“”Since 2010, the pervasive use of social media and smartphones has drastically changed information consumption.” (Matt Anderson Photography | Getty Images)
If a space alien touched down on Earth today, knew nothing about human nature, and witnessed the rhetoric surrounding the 2024 presidential election, it would invariably come to the conclusion that America is heading toward a cataclysm. A political, social, and economic disaster so ruinous that it would spell the end of democracy.
Is this alien prognosis of democracy correct? If it gathered all of its information from the major presidential candidates or social media, it would appear to be a fair indictment.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump refer to each other as threats to democracy. Both have claimed that if the other one wins, it could be the last election. Ever. Period. Democracy over. Exacerbating this rhetoric is an endless deluge of online pundits and trolls.
These accusations continue to beguile over 60 percent of adults, filling them with anxiety about the results of Nov. 5. Despite this blatant demagoguery, American democracy will not fail after this election.
This is the same political system that sparked a global democratic revolution in the late 18th century, twice defeated the British Empire, held itself accountable for slavery and segregation, enshrined suffrage for women, and vanquished the Nazis and Soviet Union. More recently, American democracy fended off an attempted insurrection on Jan. 6, 2020, and withstood the violent summer riots that same year.
Time after time, democracy has demonstrated exceptional resilience as a form of government. Despite all of the bluster and apparent threats, government institutions and legal safeguards against impulsive or nefarious change remain in place. Even if a particular candidate comes into office and attempts to eliminate whole swaths of the national government, there are two other branches to impede such actions. These branches that have their own self-preservation to be concerned with.
Taking the stance that one presidential candidate is a greater democratic risk than the other is a historically bereft argument that stands upon pillars of sensationalism.
The rate of national political anxiety raises far more serious concerns about the means by which we consume information and how this frames our understanding of democracy’s health. If the majority of voting adults expect democracy to imminently fail, they will myopically see every political hiccup – expected or unexpected – as paving stones on the path to failure. We must consider if this expectation is justly calibrated.
Too online?
Since 2010, the pervasive use of social media and smartphones has drastically changed information consumption. So much so, Gen Z has come up with an apt phrase for it. No, it is not skib, sigma, rizz, what’s up chat?, or Ohio, it is “too online.” This is meant to convey a person who spends so much time online that it becomes their entire world.
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has set the standard for researching Gen Z’s behavioral rewiring within the contemporary information environment. However, could it be the case that the same rewiring is occurring for all voting age generations? How we consume information influences our habits and about 54 percent of adults get their news through social media. These adults could be experiencing a democratic expectations shift: demanding real world politics mirror the digital world algorithmically cultivated for them.
Algorithms of the digital world pummel users with only the information that they want to interact with. Besides causing incipient addiction, consuming information in this way tacitly nudges users to dismiss moderating their behaviors or communicating in a civil manner.
Users wittingly and unwittingly build intellectual cocoons that insulate them from contradictory opinions, legitimizing their subjective expectations as concrete realities. These caustic expectations have reaped disastrous real world political consequences, elevated catastrophic thinking, and forestalled the development of essential civic habits.
Democracy requires specific expectations
In Federalist 51, James Madison acknowledges that “[a] dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government …” This was a stunning admission from Madison. He had just spent an entire summer crafting experimental democratic institutions, the likes of which the world had never seen. In the end, he had to admit that they would fail unless the populace that they governed had essential behavioral habits – habits predicated on specific expectations of democracy.
Madison saw unfettered ambition and factions as deathblows to healthy democracy. He worried that individuals would form political factions to vainly curtail government toward their ambitions, creating a tyranny. Separating the powers of government would stifle this, but only popular habits such as humility and moderation would act as a true firewall. These habits require individuals to step into the world beyond their heads to see it from a contradictory perspective. Perspectives that will justly calibrate expectations of the real world.
It is at the intersection of these essential habits and the health of democracy that contemporary information consumption sits as a harbinger. We can foresee where this harbinger is bringing democracy: to a place where moderation and humility are neither expected nor cultivated.
The space alien’s prognosis is right for the wrong reasons. It is not the candidates, but how we consume information that is pushing democracy toward a cataclysm. Living “too online” has created an expectations shift, a shift that does not comport with democratic longevity.