Digital media are making politics impossible The question on the liberal left’s collective mind since Trump’s election to the office of the 45th president of the United States – but not on the mind of many right-wing Republicans, for whom Trump’s victory is a sign of the imminence of Christ’s return* – has been: “How? How did Trump get elected?” Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges wrote back in March of 2016 that a Trump victory was likely because: “College-educated elites, on behalf of corporations, carried out the savage neoliberal assault on the working poor. […] These elites […] spoke the language of values – civility, inclusivity, a condemnation of overt racism and bigotry, a concern for the middle class – while thrusting a knife in the back of the underclass for their corporate masters. This game has ended.”** Six years ago, in an interview with Hedges, Noam Chomsky predicted that if a charismatic man ran for president – on a platform of making illegal immigrants and Blacks the enemy, while also turning white males into a persecuted minority – he would soon sweep the presidential election.*** However, these analyses don’t get to the crux of the matter as far as the creation of the conditions that made it possible for Trump to be elected. According to Hannah Arendt, politics is based on an idea of active citizenship, on the value and importance of civic engagement, and collective deliberation about all matters affecting the political community. A vital component in such a conception of politics is an informed citizenry. Contrary to what Silicon Valley techno-utopians predicted (and indeed still predict will happen), digital technologies have not brought about a revolution in human learning and achievement. The recent US presidential elections, Brexit in the UK, and the rise of the far right in Europe**** are – we contend – a clear indication that digital media have been making politics, in Arendt’s understanding of the term, more and more impossible. For example, Trump’s presidential campaign hired the same company used by the Brexit campaign, Cambridge Analytica, which used big data and social media platforms such as Facebook, as a way to manipulate voters.+ Sociologist Saskia Sassen has argued that knowledge is re-constituted and thought of differently within the digital ecology: “[T]he body of knowledge gets distributed and spliced-up in different ways so that you lose the packaging, and in losing that packaging all sorts of possibilities open up.”++ Taking authority and power to be co-constitutive of the power/knowledge dyad (à la Foucault), as the means for sharing and discussing political knowledge changes radically, so too does the way political authority is constituted. For instance, as far as traditional forms of political “authority,” in 2015 Trump successfully undermined John McCain’s considerable traditional authority in a way that could only happen in the age of digital media. At the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, Trump said about the war veteran McCain, “He’s not a war hero.” “I like people who weren’t captured.”+++ Making fun of McCain in such a manner was seen as a travesty by mainstream media, and the analyses ran that Trump would not survive such a “gaffe.” The reality is that – as an extension of reality TV – politics has become all about “gaffes,” and instead of apologizing Trump continued to attack McCain, saying: “[McCain is] yet another all talk, no action politician who spends too much time on television and not enough time doing his job.”+++ As one insightful (and funny) Tweet put it: “Trump is like clickbait decided to take human form.”+* Put differently: The public fascination with Trump – his saying what “everyone” was thinking but dared not say before – is the logical (political) outcome of a society primed by digital media platforms that thrive on superficial, outrageous posts and images. This special issue of Allegra Lab examines the ways in which digital media are making politics impossible. We invite contributions from people across disciplines. Please send a 250-word abstract (final submissions will be 2000-2500 words – due date TBA) to ha2248@columbia.edu by February 25 for consideration. __________ * “Alex Jones prayerfully reflects on the victory of President Trump,” November 9, 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVp7XTsBXx4 ** Chris Hedges, “The Revenge of the Lower Classes and the Rise of American Fascism,” Truthdig, August 8, 2016, https://www.truthdig.com/repor t/item/the_revenge_of_the_lower_classes_and_the_rise_of_amer ican_fascism_20160302 *** Chris Hedges, “Noam Chomsky Has ‘Never Seen Anything Like This,” Truthdig, Apr 19, 2010 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/noam_chomsky_has_never_s een_anything_like_this_20100419 **** “Europe’s Rising Far Right: A Guide to the Most Prominent Parties,” The New York Times, December 4, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/intera ctive/2016/world/europe/europe-far-right-political-parties-listy.html + “The Data That Turned the World Upside Down,” Motherboard, Hannes Grassegger and Mikael Krogerus, January 28, 2017 ++ “Saskia Sassen Plenary at Theorizing the Web 2011” https://vimeo.com/23044503 +* “Hilarious political tweets that will make the internet great again” http://twentytwowords.com/hilarious-political-tweets-that-w ill-make-the-internet-great-again/ +++ “Trump attacks McCain: 'I like people who weren't captured,” Politico, Ben Schreckinger July, 16, 2015 http://www.politico.com/story/ 2015/07/trump-attacks-mccain-i-like-people-who-werent-captured-120317 Best, Hasan -- Hasan Azad, PhD Dept. of Religion Columbia University NY, 10027 Red and Green Oil on Water - A Novel: https://www.amazon.com/Red-Green-Water-Hasan-Azad-ebook/dp/B01IZMTHEY/ref=sr... website: http://www.hasanazad.com/main/ Academia.edu: https://columbia.academia.edu/HasanAzad Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/has-an-apple co-founder: Yoga Makes Art: https://yogaandwriting.wordpress.com/2016/02/