Rescuing democracy and free speech from nihilism and psychopathologies will require new institutions — and your support
Between early 2016 and this year, the media and political establishments that govern the United States, Britain, Canada, and the European Union have described themselves as defenders of democracy and freedom from nationalist politicians, political parties, and social movements. Those populist movements intend to take power and then end democracy as we know it, the media and mainstream political parties agreed. If allowed to gain more influence, they will become identical to the Nazi and other fascist parties that came to power in Europe nearly 100 years ago.
But the events of the last year make clear that the media and political establishment in the US and other Western nations pose a far greater threat to democracy than the populist movements they relentlessly defame.
Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the release of the Twitter Files, and the Missouri v. Biden lawsuit revealed how widespread and near-total the Western establishment’s control of the media environment was and is. The picture it presents of itself as neutral, objective, and balanced is a lie. The media and political establishment are anti-populist, elitist, and anti-democratic. They deeply resent the rise of new independent voices through social media because they have long held undeserved influence over what ideas can be discussed, what’s important, and who can hold elected office.
The single word that best describes the professional-managerial class-dominated “deep state” agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, FBI, and others, along with news media corporations that engage in character assassination and disinformation, is “pathocracy.” We borrow the word from the late Polish psychologist Andrew Lobacweski, who documented the prevalence of narcissists and psychopaths in leadership positions in totalitarian regimes.
Consider the behavior of the mainstream establishment, which holds itself up as a paragon of democracy, freedom, and enlightenment values, over the last seven years.
The FBI in 2016 began an investigation into a newly elected president as part of a disinformation campaign to persuade voters that he was a Russian agent. Governments spied upon, entrapped, and spread disinformation about populist Trump supporters with the goal of convincing the public that they were violent and extremist. And the news media were active and willing participants in spreading seditious disinformation about a duly elected president and his supporters in ways aimed at silencing, arresting, and even incarcerating them.
Governments then demanded long-term society-wide lockdowns that grievously harmed children and other vulnerable populations and attacked proven, practical, and pragmatic actions. With the media’s encouragement, they deprived hundreds of millions of people of their bodily autonomy to mandate Covid vaccines while censoring true accounts of side effects, inconvenient efficacy data, and valid questions about the virus’ origin.
The governments of the US and Britain, and likely many other nations, worked to deplatform and smear doctors, epidemiologists, and other scientists who dissented from various dogmas, from the pandemic’s probable origin in a Wuhan lab, to the need for school closures and mask mandates for children. And the government of Canada punished protesters of these policies by freezing their bank accounts, a shockingly totalitarian tactic.
US and UK militaries and intelligence services, both directly and through NGO and business front groups, created disinformation and demanded the suppression and censorship by social media platforms of populist and nationalist voices or of politically disfavored information. Both current and former FBI and CIA officials spread disinformation aimed at covering up evidence of high-level influence peddling by the immediate family of the establishment’s preferred presidential candidate.
And, over the last few weeks, the same donors, parties, groups, and government officials that oversaw the illegal, secretive, and authoritarian actions of the last seven years are weaponizing through “lawfare” governmental positions that should be nonpartisan, such as state Supreme Courts and state Secretaries of State, to deprive the American people their right to vote for the candidate of their choice.
Over the past year, Public has been one of the only outlets documenting these abuses of power. We are immensely grateful to our subscribers who have stuck with us while we investigated new topics and took on new challenges. It is thanks to you all that we can do this work. For those who have not yet subscribed, please consider supporting us in the New Year.