How to avoid “weird politics”
Americans are living in separate realities right now, each with its own “alternative facts.” If we can’t agree on basic realities, it is inevitable that public debate is going to degenerate, and President Trump certainly accelerated this process. Why is this? The relatively best answer is that we live in separate epistemological realities, each with its own set of alternative facts — something I call “weird politics.”
The basic source of political weirdness is limits to growth. Limits to growth means that the economy can’t get any bigger due to environmental issues. And there’s no politically viable way of dealing with it. That’s the problem and that is what is driving the weirdness of politics.
Since Mother Nature has ruled out economic growth, the only real way to solve the social inequality problem is through wealth redistribution, using the Robin Hood method: take from the rich and give to the poor. I don’t see the elites accepting that right now.
The only real way to solve the environmental crisis, including global warming, is by consuming less: reduce consumption, aim for a smaller population, and drastically reduce or eliminate livestock agriculture. I don’t see anyone talking in this vein, either.
Political discussion is not completely bankrupt. There is growing consciousness of specific limits, the most famous one being global warming. Some are talking about a “Green New Deal”; and some (Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and others) have suggested eliminating factory farming. All of these are worthy of further discussion, but our problem is deeper than just a single problem, even a planet-threatening problem like climate change.
We are facing limits to growth. Even if the Green New Deal works like a charm (which is highly debatable), it only deals with one limit. All the others, including peak oil, soil erosion, mineral extraction, and species extinction, remain firmly in place. People are hoping that we can save the environment and keep our ever-expanding economy. It won’t work; there are just too many limits. At best we can print some more money and shuffle the limits around, which is what has been happening for at least the last two decades and at best only postpones the day of reckoning.
If we want democracy, we need to face the truth. Since our politics has ruled out discussion of limits to growth or anything like it, we are left grasping at half-truths to justify any political conclusions. We do not have a common shared reality: a set of generally agreed-upon facts within which political debate can happen. Instead, we have “weird politics.”
Having (mostly) gotten through the election crisis has given us a breather before the next round of weirdness sets in. But regardless of who’s in office and how they get there, we still have climate change, peak oil, species extinction, pandemics, and groundwater depletion. Until limits to growth is dealt with, politics will continue to be weird. The answer is to start talking about limits to growth, and talking about the things that would actually help: things like the universal basic income, veganism, and absolute caps on use of natural resources such as soil, water, and coal. If we aren’t willing to do this or can’t do this, weird politics is here to stay.
