Information isn't what drives collective behavior. Not who controls the past, or what they know. It's who controls this moment's media spotlight. And that's going to be the most terrifying, fascinating, media-enriching jackass of the hour. It won't matter that everybody hates him. That's the only form of "bipartisanship" left now.

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A few of us were zooming the other evening, arguing about Ukraine, why, who, what for, and what's it all mean. And we kind of had it worked out, that Putin was batshit murder crazy, was a brilliant statesman with a clear vision and reasonable, limited objectives, was a pawn of the Chinese, the CIA, the Oligarchs (who are his bitter enemies/loyal backers). We concluded that Biden was senile, savvy, fighting the MIC, a pawn of the MIC, a milquetoast politician, just another oligarch. We covered the religion angle, the various churches with axes to grind. We touched on the hysterical response of the International "Community" to this war, in stark contrast to the ringing silence over the past several decades of horrific American invasions, occupations, betrayals, and genocides.

Eventually there was a lull in the proceedings. And it occurred to me to say: if the DNC keeps this up, we're gonna see Mansion running against Desantis. That seemed to surprise almost everybody. There wasn't time to explain, and besides, I didn't have an explanation. But maybe now I do.

The keyword is markets: government doesn't control markets (which are also the natural habitat of the media; both function in no other environment). And now markets are not exactly the seat of power either. There are other sectors that hold sway over vast chunks of the global economy. Yanis Varofakis calls them "technofeudal fiefdoms," which seems about right. He points out that when you do business with Great Googlymoogly, etc., you enter another realm that bears no resemblance to any market.

In the old days, the Information Age, the very structure of language itself assigned the underlying causes of social unrest to the failings of those who complained loudest. Sociologists didn't ask, "why are the poor so broke?" but "why are the poor so unhappy?" reflecting the foundational assumptions upon which they compiled their data. There was bipartisan pity for the un-connected, the under-represented, the wage-slaves, who played by the rules and fought the good fight--and stayed in their place, because pity is where compassion goes to die.

Then personal computers shrank to the size of a bar of soap, and the price competed with a pair of overpriced sneakers, and everyone moved into "social" media. This did not relieve the general isolation, but it did confirm the intolerable scale of systemic unfairness. When a technological advance supplanted the markets for information with the markets for sensation, our doom was sealed. Media and government, once symbiotes, were now swapping spit. Markets were tamed by the rising technofeudal fiefdoms, by the simple strategy of owning the digital infrastructure. When the markets got there, it already had a landlord. The privilege of staying in business at all was now for rent.

About when the abused classes stopped feeling guilty about their sense of outrage, a psychopathic media-maven could shake the the body politic like a bottle of rootbeer, and take the cap off. The resulting upheaval was heroin to the former "news" media starving for "content," and the new president kept upping the dosage. Soon there was no other news worth reporting--that is, nothing that lucrative.

Dunne's "Afflict the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted," the job of journalists, was flipped end for end. The point is no longer to expose perfidy and mendacity (shocking information, once the lifeblood of the news business), but to garner public attention (shock itself, the lifeblood of everything now). For the first time in history, we are given the thing-in-itself. But we aren't noticing this new authenticity, since we're still hearing it all as stories-about whatever, with our info-age ears. But this is now: the map is the road, the event is not what happened, it's what's on the screen. Ukraine is everywhere. It's a world war, right inside our skulls. Everybody's making out like bandits. Except of course most people, and the rest of the biosphere.

The formula for media/political/market/feudal success is so much simpler now. Shock people, and they will pay. Shock them more and they will pay more. Scare the poop out of them, make them cover their kids' ears, and they'll make you the leader of the so-called Free World.

We didn't mean to do this: it's what happens when a paradigm changes, and we keep on operating as if the old one was still in effect. If it had not shifted, we would be talking about how the DNC was caught cheating, which left President Sanders as the last candidate standing in 2016, facing a man credibly accused of multiple rapes. We would be talking about how the healthcare industry had collapsed of its own weight, and we dumped it, and got what Truman had been fighting the AMA for: actual healthcare for all, to go with our purported Liberty and Justice.

