"To believe in the innocence of Mark Zuckerberg ... is far more consequentially stupid than any stupid tendency Haidt may have lamented in anyone else.": Correct, and Greater (but not great) Silicon Valley is brimming with "tech bros" (plus a few "tech sisses") and VCs every bit as greedy, mendacious, and vicious as Zuck.*
Allen and VandeHei are, of course, well known purveyors of toxic drivel, most (in)famous for their lengthy prominence at Politico, a publication whose obsession with who's up/down/in/out in DC is emblematic of the amoral trivialization of American politics and government by many people who are enjoying comfortable careers in them. And The Atlantic is, of course, a preeminent organ of "respectable" sentiment with pretensions to intellectual sophistication, hence there are some facts about American society and politics that it is constitutionally incapable of acknowledging.
Indeed, what strikes me most strongly about the current specimens of drivel, as you've presented them, is how detached from reality they seem. The USA has long been chock full of "bigots and ignoramuses", as Clarence Darrow called them in 1925, people who believe (or profess to believe) patent nonsense. Moreover, they've long sought, with considerable success, to thwart every kind of progress, hence, for example, the Scopes trial at which Darrow spoke those words. That a vast mob of Americans are vicious idiots isn't new at all. What's new are matters of degree, namely the degree to which their fears and hatreds have been inflamed, by decades of unrestrained agitprop and the horrifying installation of a Black man in the White House, and the degree to which they've been marshaled and emboldened, by, yes, Facebook et al. but also the thrilling installation of one of their own in the White House.**
What we're witnessing is also the inevitable denouement of "conservative" politics in an at least quasi-democratic polity. The general goal of the people who bankroll "conservative" politics is to keep the rich and powerful rich and powerful. Naturally, that doesn't tend to win elections, so to be competitive, "conservative" politicians practically have to misdirect public attention. There are various possibilities (e.g., "fiscal responsibility" is an old chestnut), but open demagoguery is apt to prove irresistible, because fear and hatred, however irrational, are such powerful motivators. That "conservative" politicos and their backers tend to be bigots themselves, however genteel, makes it all the easier to choose demagoguery. Alas, depending on appeals to irrational fear and hatred is something like being addicted to an opioid: the high may feel fantastic, but you have to keep upping the dose to get the same high, and eventually, it takes over your life - or your party. The old guard cynical opportunists (Dick Nixon, George Bush Sr., etc.) get pushed aside by even more-cynical opportunists (Kevin McCarthy, Ted Cruz, etc.), by at least kind-sorta True Believers (Ronald Reagan, George Bush Jr., etc.), and, ultimately, by outright imbeciles and lunatics (Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, etc.). The USA is far gone down this road, but the same trend is readily discernible in other countries, including two of which I have first-hand knowledge, namely Britain and Canada. Obviously, publications like The Atlantic can't possibly acknowledge all this.
*I can't resist adding a footnote, in case anyone imagines Zuck and his minions are geniuses ... they keep trying to recruit me as a "data scientist". Although I used Facebook for years (I don't anymore) and frequently comment on the web, as I'm doing here, publicly and under my real name, it seems they have no clue how I might feel about Facebook.
**In "Fire and fury", Michael Wolff quotes an unnamed "foreign model" as asking Trump, "What is this 'white trash'?" And Trump replied, "They're people just like me, only they're poor."
Whatever happened to those laments years ago that incoming North American college students could barely read, if at all? Has that been magically fixed or has it just been swept under the rug? Could be relevant, I'm guessing.
"To believe in the innocence of Mark Zuckerberg ... is far more consequentially stupid than any stupid tendency Haidt may have lamented in anyone else.": Correct, and Greater (but not great) Silicon Valley is brimming with "tech bros" (plus a few "tech sisses") and VCs every bit as greedy, mendacious, and vicious as Zuck.*
Allen and VandeHei are, of course, well known purveyors of toxic drivel, most (in)famous for their lengthy prominence at Politico, a publication whose obsession with who's up/down/in/out in DC is emblematic of the amoral trivialization of American politics and government by many people who are enjoying comfortable careers in them. And The Atlantic is, of course, a preeminent organ of "respectable" sentiment with pretensions to intellectual sophistication, hence there are some facts about American society and politics that it is constitutionally incapable of acknowledging.
Indeed, what strikes me most strongly about the current specimens of drivel, as you've presented them, is how detached from reality they seem. The USA has long been chock full of "bigots and ignoramuses", as Clarence Darrow called them in 1925, people who believe (or profess to believe) patent nonsense. Moreover, they've long sought, with considerable success, to thwart every kind of progress, hence, for example, the Scopes trial at which Darrow spoke those words. That a vast mob of Americans are vicious idiots isn't new at all. What's new are matters of degree, namely the degree to which their fears and hatreds have been inflamed, by decades of unrestrained agitprop and the horrifying installation of a Black man in the White House, and the degree to which they've been marshaled and emboldened, by, yes, Facebook et al. but also the thrilling installation of one of their own in the White House.**
What we're witnessing is also the inevitable denouement of "conservative" politics in an at least quasi-democratic polity. The general goal of the people who bankroll "conservative" politics is to keep the rich and powerful rich and powerful. Naturally, that doesn't tend to win elections, so to be competitive, "conservative" politicians practically have to misdirect public attention. There are various possibilities (e.g., "fiscal responsibility" is an old chestnut), but open demagoguery is apt to prove irresistible, because fear and hatred, however irrational, are such powerful motivators. That "conservative" politicos and their backers tend to be bigots themselves, however genteel, makes it all the easier to choose demagoguery. Alas, depending on appeals to irrational fear and hatred is something like being addicted to an opioid: the high may feel fantastic, but you have to keep upping the dose to get the same high, and eventually, it takes over your life - or your party. The old guard cynical opportunists (Dick Nixon, George Bush Sr., etc.) get pushed aside by even more-cynical opportunists (Kevin McCarthy, Ted Cruz, etc.), by at least kind-sorta True Believers (Ronald Reagan, George Bush Jr., etc.), and, ultimately, by outright imbeciles and lunatics (Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, etc.). The USA is far gone down this road, but the same trend is readily discernible in other countries, including two of which I have first-hand knowledge, namely Britain and Canada. Obviously, publications like The Atlantic can't possibly acknowledge all this.
*I can't resist adding a footnote, in case anyone imagines Zuck and his minions are geniuses ... they keep trying to recruit me as a "data scientist". Although I used Facebook for years (I don't anymore) and frequently comment on the web, as I'm doing here, publicly and under my real name, it seems they have no clue how I might feel about Facebook.
**In "Fire and fury", Michael Wolff quotes an unnamed "foreign model" as asking Trump, "What is this 'white trash'?" And Trump replied, "They're people just like me, only they're poor."
Whatever happened to those laments years ago that incoming North American college students could barely read, if at all? Has that been magically fixed or has it just been swept under the rug? Could be relevant, I'm guessing.