Think Responsibly

Win or lose, elections always end the same--drowned in booze. This November’s midterms were no different.

Republicans, smelling blood, did their best to mobilize the base by stirring up anger and discontent about the the economy, crime, and immigration while casting aspersion on the legitimacy of voting itself. Democrats, fearing a rout, pushed back with their own catastrophism and hyperbole: Your rights are under attack! Democracy is at risk!

But as groggy daylight dawned, it was clear that the "red wave" hadn't materialized. In fact, extremist candidates on both sides underperformed compared to fly-under-the-radar Republicans or Democrats unconcerned with the culture wars. See governor's races by Brian Kemp (R-GA) and Tony Evers (D-WI), Michael Bennet (D-CO) and John Thune (R-SD) in the Senate, and Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) in the House. Even Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State who stood up to Donald Trump’s intimidation over the 2020 vote in that state, was handily reelected. New York Times columnist David Brooks put it this way: "The single most important result of this election was the triumph of the normies. Establishmentarian, practical leaders who are not always screaming angrily at you did phenomenally well, on right and left...". In other words, it was a triumph of the moderates.

Political moderates are defined by the rejection of radical or extreme views. It could be that they don't pay much attention to politics, hold few, if any, consistent views on issues, or hold a grab bag of conflicting positions which make them hard to summarize or appeal to.

These voices have been hard to hear, though, increasingly crowded out by a cacophony of uncompromising partisanship from our leaders. For example, display the ideologies of members of Congress visually and you get a graph of two mountain peaks with a deep valley in between. The cluster on the left contains nearly all the elected Democrats and the one on the right includes nearly all the Republicans. You could say that members of Congress are just responding to the perception of increased polarization among the American electorate at large, an atmosphere of zealotry and hostility amid zero-sum contests that pose an existential threat to the American way of life--and you'd be right.

Tristan Harris, ethicist and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, has studied how the ad model of social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter is deliberately designed to addict users with a never-ending stream of shocking, upsetting, jealousy-inducing content in order to maximize profit. Speaking on 60 Minutes this month, Harris went further, explaining how unlimited distribution of angry, political content in particular, which consistently gets the most traction on those sites, has hijacked our emotions and is driving political polarization in America.

"The more and more outrageous language you use, the more inflammatory language, contemptuous language, the more indignation you use, the more it will get shared," said Harris. "So we are being rewarded for being division entrepreneurs. The better you are at innovating a new way to be divisive, we will pay you in more likes, followers, and retweets."

Bill Whitaker: "These platforms, are they not just reflecting who we are and what we think and the divisions that are already there?"

Harris: "They're supercharging a hundred or a thousand times to one the worst parts of ourselves."

Day after day, this behavior has led to a general lowering of inhibitions called "norms", which used to act as a guard rail in civic life against our worst tendencies. Instead, in our impairment, we have blown right through. Even the traditionally low-turnout midterms, therefore, have become high-stakes.

But it's not all of us. Users on the far left and far right account for only about 7-8% on either side, yet are the most likely to attack others on social media. These incendiary, algorithmically-amplified voices churn a narrative of pure conflict while the rest of us--the exhausted majority--are too intimidated to speak up.

Experts including Harris say that social media is largely to blame for the well-documented mental health crisis among adolescents, especially teenage girls. The platforms have done relatively little to disincentivize the spread of noxious, divisive content or more strictly enforce minimum age limits for users. Not to mention curbing exploitation by foreign powers seeking to interfere in our elections with fake profiles and disinformation. To that end, attorneys general in several states have begun laying the groundwork to fight the platforms in court by demonstrating the harms of their product to families and society, as they did against big tobacco and leaded gasoline. Might the Surgeon General someday stamp Facebook's homepage? WARNING: THIS PRODUCT MAY CAUSE ANGER, ANXIETY, DEPRESSION, HOMICIDAL THOUGHTS, OR CONSPIRATORIAL DERANGEMENT.

Cue the hangover. What happened last night?...

The pundits' explanation for the election results is that Americans have reached a limit in their toleration of petty agitation and brinkmanship. They are genuinely concerned that the friction and temperature might start a fire. They want a return to sanity.

I hope they're right. A majority (37%) of Americans identify as moderate, compared to conservative (36%) or liberal (25%). "America is purple," write Fowler et al. in the American Political Science Review, "with a unimodal distribution of ideologies and with most of the public well between the positions of Democratic and Republican party leaders." UCLA political scientist Chris Tausanovitch agrees. “[T]here’s a real basis for thinking that catering to the middle of the spectrum matters."

Still, it's harder than it should be to stick up for moderation. It's outdated, some say, and naive to think we can ever go back to an older way of doing things, to tone down the rhetoric. There is too much momentum, too many incentives pointing the other way. This is the way things are. The addict's excuse.

But let me make the case.

When I say this election was a victory for moderates, I don't mean that our polarization problem is solved, or that my angst has subsided. Our voting system remains at risk of subversion and interference; our institutions, of piracy and rum-drunk ransacking.

Moderation is not the same as being undecided, or independent. Nor is it simply centrism, taking the middle ground between opposing positions. It is the recognition that individuals are too complicated to be easily placed in a bin. That ideology is stifling and leads to horrors, no matter the direction it marches. It is an embrace of nuance and ambiguity. Willingness to see, in issues portrayed as black and white, shades of gray.

It does not mean sacrificing principle. In politics and life, it takes courage to stand up to bullies. It takes deep self-knowledge to tell in your own voice--against strong currents of conformity--your own unique story. It takes integrity and humility to embody privately the virtues we claim to hold in public.

No.

It is the stance of the skeptical scientist. Where you choose to plant your flag, do so lightly.

Forget pomp and excess, it teaches enough is enough.

Be wary of absolutism or claims of moral certitude. Neither side has a monopoly on truth.

And stay off social media, to the extent you can. Don't let the bastards take any more than they have.

Sunday, two days before the election, was the end of daylight savings time, the yearly ritual when we turn back the clocks. It's always a transition, letting the body adjust to a new normal, shorter days and early sunsets. Given the election results, it seems symbolic. Not that I'm pining for some bygone era of political harmony--I know better than that. I mean that our mornings are brighter.

We have time to sober up. Two years exactly.