Behind the Big Lie and Liz Cheney’s Banishment: America’s Legitimacy Crisis
In The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard separates scientific knowledge from what he calls the “narratives,” which, when “judged by the yardstick of science, the majority of them prove to be fables.” In so distinguishing, he concedes not only that the former does not constitute the totality of all forms of knowledge, but also that it does not fare well when in competition vis-à-vis the latter.
Four decades later, there is a chilling resonance to Lyotard’s observation.
We saw this struggle between verifiable facts versus the smaller “narratives” play out during the U.S. presidential election in ’16 with an unprecedented propagation of false news by both foreign and domestic actors. We witnessed the deadly consequence of the Big Lie — that the 2020 election was somehow stolen from Donald Trump, itself too a type of narrative — with his mob’s rabid assault on the Capitol on January 6th. We continue to learn of the very real threat that the twisted narrative still poses to American democracy.
Then there was this week when Liz Cheney was ousted from the Chair of the House Republican Conference for refusing to endorse Trump’s kooky allegation. Daughter of a former republican vice president and a staunch conservative, Cheney has been effectively purged from her own party. Trump’s narrative has thus swallowed the GOP whole, further cementing his grip on a major American political party. The New York Times editorial board put it best: R.I.P., G.O.P. The party of Lincoln is no more.
But I do not wish to add to the devolving state of cynicism, of which too many have become unconscious captives. What I wish to point out, rather, is the impossibly curious state of affairs that is the persistence of Mr. Trump’s base despite an abundance of his failures, and more importantly, the debilitating blockage that that mulishness has engendered in our national discourse. Quite a few people wrote on this subject in hopes of offering a clinical analysis of this ‘movement’ by applying the lens of identities (white, working class men), or to come up with a clever headline caricaturing his supporting block (it’s a personality cult!). But whatever the tentative diagnosis, this schizophrenic phenomenon is a symptom of a much more profound crisis that America as a society has been undergoing. And the signs are telling.
It is an America where compromise has become a dirty word. Dialogue with those across the aisle is seen as betrayal (remember when Liz Cheney bumped fist with President Biden at his speech to the joint session of Congress couple of weeks ago?) Individuals are reduced into party affiliations. Valid criticisms are met with automatic whataboutisms (“But her e-mails!”). Decision-making by consensus building is no longer an option.
And mind you, it’s not just in politics. The savage attitudes of Karens toward those denouncing racism. The warped reactions of anti-maskers even as their fellow citizens fall by the thousands. Denial of climate change in the face of burning forests and the ravages of worsening hurricanes. The prominence of QAnon and other outlandish conspiracy theories. I could go on.
We have thus reached an impasse in our national discourse. The American left and right are not only talking across each other; it is as if we were speaking in different languages. But different languages with the same underlying purpose: one of legitimacy. I am talking about the languages of legitimation and delegitimation. America is in a crisis of and for legitimacy.
Normally, the question of legitimacy has to do with titles. Before, it was the divine rights of kings. Nowadays, it mainly concerns certified professions like doctors and lawyers and engineers. But fundamentally, legitimacy has to do with governments, institutions, and ethical precepts. Legitimacy derived from the express consent of the people who agree to be governed by their elected public officials. The social contract. It is the sort of legitimacy bestowed upon key institutions that are devoted to safeguard our democratic rights and ideals, enforce the socio-legal constraints, and advance science.
It should be plain by now that the kind of legitimacy or its loss I am referring to here is not some trite manipulation of the overton window. Nay, delegitimation is a much darker object. It has more to do with sowing chaos and the destruction of long-held norms.
Now, to be fair, the legitimacy game is a bipartisan exercise. Just as Democrats were outraged over Trump’s enfeeblement before Putin at the 2018 Helsinki Summit, Republicans are criticizing Biden’s plan to pack (or “reform”) the Supreme Court. Genuine or not, both instances are about legitimacy. And just as the democratic senators decried the hastened process of judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to that same Court, Mr. Trump debased the Commission on Presidential Debates, a historically non-profit, bipartisan organization and its scheduled moderators (not to mention his suggestions to verify for secret earpieces or conduct drug tests). That too, is an assault on the legitimacy of the institution and its perceived role since first accompanying the jousting between George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis in 1988.
On a broader scheme of things, this societal proclivity to erode credibility in fixed structures corresponds with the general state of disenchantment prevalent in those who have grown alienated (the “forgotten men and women” — to use Sean Hannity’s words) from a system that increasingly favors efficiency above all else. Miniaturization and “mercantilization of (scientific) knowledge.” The quieting down of passions and excitement. Disintegration of communities and social bonds. There is an undeniable loss of appeal in the grand traditions of things. The heroes of our not-so-distant past are forgotten, along with their Homeric expeditions. No longer do we find the unifying allure ordinarily located in the grand Narratives — Narratives of Enlightenment, of Emancipation, of History, of Science, of Technology — or to borrow Lyotard’s term: the “metanarratives.”