But the information age is over. Facts aren't worth a fart in a whirlwind now. Public reaction beats public opinion; it skips thinking and goes straight to action. A pulpit bully terrorist holds all the cards now, whether in office or not. It's not personal, any soulless demagog has the same opportunity. It takes no special talent, just be worse than the worst one, and maintain that gap of worse-ness.

Case in point. The antics of a certain governor in a certain state are selling like hotcakes. Gratuitously damaging and frivolous state laws tie the courts and the political process up in Gordian knots, which is their sole purpose. It's that pattern of destructive antisocial behavior that got us No. 45. Now that the bottom-feeding sycophants have mostly been run out of town leaving their clueless patsys holding various bags, the next wave of wannabees is sniffing around for the next jackass stunt that will imprint their name in the brains of enough people old enough to vote. And the "base" (an apt name for that segment of American politics) is craving more, more, more, exactly like some lynch mob out for blood.

This isn't a strategy. Strategy is a kind of logic. This thuggish assault on simple decency takes more than ordinary mean-spiritedness. It takes a rare kind of mental derangement. Maybe not so rare now, come to think of it.

Such a compassion-challenged person may or may not get into the highest office of public trust, but they will certainly get stinking rich, if they manage to stay out of jail. That's much easier now that you can get to be president after boasting about attacking women with impunity. In fact, getting elected to high office may be the preferred method of escaping justice.

The field is wide open. There's a constituency for almost anything sufficiently repugnant to make the crawl at the bottom of the screen, that doesn't involve actually shooting somebody on Fifth Avenue.

Where was I? Oh, the Mansion. When it comes to jackass stunts, this guy rules the roost. This is not a lightweight pretender to the throne, he's done every single terrible thing a Democrat could do, and yet, he hasn't been thrown out of the Party. He has essentially stopped the Democrats from doing much of anything, but the real kicker was the flagship bill that everyone, and let's not kid ourselves, regardless of party or ideology, everyone wanted passed. Because it was loaded with money, even some for the people who need it most. Or so we have been told, which is the same thing in this case, cause it didn't happen.

Meanwhile, Mickeymander Gerrymouse has been executing the cold fascist playbook with relentless abandon, disenfranchising other-than-white-male constituents, wrecking public education, banning books, poisoning the air, water, and soil, and generally wrecking the joint in the most public and irrevocable ways he can find.

So who else could the Democratic National Comedy stand up in 24? This would be the battle of the Titans, irresistible to the DNC, they will see the Mansion as a "Centrist" who can pull some of the "base" away from the dreaded GOP juggernaut. If so, they will be unleashing a new reign of terror. Maybe one of these dunderheads will try tazing somebody at their next rally. I hear somebody actually fired off an AK from the podium just this week.

You know what they used to say: who controls the past, controls the future; information is power. Well, it ain't so anymore. That's all changed now. A president can tweet something and traumatize a billion people in a couple of minutes. We don't do scale very well, we humans. How big a crowd is a billion people anyway? It was all of us the day I was born. Now? it's how many people are hungry and thirsty every day of their lives. About a quarter of everyone there is.

Information isn't what drives collective behavior. Not who controls the past, or what they know. It's who controls this moment's media spotlight. And that's going to be the most terrifying, fascinating, media-enriching jackass of the hour. It won't matter that everybody hates him. That's the only form of "bipartisanship" left now.

Dealing with a man named after an architectural style or Gerrymander Mickeymouse the way we usually do, ain't gonna work. Dealing with them that way is what makes them presidential.

We do need to work on our attention. Because attention is all we've got. It may be all we are. Hijackers are having a field day. At least we could make them work a little for it. Don't give it away without a struggle.

Authors Website: https://attentionage.com

Authors Bio:

I'm an old Pogo fan. For some unknown reason I persist in outrage at Feudalism, as if human beings can do much better than this. Our old ways of life are obsolete and are killing us. Will the human race wake up in time? Stay tuned...