Democracy battles against latest technology

This post originally appeared in the Feb. 29, 2020 edition of the Wilson Times.

Starting in 507 B.C.E. ancient Athenians created democracy, putting government in the hands of the people (demos in Greek). Democratic principles that began 2,500 years ago now are being ravaged by new technology that raises doubts about elections, the basis of democracy.

A generation after Ronald Reagan declared that democracy was ascendant and that autocrats’ authoritarian rule would be consigned to “the dust bin of history,” it looks like the autocrats are winning again. China, shrouded in the Communist Party’s absolute rule, has become the world’s second largest economy. Russia has recovered from its post-Soviet collapse and is reclaiming territory the czars had ruled. Authoritarian regimes only have to raise doubts about elections to delegitimize democracies.

One has to wonder: Can democracy survive in a world of social media, computer hacking, viral videos (sometimes faked), robotic social media posts, disinformation and unchallenged falsehoods?

When American democracy began in the 18^th century, it guaranteed freedom of speech and of the press. Voters kept up with public issues and candidates through newspapers and personal contacts. The Athenians’ democracy was direct — each citizen could present proposals and vote on them. The former British colonists of America created a representative democracy, a republic, through which the people chose others to lead the government and make decisions.

The internet and social media have made it possible for citizens to access nearly limitless information to help them make decisions, but not all information is accurate or true. Unscrupulous people and organizations have been quick to take advantage of the gaps in digital communications and spew misinformation, disinformation and lies to gullible people whose votes decide which candidates shall run the government.

U.S. Intelligence officials have concluded the Russian government used Facebook and other new media to help sway the 2016 presidential race. Intelligence now says the Russians are meddling in the 2020 presidential race, and other foreign powers may also be finagling with our democracy.

Some domestic parties have decided to adopt the disinformation campaigns of foreign enemies to aid candidates in elections. In the March issue of The Atlantic, McKay Coppins documents efforts by the Trump reelection campaign to mislead and misinform voters in order to sway their votes or to so confuse them that they don’t vote. It seems increasingly likely that both major parties will adopt disinformation campaigns using sophisticated data collections to aid their candidates. Falsehoods and misleading assertions will be part of these campaigns. Newspapers, which had tried to keep politicians honest by fact-checking their statements and revealing unethical tactics, are so weakened and the digital universe is so vast that news organizations cannot keep up. The media and reporters are also being targeted in campaigns aimed at sowing distrust of news media.

Meanwhile, election officials are worried that the voting process itself might be compromised. Touch-screen voting terminals are considered vulnerable to hackers and are being replaced by machines that produce a paper copy of votes, but even that might not be sufficient to stop a determined hacker.

If dishonest posts on social media and potential foreign computer hacking were not enough, our democracy also must deal with protracted primary campaigns with as many as two-dozen candidates on one debate stage — another gift of recent technology. Candidates abandon debate to viciously attack the integrity, morals and qualifications of other candidates, offering little information about candidates’ policies and abilities.

In the 2016 GOP debates, Donald Trump insulted and belittled other candidates, violating unwritten rules of decorum and decency. The party did nothing to stop his tirades, which were adopted by other candidates. It appears the Democrats are tolerating the same suicidal tactics this year.

Sad and sorry presidential politics in social media

The presidential primaries had been settled for only hours before the attacks and counter-attacks began. I don't mean the presidential candidates or Democratic or Republican officials. I mean the people on social media passing along unfounded rumors and totally incredible (i.e., impossible to be believed) accusations about the "presumptive" party nominees.

Scrolling through Facebook (never a good place to get your news), I ran across a photo of Bernie Sanders holding up an obviously Photoshopped sign endorsing Donald Trump and what was alleged to be a news report (check the sources of these outlandish "news" items) claiming Chelsea Clinton had discovered that Bill Clinton is not her father. It reminded me of an unbelievably gullible woman who used to visit me at the newspaper office. She told me one day that Boris Yeltsen, then the president of Russia, was Bill Clinton's father. "Look at them," she said. "They look exactly alike."

Other social media posts are not quite so outlandish as these, but they are unapologetically harsh and mean-spirited in condemning the "other" candidate. Can we have a civil election in this atmosphere?

If there was ever a hope for a civil discourse and debate of key issues facing the nation and the world, that hope was quashed to dust by the Republican candidate debates, which focused more on political correctness, personal flaws and genitalia than on the major issues of the day.

Some of the fault lies with the news media, which increasingly sees news as entertainment with little concern for facts or seriousness, and with the American people, who have too little patience and too short an attention span to examine complex issues and serious topics.

Give 'em pablum; it's what they want.