Purple Rain Isn’t Cooling our Risk of Radical Political Change

Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Songquan Deng/Shutterstock)

In August 2019, I published my first novel, Intentional Consequences. As it turned out, the book became the first in a series of Eva Johnson thrillers set at the intersection of contemporary politics, technology and social change in America. I optimistically called the book “the 2020 election cyber conspiracy thriller.” Many readers called it prescient.

The story in Intentional Consequences ended before the Democrat Party awarded Joe Biden its nomination for President in August 2020. While I had no intention of predicting history, looking back I must admit that the book captured a lot of political, technological and cultural issues that still haunt us as we approach the 2022 mid-term elections later this year. Two of those issues involve the impact of media polarization and the risk of radical political change in our democracy.

The following excerpt from an early chapter portrays how I melded those issues into the story. To set the stage, I should introduce a few characters. David Bernbach was a wealthy activist investor and self-described member of the Democratic elite. His partner in what became a geopolitical conspiracy was an older man named Fred Billings, who had been the founder and retired CEO of one of the largest chemical companies in North America. In the excerpt below, they were chatting over breakfast in New York City with Valerie Williams and her husband, Rakesh Jain. Williams was a political science professor at the University of Texas at Austin who was widely respected for her expertise about U.S. democracy. Jain was a billionaire tech executive.

Remember, this book was written in 2019. Although the party in control of the White House may have changed hands since that time, the dangers this excerpt describes—and the potential desire for revenge by the “other side”—still seem disturbingly real. (By the way, I wrote Intentional Consequences as a “purple” book that criticized the disinformation, political games and dirty tricks on both sides.) As a reader said to me recently, the issues that Intentional Consequences raised three years ago about our bitter partisan politics are even more disturbing today than they were then. I had to agree.

Here's how the conversation went.

* * *

After the usual banter over coffee and pastries, Bernbach said, “I have a reputation for getting to the point, so let me explain why I had hoped we could get together. It’s no secret Fred and I have poured considerable money into Democratic political campaigns and action groups. We’ve both been friends of the Clintons for many years, although Fred was less enthusiastic about her 2016 run than I was. We’re both looking ahead to the next election and thinking about how to deploy our resources. We were hoping you might share your thoughts with us on two topics we’ve been discussing. First, how do you see the polarization of the media affecting our democracy and coming elections? Second, on a relative basis, how susceptible do you think the United States is to what I’ll call radical political change?”

Glancing at Rakesh with a wink, Valerie said, “I’m flattered you’d be interested in our opinion. On your first issue, polarization of both traditional and social media is at an all-time high.

“In theory, we shouldn’t care if we still have multiple views capable of giving us the informed electorate democracy requires. In reality, that’s not happening. We’re having a harder time deciding what’s true and what’s not true, and even what’s relevant. That’s one of the reasons trust in the media has dropped so precipitously in this country. We don’t know where to go to get an objective view of the news or the issues. Walter Cronkite is no longer with us and nobody’s here to replace his calm, objective voice.

“Polarization helps fire up each side’s base—the voters who love echo chambers. Media polarization helps fuel identity politics on the right and on the left. And that contributes to more partisanship and bitterness, which fuels more media polarization. It’s a terribly dangerous feedback loop, driven in part by the media’s need to attract viewers and readers.

“The internet is training all of us to expect easy, immediate answers without a lot of thought. To be blunt, we’re becoming superficial and lazy. So, we look to our tribal groups and elites and echo chamber influencers for answers. Democracy doesn’t survive well when voters decide truth is whatever their tribal group wants it to be and don’t care about going to the trouble to find out otherwise.

“How you feel about this depends on how you want to use it. If you care about democracy, you may find it disturbing. If you want to take advantage of it, you may say this is an excellent opportunity to increase your control and influence over the voters who identify with your group. Look at Fox News and CNN.

“As for your second topic, our country is more susceptible to radical political change today than it has been since the thirties. We’re facing the combined effect of social and political factors we’ve never seen come together before: fake news and disagreement over the most basic facts; partisan bitterness focused on revenge, clearly made worse by identity politics firing up passions and hate; sharply falling trust in major stabilizing and enabling institutions like government, business, religious organizations and the media; and significant change in our media, both social and traditional, with very little understanding of what those changes mean to our democracy.

“The risk of radical political change increases when the loss of trust is accompanied by partisan anger, or ‘contempt’ as Arthur Brooks calls it. When these factors coincide, the masses are the most volatile, and most likely to act on emotion unconstrained by historical stereotypes.”

Rakesh said, “I worry about the potential impact of a Black Swan event on this. I don’t know how we’ll find national consensus in an economic or wartime emergency if the American public can’t decide who to believe or what the facts are. Trump calls everything he disagrees with ‘fake news’. The Democrats and much of the media are doing everything they can to destroy the President’s credibility, both to make it hard for him to govern and to defeat him in the next election. If America gets into a crisis and the public doesn’t believe their president, who will they believe? Nancy Pelosi? AOC and her gang? Upwards of 20 Democratic presidential contenders? The military? And how will we decide?”

Valerie said, “Putin understands this, and he’ll be happy to take advantage of it if he can. In our modern history, we’ve never faced risks like these before. It’s easy to blame Trump for his role in undermining presidential credibility and creating confusion about American foreign policy, but the Democrats and the liberal media are far from innocent beneficiaries. They know exactly what they’re doing. I’m not sure whether they fail to appreciate the unintended consequences that could follow, or they just don’t care about the results.”

Rakesh said, “As bad as the consequences may be for America, maybe they think any price is worth paying to get the revenge they want.”

* * *

Later in the book, Rakesh Jain tries to build corporate support for a project to bring American back together. He wanted to Repaint America purple by blending red and blue. He wanted a rain of purple consensus on the things that really matter—the essential beliefs that should bind us together—to push the red and blue extremists to the sides. It’s not too much of a spoiler to say that our country’s corporate leaders were afraid to step up against a barrage of social media criticism from all sides. As Rakesh learned, and as three more years of America’s dysfunctional politics have confirmed, we are going to need a lot more purple rain to wash away our starkly divided politics and cool the growing risk of political violence across our democracy.