More on why what’s going on is going on

Posted on Friday 3 October 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Paul Krugman on the decline of American democracy, since Nixon;
  • Francis Fukuyama blames social media and the internet as the prime cause, over eight others, for the global populist wave;
  • Adam Frank on why young men are losing faith in science: because the “manosphere” turns every issue into a debate that must be won;
  • Short items about Vance, Trump, Stephen Wolfe, and ICE Barbie.
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It’s been going on for some time.

Paul Krugman, 3 Oct 2025: Declining American Democracy: Trump is a Symptom, Not the Cause, subtitled “The modern GOP is inherently authoritarian”

Opening:

It’s now undeniable that American democracy is in very big trouble. An autocratic president, abetted by collaborators in the Supreme Court and the Republican party, is actively attempting to use the military, the Justice Department, regulatory agencies, trade policy, voting rolls, federal spending, and any other weapon he can get his hands on to punish his critics and lock in permanent power. Yet it still comes as a shock to have the dire state that the country is in confirmed by the experts.

The US is now rated as an “illiberal democracy.” The legacy media is in denial. Krugman reviews charts showing the increased left-right divide over recent decades. No crystal clear answer, of course. He concludes:

Anyway, the answer to that question is that there are a lot of potential explanations, ranging from rising income inequality and the power of the plutocracy, to the problems of left-behind regions, to men not working, to the injured pride of white men who feel that they have lost their dignity and their privilege, to the social anomie caused by the Internet. Also, racism never went away and has become increasingly overt again. I take all of these issues seriously, but don’t have firm views about their relative responsibility for our current moment of democratic peril.

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Via Steven Pinker on Facebook:

Persuasion, Francis Fukuyama, 2 Oct 2025: It’s the Internet, Stupid
What caused the global populist wave? Blame the screens.

He recites the standard list of causes:

  1. Economic inequality brought on by globalization and neoliberal policies.
  2. Racism, nativism, and religious bigotry on the part of populations that have been losing status.
  3. Broad sociological changes that have sorted people by education and residence, and resentment at the dominance of elites and experts.
  4. The special talents of individual demagogues like Donald Trump.
  5. The failures of mainstream political parties to deliver growth, jobs, security, and infrastructure.
  6. Dislike or hatred of the progressive Left’s cultural agenda.
  7. Failures of leadership of the progressive Left.
  8. Human nature and our proclivities towards violence, hatred, and exclusion.
  9. Social media and the internet.

Then he says:

I myself have contributed to this literature, and like everyone else ticked off cause #9, social media and the internet, as one of the contributing factors. However, after pondering these questions for nearly a decade, I have come to conclude that technology broadly and the internet in particular stand out as the most salient explanations for why global populism has arisen in this particular historical period, and why it has taken the particular form that it has.

Then he goes through the weaknesses of arguments blaming the first eight items.

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Of course, you’re not supposed to have “faith” in science, you’re supposed to understand it. Adam Frank.

NY Times, opinion guest essay by Adam Frank, 3 Oct 2025: Why Young Men Are Losing Faith in Science

Again, it’s about the internet and in particular the “manosphere” —

— a loose network of podcasts, YouTubers and other male influencers. I’ve appeared on some of the manosphere’s most popular shows, including Joe Rogan’s. I’ve watched how curiosity about science can slide into conspiracy-tinged mazes rooted in misinformation. And I believe the first step out of the maze for young men begins by reasserting to them the virtue of hard work — an often grueling but indispensable part of finding the right answers in science.

The internet, and social media, are corroding the rules of discourse that have been built up over centuries.

The manosphere can foster genuine interest in science among young listeners. But framing science as a debate to be won makes it easy to paint established scientists as opponents who must be overcome. And one of the easiest ways to win the debate is to suggest scientists are either self-satisfied elites who won’t consider new ideas or, worse, liars who know the truth and are hiding it.

Frank recalls a guy he talked with on a plane about ancient aliens. And ends,

If I could talk to that young man on the plane again, I would not simply tell him to exercise caution when it comes to fringe experts. I would instead explain the long traditions of scientific discipline and determination that built the jet he’s flying in. Einstein’s relativity, evolution and genetics, climate physics on any planet (even alien ones) — these topics are a thousand times more compelling than faked moon landings because they are not the fever-dreams of hucksters but a direct vision of nature’s outrageous beauty and complexity. Make the effort to walk down that road, embrace its honesty and humility and you’ll be hooked forever.

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Short items.

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