Politico has a remarkable story about Shawn Rosenberg, a professor at UC Irvine, who presented a recent paper this past summer at the International Society of Political Psychologists.

The paper predicts that democracy is devouring itself. And the reason is that elites are no longer bought into the traditions and customs of democracy.

Because elites have lost faith in democracy, Rosenberg predicts that dictatorship and authoritarianism will inevitably take its place.

ECHOES OF ARENDT

Rosenberg’s predictions echo analysis from 20th century political theorists written in response to the triumph of fascism and national socialism in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. Hannah Arendt, for example, in her seminal work The Origins of Totalitarianism, identified the harnessing of alienated masses by demagogues as one of the primary drivers of totalitarian government.

Is a section called “The Temporary Alliance of the Mob and the Elite,” Arendt described how both the faceless masses of alienated lay people, as well as the elites in charge of running society, soon found passion and meaning through state violence:

The pronounced activism of the totalitarian movements, their preference for terrorism over all other forms of political activity, attracted the intellectual elite and the mob alike, precisely because this terrorism was so utterly different from that of the earlier revolutionary societies … What proved so attractive was that terrorism had become a kind of philosophy through which to express frustration, resentment, and blind hatred, a kind of political expressionism which used bombs to express oneself, which watched delightedly the publicity given to resounding deeds and was absolutely willing to pay the price of life for having succeeded in forcing the recognition of one's existence on the normal strata of society.

“CLICKS” AND “LIKES” IN AN AGE OF EXTREMISM

Today, algorithmic content platforms like YouTube push people to “click” on extreme forms of content. Social media like Facebook and Twitter then permit people to share that content to large audiences. These platforms are looking the other way (at best) and may even be exploiting extremist content to keep people hooked.

In an era when technology companies are openly pushing people to “click” and “like” content that is fundamentally opposed to democratic norms—with the consent and even approval of the business and political classes—Rosenberg’s study and Arendt’s timeless wisdom are terrible warnings about the political future of Western democracies.

Hate speech and extremist, violent political philosophies already present complex problems for rule of law societies.

Adding a never-ending avalanche of online-fueled hate speech and extremist content that is continually pushed to passive Internet users is like throwing gasoline on a fire. It is an experiment without precedent, and one that may produce new, advanced forms of tyrannical government.

If elites are no longer willing to maintain the system, and if lay people find comfort and solace in the “mob mentality” that comes from philosophies of terror, it is only a matter of time before democracy implodes on itself—cast aside for more violent and possibly even totalitarian forms of political governance. Adding social media, click-and-swipe algorithms, and the power and influence of Big Tech into this equation is the stuff of science fiction dystopia.

Perhaps one we are already in.

Dave Inder Comar is the co-founder of Human Rights Pulse and a practising attorney.

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