What's Ailing the Neighbours and Why We Can't Ignore It

 

America is in the throes of a malady that could cripple if not end the Republic. 

I have a sense of it and I expect you probably also sense it. "What it is ain't exactly clear" to be sure but its presence is indisputable. Perhaps Washington Post columnist, Alyssa Rosenberg, has it figured out. She thinks what we're witnessing is the backlash of boredom in the Age of Covid.

"In his 1985 book “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” the cultural critic Neil Postman wrote that “We all build castles in the air. The problems come when we try to live in them.” Postman was a pessimist, but not pessimistic enough. It’s worrisome when citizens of a democracy take up permanent residency in fantasyland. But it’s even more dangerous when they try to renovate reality to match their castles in the air — and to insist that everyone else live there, too.

"That is effectively what happened twice in January, first when supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol and then when a group of retail investors drove GameStop stock to heights of unreason. These two very different eruptions illustrate the same point: Boredom and social isolation are public policy issues.

"It’s common sense that defeating the covid-19 pandemic will allow Americans to return to their “normal” lives. But more than that, the return to normalcy will help diminish the power of fantasies incubated on the Internet and the risks those dream worlds pose to residents of reality."

"...As Princeton’s Damaris Graeupner and Alin Coman wrote in their 2017 paper, “The dark side of meaning-making: How social exclusion leads to superstitious thinking,” a sense of social exclusion can drive people to embrace conspiracy theories. As converts burrow into stranger and stranger ideas, they risk isolating from friends and family who don’t share their belief in misinformation. In compensation, they find a sense of belonging in the communities built around those ideas, shutting themselves off from competing points of view. So conspiracy theories like QAnon do more than seek to explain overwhelming and unimaginable circumstances. By giving adherents “research” to do and texts to interpret, they also provide a way to fill empty hours with what feels like productive, empowering work."

"...Under normal circumstances, it would be hard to formulate a policy response to a problem like “boredom.” This is not a normal moment. The Biden administration can’t provide people with friends or produce a captivating TV show. But it can get shots in arms, to get the people those arms are attached to back into the real world as soon as possible. The result won’t just be a return to normalcy, but, one hopes, a badly needed return to sanity as well."

Rosenberg may be on to something. It's hard to imagine that the boredom and dislocation of the pandemic and lockdowns wouldn't have significant consequences for societies. This may have magnified the lunacy of Trump's supporters. It did not, however, cause the madness. The underlying malady was well entrenched among the Gullibillies long before Covid 19 arrived on America's shores.

The nonsense about America's Deep State and the Democratic pedophile cabal that indulges in human trafficking and eats babies all predate Covid-19 by several years. The abandonment of fact and logic to embrace a belief-based counter-reality was not triggered by the pandemic. What happened over the past year is that these already well baked-in traits were ruthlessly exploited by a president and his cadre to deflect attention from his bungling of the public health crisis that has cost to date some 460,000 lives.

Generations of Canadians have  been taught that "idle hands are the Devil's playthings" and that perhaps more accurately sums up Rosenberg's argument. Yes, getting people back to work is important for their mental health. That doesn't mean it will somehow cleanse the US of conspiratorial belief. Roughly half of Congress sees that as instrumental to reclaiming power in the Senate and possibly also the House. Not for nothing did her Republican colleagues give Marge a standing ovation this week when they met behind closed doors. They haven't broken with her. They feel the need to cultivate the support of lunatics, fearful of getting primaried out of their jobs if they don't.

What a return to normalcy will look like, whether that is even possible, can't be known at this point. After WWII, rationing remained in effect in the UK until July, 1954. It was in that immediate postwar interregnum that the John Birch movement flourished in the United States with some becoming so bold as to accuse Dwight Eisenhower of being a Communist. Today's conspiracy contagion will be far harder to fight back than the struggle Americans faced in the 50s.

For months many Canadians have watched our southern cousin hold massive celebrations, often openly flouting Covid precautions such as masks and distancing and we have shuddered at imagining our southern borders opened again. Now, with QAnon, white supremacists, nativists and xenophobic groups, some heavily armed, taking the field, even into the halls of Congress, we face an additional threat recognized by Ottawa to some degree when it added the Proud Boys to Canada's terrorism list.

We had better pray that Joe Biden can restore some real semblance of social cohesion to the American public but I would not bet the farm on it, not if these disparate groups coalesce into some homegrown "fifth column" - a group of people who undermine the larger populace from within. We've seen their faces, heard their voices and we know they're heavily armed, exploiting the vague wording of their second amendment to create groups that more closely resemble insurgents than "militias." 

There is another force that could destabilize the US over the coming decade or two - climate change.  The southern US in particular is in the crosshairs of severe storm events of increasing frequency, intensity and duration. Coupled with sea level rise, flash droughts and floods, worsening heatwaves, wildfires, and America's groundwater problems (aquifers), parts of the southern states may see declining habitability. People, especially those most vulnerable to extreme weather such as the poor and the old may be put to rout. This could become an internal problem - relocation of IDPs (internally displaced persons) coupled with the challenge of mass migration out of Central America. 

Disease, worsening inequality, the proliferation of antigovernmental extremism, the dislocative impacts of climate change, the rise of belief-based tribalism - that is not a formula for a healthy, productive democracy. These are forces that destabilize poorer countries. 

The Middle East has provided scholars great insights into how destabilizing events such as civil unrest are rarely confined within national borders. Instead they often spillover into neighbouring states. 

"Understandably, millions have fled these conflicts, seeking safety and a better life. The latest civil wars have produced massive refugee flows, worse than what the region has seen in its post-World War II history. Refugees are a humanitarian problem and deserve the support of the international community. However, they are also a security problem. Over time, the presence of disaffected young men with no jobs and few prospects in their new home is fertile soil for militant groups. Particularly when these refugee camps are near the border [where] the population is concentrated, they may be a home or at least rear base for militant groups who seek recruits, sanctuary, and other forms of support. Not surprisingly, both regimes and their host countries view the refugees with concern and may seek to disperse them, recruit rival groups, or otherwise stir the pot. As always, the innocent will suffer the most." 

Fenians aside, since 1814 Canada has had little experience of spillover conflict but we are clearly vulnerable to it. Our vast, unguarded border with the United States has been an economic blessing to both countries but it may become Canada's Achilles Heel if the US becomes destabilized. Am I advocating a 21st century Hadrian's Wall? Hardly. What I'm suggesting is that we become mindful of what fracture south of the 49th can mean for the True North.

Illustration - Mark Twain's American Flag