Anne Appelbaum posits, rightly, that Trump, his like-minded cohort around the world, and his millions of adherents reject the Enlightenment and all that it represents in terms of human progress over centuries. She refers to them as the “new Rasputins” (a reference that risks puzzlement on the modern reader’s part) and says that: “The supporters of the New Obscurantism have also broken with the ideals of America’s Founders, all of whom considered themselves to be men of the Enlightenment.”
There’s no disputing her description of the problem. What she skirts, though, is that the obscurantism, whatever (whoever) its source, hasn’t landed in a vacuum. It has landed in minds predisposed to it, in soil well fertilized for it. The effect — in evidence when perusing “respectable” media — is that the views of millions of infantilized, whiny ignoramuses have reached pride of place in the polity. These millions have knowingly and consciously chosen obscurantism.
Not to be overlooked, either, is that the sociopaths — the narcissists readily identifiable by their shamelessness, the breeders and carriers of the obscurantism — who peddle it get the best medical care in the world, live in the finest real estate, and have fuck-you money. Obscurantism is what they sell to the goobers in order to get to power. It’s not something they, themselves, live by. There is zero chance that they would subject themselves to it and its real-life consequences.
The implications are far-reaching. In a system where even the most ignorant have a vote, how does a person who not only believes in the Enlightenment for himself, but strives to make its benefits available to as much of the public as possible, ever get to power again? If a majority willfully rejects the Enlightenment, it effectively rejects persuasion through reasoned argument. This leaves the minority with a dilemma: descend into the sewer with the sociopaths, or resign itself to perpetual opposition.
