time it was the Far Right that attracted the majority of the crazy.

During the two decades leading up to the financial and economic crash of 2008, the right and far right built out an unprecedented new multimedia infrastructure. There are now ten times as many talk radio stations as there were in the 1980’s. Of the several shows with the largest audiences, all but one are about politics and government by and for right-wingers, with a combined daily audience of forty-five million. (The other show provides “biblically based” financial advice aimed at evangelicals, and directly behind those is Coast to Coast AM, the nightly conspiracy-and-magic-and-falsehood clearinghouse.)

In a decade, from 1996-2007, we got Fox News, the Drudge Report, Infowars, and Breitbart, with Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter as free global platforms for all of them, their followers and wannabes…During the month before the 2016 election as many people “interacted” with Fox News stories on Facebook as they did with stories from CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal combined.

As has been well documented, a huge number of people can no longer tell the difference between news and opinion, fact and fiction, when they read and watch each day. More disturbing is the fact that so few of them seem to mind or even want to know the veracity of what they’re consuming.

They now knowingly elect officials to run the country and represent them who share in this willful denial of reality. And what they love most about it is that it allows them to never have to confront facts that conflict with their beliefs, they can just be fed an “alternative” set of facts instead. What they love the second most is how mad it makes the rest of the people – people, whom, they believe have taken something away from them. We have revenge elections now, an entirely new phenomenon in American politics and one that no one was prepared for.

Some of the arsonists have expressed contrition for this thing they’ve unleashed. Facebook, Twitter and Google have hired thousands of new employees in the last couple of years in the hopes that they can “clean up” their platforms before a consumer revolt or a government intervention takes place. Even some of the authors of these alternate realities are beginning to see the damage they’ve done (although not most of them, there’s too much money still to be made)…

Skepticism of the press and of academic experts has been a paramount fetish on the right for years, which effectively trained two generations of Americans to disbelieve facts at odds with their opinions. “For years, as a conservative radio talk show host,” Charlie Sykes wrote in early 2017, “I played a role in that conditioning by hammering the mainstream media for its bias and double standards. But the price turned out to be far higher than I imagined. The cumulative effect of the attacks was to…destroy much of the right’s immunity to false information.” The conservative talk-radio host John Ziegler made a similar confession in 2016: “We’ve effectively brainwashed the core of our audience. And now it’s gone too far. Because the gatekeepers have lost all credibility in the minds of consumers, I don’t see how you reverse it.” 

What began as a playful evolution throughout our nation’s history – from medicine shows to PT Barnum, Civil War reenactments to renaissance faires, Disneyland to Las Vegas, reality TV to video games, has now turned into an immunity to false information where it really counts – our ability to govern and to be governed.

I don’t know where it goes from here, but Andersen’s book is the only primer you need to read in order to understand how we got here.

Buy it and read it:

Fantasyland by Kurt Andersen (Amazon)

 

 

This content, which contains security-related opinions and/or information, is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon in any manner as professional advice, or an endorsement of any practices, products or services. There can be no guarantees or assurances that the views expressed here will be applicable for any particular facts or circumstances, and should not be relied upon in any manner. You should consult your own advisers as to legal, business, tax, and other related matters concerning any investment.

The commentary in this “post” (including any related blog, podcasts, videos, and social media) reflects the personal opinions, viewpoints, and analyses of the Ritholtz Wealth Management employees providing such comments, and should not be regarded the views of Ritholtz Wealth Management LLC. or its respective affiliates or as a description of advisory services provided by Ritholtz Wealth Management or performance returns of any Ritholtz Wealth Management Investments client.

References to any securities or digital assets, or performance data, are for illustrative purposes only and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Charts and graphs provided within are for informational purposes solely and should not be relied upon when making any investment decision. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The content speaks only as of the date indicated. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects, and/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others.

Wealthcast Media, an affiliate of Ritholtz Wealth Management, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here: https://www.ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers

Please see disclosures here.

What's been said:

Discussions found on the web
  1. Playing with Fire – Financial Solutions commented on Nov 09

    […] What happens when a country becomes so overrun with fantasy and magical thinking that a large portion of adults can no longer be counted on to make adult decisions, individually or in the aggregate? We’re living through this scenario now and it’s not a hypothetical question. Americans are and have always been, peculiarly among the other developed nations, prone to delusion and childlike tendencies. It’s … Source: https://thereformedbroker.com/2018/11/09/playing-with-fire/ […]

  2. My Favorite Tax commented on Nov 11

    […] The President told an audience from the National Sheriff’s Association, at a meeting in the Oval Office, that “the murder rate in our country is the highest it’s been in over forty-seven years.” Now, of course, this is exactly the opposite of the truth. During the last three decades, the national rate of murders and violent crime has been cut in half. But he said it, and some part of the audience believed it. It was fact checked umpteen times in the press, but enough doubt has been sown about anything coming from the press that it almost doesn’t matter at all (see: Playing with Fire). […]

  3. My Favorite Tax | AlltopCash.com commented on Nov 11

    […] The President told an audience from the National Sheriff’s Association, at a meeting in the Oval Office, that “the murder rate in our country is the highest it’s been in over forty-seven years.” Now, of course, this is exactly the opposite of the truth. During the last three decades, the national rate of murders and violent crime has been cut in half. But he said it, and some part of the audience believed it. It was fact checked umpteen times in the press, but enough doubt has been sown about anything coming from the press that it almost doesn’t matter at all (see: Playing with Fire). […]

  4. Playing with Fire – Ultimate Health commented on Nov 13

    […] The Reformed Broker Playing with Fire What happens when a country becomes so overrun with fantasy and magical thinking that a large portion of adults can no longer be counted on to make adult decisions, individually or in the aggregate? We’re living through this scenario now and it’s not a hypothetical question. Americans are and have always been, peculiarly among the other developed nations, prone to delusion and childlike tendencies. It’s … more info… […]

  5. Our Long-Form Weekend Reads – Tradewinds Financial group commented on Nov 18

    […] Playing with Fire: What happens when a country becomes so overrun with fantasy and magical thinking that a large portion of adults can no longer be counted on to make adult decisions (Reformed Broker) […]

  6. 10 Sunday Reads | AlltopCash.com commented on Nov 19

    […] thinking that a large portion of adults can no longer be counted on to make adult decisions (Reformed Broker)• Inflated Home Appraisals Drain Billions From Government Insurance Fund (Wall […]

  7. EatVerts commented on Sep 14

    … [Trackback]

    […] Find More on that Topic: thereformedbroker.com/2018/11/09/playing-with-fire/ […]

  8. w88 commented on Sep 21

    … [Trackback]

    […] Here you can find 16035 additional Information on that Topic: thereformedbroker.com/2018/11/09/playing-with-fire/ […]

  9. online dating commented on Oct 14

    … [Trackback]

    […] Read More Information here to that Topic: thereformedbroker.com/2018/11/09/playing-with-fire/ […]

  10. copy hublot big bang tourbillon commented on Oct 23

    … [Trackback]

    […] Read More on on that Topic: thereformedbroker.com/2018/11/09/playing-with-fire/ […]

  11. dumps checker commented on Nov 26

    … [Trackback]

    […] Here you will find 16307 more Info on that Topic: thereformedbroker.com/2018/11/09/playing-with-fire/ […]

  12. 토토 commented on Dec 25

    … [Trackback]

    […] Information on that Topic: thereformedbroker.com/2018/11/09/playing-with-fire/ […]

  13. Myfreecams commented on Dec 25

    … [Trackback]

    […] Here you can find 90297 additional Info on that Topic: thereformedbroker.com/2018/11/09/playing-with-fire/ […]