The Level Playing Field Of Ideas vs. Groupthink

For me, Online has been a long-running experiment in whether a good idea can be accepted simply on its own merits. Offered free, publicly accessible, posted anonymously, uncopyrighted, to be picked up by anyone who happens to recognize its value and already had the clout to run with it and get the credit for it. So far, the returns do not look promising. Instead, I’ve witnessed 25 years of Groupthink. A political culture that seems to be entirely populated by people who are waiting to see what other people think of an idea before they “make up their own mind” about whether or not it’s good.

I know that from years of reading discussions where everyone is obviously “looking for the lost keys under the streetlight”, to no avail. And anyone who points out that the keys are over in the shadows gets ignored. Not refuted—ignored. This isn’t about my ego trip. Leave me out of it, and have a look at some other examples I can name. Here on Substack, Peter Gray’s insights on early childhood education are ignored. Charles Bowden, the best American journalist of the last 50 years, unknown to the general public, ignored. Sam Smith, the blogger who 25 years ago made me aware of the solution to breaking free of the Duopoly known as Ranked-Choice Voting, ignored. Roger Morris’ investigations of the 1980s-1990s political Duopoly in Washington, ignored. from 1990s, the late Kevin Phillips’ detailed analysis of the consequences of Reaganomics—the root of our National Debt problem—ignored. The late Donald Barlett and James B. Steele’s 1990s investigations into outsourcing, junk bonds, bust-outs, Congressional grift, tax policy, and lobbying, ignored. Neil Postman’s warnings about the passivity and indolence induced by television, ignored. The late Dan Baum’s history of the Drug War, ignored. Professor Carl Hart’s iconoclastic studies of individual agency and the use of mind-altering substances, ignored. Abigail Shrier on late-onset gender dysphoria afflicting young girls, ignored. Chris Hedges criticisms of neoliberalism and militarism, ignored. Norman Finkelsteins’ criticisms of Israel, ignored. Bruce Bawer’s criticisms of Islamic ethnocentrism in Europe, ignored. Not engaged with in debate and discussion—ignored. At least by the People Who Matter, and the main-source electronic news media that chooses who gets to show up on Meet The Press and Face The Nation. Or MSNBC, PBS, CNN, Fox, and all the rest of it.

And so it came to pass that we got Donald Trump, the right-wing semi-populist Bullworth. Few of Trump’s ideas are as well-thought out as those of anyone I mentioned, but some of them have merit. The insights of his with the most validity are the result of thinking outside of the Beltway box. After 50 years of the Idea Content of the other guys I mentioned being ignored while the System kept stagnating in complacency, some of Trump’s outsider takes sound smart, novel, and innovative. But the unfortunate reality is that in order to break into the closed shop of the Democrat-Republican duopoly and its symbiotic relationship with the establishment news media, the power leverage of a massive personal fortune and Influencer name recognition was required. The intrinsic superiority of Donald Trump’s ideas was not the crucial factor in his success. Those ideas would never have been given an airing if Trump hadn’t been a billionaire who achieved nationwide celebrity fame with his own Reality TV show.