What we see instead, is a violent surge in smaller narratives. Narratives that at first unremarkably but most assuredly creep into our daily ‘news’ consumption. Narratives that whisper alternate realities. Narratives that brazenly deride and devour science and scientists. Narratives that not merely defy recognized authorities but that which aim to uproot and upend their standings. These are narratives containing a certain malignant venom, and their quest is existential by nature. They are here to contend for the empty thrones abandoned by the ancient narratives whose shrines are no longer frequented. And they too, seek their own legitimacy.
These mini-narratives find their formidable ally in the mainstream news media, or in this case, Fox News — the querencia of American conservatives. The leitmotif of “incredulity” — an expression Lyotard uses to sum up postmodernism — is punctiliously arranged to blend into a culture of pervasive governmental distrust deeply ingrained in American identity. Suspecting posture and skeptical predispositions dominate not only the actual language of evening programs; they are well reflected in the tone and the tenor adopted by the Narrators (Anchors). Here, the narratives roam free, unconstrained from the rules applicable to discourses of science or even abecedarian common sense. Therein the pitch is made with surgical precision: Tucker Carlson represents the perpetually enraged and reversely oppressed class at 8 p.m. Laura Ingraham incarnates the scorn and disdain directed against public health officials and the lockdown measures at 10 p.m.
But the most obscene kind of integration occurs at 9 p.m. when Sean Hannity claims the name of The People. It is that time of the night when the conventional curtain between the Narrator and his story as mandated by the most basic journalistic practice is nonchalantly lifted as a matter of routine. At this level, framing is for neophytes (“the Mob and the Media”). It is not a rapprochement; nay, it is an elaborate merging ritual. It is here that the narratives take on their final forms. Notice the amalgamation whenever Hannity incessantly refers to himself and the audience as “We The People” (or my favorite line: “We the smelly Walmart shoppers who cling to our Bible and Guns”). In fact, Hannity rarely mentions himself directly; rather, Sean Hannity as an individual and the narrating character both vanish into “We. Us. The People.” It is a most remarkable performance of self-erasure. In this Act of Great Replacement (no, not that of Renaud Camus), the Narrator assumes the voice of The People, which is the surest way of heralding legitimacy (and very American, might I add). This way, legitimacy becomes his to promulgate as he pleases, his plaything, along with the authority and competence that legitimacy generally conveys. In that union, the Narrator and the narratives prophesy of a Hero, a Hero of liberation against the ongoing and imminent destruction of the American way of life, a Hero who would restore the pecking order of the good ol’ days…
Yet, if we recall, both the source and the amplifier of the narratives used to originate directly from the White House. Perhaps unbeknownst to him, Mr. Trump has been on a mission to delegitimize all that makes America who She is. Democratic institutions that are pillars of this constitutional republic. The rule of law. Rudimentary civility undergirding responsible citizenry and decent human beings. America’s perceived place on the world stage. In retrospective, this delegitimizing tactic has been the name of the game all along. It has been the 45th’s principal and consistent methodology mise-en-scène by unabashedly questioning, contradicting, debasing, ridiculing, ostracizing, vilifying, and denigrating the order of things. That is what he did by his shameless fixation over his predecessor’s birth certificate, and that is precisely what he has been engaged in by doubling down on the Big Lie as he and his allies openly disparage the validity of mail-in ballots as a mode of voting.
Mr. Trump’s — and now his epigones in both federal and state politics who try to whitewash the insurrection on the U.S. Capitol — resorting to undermining America’s foundations should not come as a surprise. After all, he made his entry into the political arena declaring himself as an ‘outsider’ challenging the status quo (“The Establishment”) with the goal of “drain(ing) the swamp.” But Mr. Trump is overly modest in his self-evaluation (which, I know, almost sounds like a really bad oxymoron), for his moves did not just disrupt; they fundamentally blurred the lines separating the tolerable from the execrable. It is both tragic and ironic that Mr. Trump may not realize the ultimate consequences of his actions. Tragic, because these sorts of dislocations are detrimental to the nation’s social stability and democratic values. Ironic, considering that his own term began with a cloud of illegitimacy over its head.
But such is the game of legitimation, for it does not concern itself with what is true or just. Its preoccupation lies with the question of, and the value gained from, positioning and the economy of accessibility.
