Layers & Levels Chapter 12
Multilayered Political Debate
In the next few chapters, we will explore the Layers & Levels premise in contemporary, everyday settings versus mapping out various lists from philosophical or spiritual traditions. For example, a couple of nights ago there was a widely watched debate between two candidates for US President, Trump and Harris. I am not going to get into the nitty-gritty of their positions but rather provide a somewhat macro view using it as an interesting example of Layers and Levels in real-time action. Here follows a simple list of several layers and levels, AKA aspects or factors. Don’t expect life-changing insights; the point here is to pay more attention to what we are perceiving and which is often taken for granted. Put another way: to notice what we notic often without noticing that we are noticing it! So this post is not about the debate so much as using the debate as a convenient subject to view its many involved layers and levels.
In no particular order:
LIST
US Presidential Election, voting starts next week, Election Day is November 5th
Trump was President before, Harris is current Vice President. Unusual.
Hosted by ABC; Trump currently in defamation lawsuit against ABC, so bad blood with network whose coverage of Harris as candidate is 100% positive and of Trump is 95% negative.
A debate is between two rivals for the same office with rules and moderators, both from ABC, and who choose the questions, as agreed to by both candidates.
No audience. Just two moderators, two candidates and film crew. 50+ million watch remotely.
Harris is unusual candidate since she was not selected by a 6+ month primary process. Biden, who recently dropped out, won 14 million primary votes. The Party adopted Harris. She is an institutionally supported candidate who has not received any votes from the electorate yet.
Trump is unusual because he was President before and then got voted out in 2020 in a heavily contested election during which the Courts refused to adjudicate when asked for ‘lack of standing’. There are strong feelings on both sides.
Trump is accused of inciting an insurrection; his supporters believe he is the victim of a false flag riot. Bad blood on both sides.
The Biden administration has put Trump through more than four court cases for personal and official crimes, which is unprecedented. None of the cases involves a very clear crime, all are flimsy. This weaponization of the Justice system to persecute a political opponent is widely perceived as dangerous to the longevity of the Republic.
Trump has also been found guilty of sexual assault by a woman who cannot recall the day, week, month or year of the alleged event. Usually such an accusation would not be permitted in a Court of Law but against Trump it has been.
Trump is a man, Harris is a woman, potentially the first to hold the office in US history. Trump is blond and white; Harris is dark-skinned.
Harris is not an American black descended from slaves two hundred years ago so she is not a typical American black despite often being so labelled.
Harris is a ‘California liberal’ where she served as Attorney General. There are several controversies from her time there, some of which involve treating black men very harshly involving drug convictions. She is also accused of falsely imprisoning over 1,000 black men for refusing to acknowledge a mistake.
Trump has extensive history going back decades first as a well-known NYC development executive, then as a Reality TV show front man (The Apprentice); as President he was under continual attack by the media who falsely accused him of colluding with President Putin of Russia, and by the DC Establishment. Half the country loves him and half the country hates him, convinced he is dangerously corrupt. He is not a normal candidate.
Even though of late about 15 million illegals have entered the country, many of them dangerous third world criminals, and even though there was a period of high inflation, and even though President Biden stepped aside and was officially described as too frail to answer for his crimes in front of a jury, and even though Trump has been through several civil and criminal trials and been found guilty in two of them, the election, improbably, is reportedly neck and neck.
There is widespread skepticism about US elections with a majority of the population believing they are ‘rigged’ or not fairly counted. There is considerable evidence of both ballot and machine fraud but the mainstream media insists all such notions are just conspiracy theories.
The US election system is a complicated combination of counting votes as in a ‘democracy’ but apportioning them on a State by State basis lest two or three big urban areas determine the outcome every election. In recent elections about six medium-sized cities in ‘swing states’ determine the outcome which in 2016 and 2020 was a difference of about 100,000 or less votes out of 130-50 million cast.
Around 15-20 million illegals entered the country, helped by the USG in ways that have not been admitted or explained; many are given free transportation, lodging, medical care and are being encouraged to vote. Of late criminal gangs have started taking over buildings and there have regularly been murders and rapes. The Government insists there is no problem, indeed they falsely insist that crime is going down even though in NYC 75% of arrests are of illegal aliens and recent USG official statistics show a significant rise since 2020 in all major crimes.
Over-arching geopolitical situation with the NATO axis bifurcating from the ‘Rest of the World’ led by the Russia, China, India BRICS group who are trying to break free from control by the ‘Hegemonic US Empire’. Conflicts in Ukraine and elsewhere are seen as part of this ongoing geopolitical tectonic shift.
Geopolitically it is not clear if both Harris and Trump are into perpetuating the Hegemony or if Trump’s America First policies will return her to being less of an Empire and more of a typical independent sovereign nation state, which may even join the multipolar world espoused by Putin and Xi.
Many believe we are entering a technology-driven totalitarian dystopia, a natural evolution of the Industrial Revolution which itself derives from an increasing emphasis on materialistic mindset which regards all life as essentially mechanical and without soul, purpose or any non-material value. Rights to privacy will be stripped by identity-based and tracked electronic currencies.
America was the undisputed World Nr 1 politically, militarily, economically and culturally; that is no longer the case though the jury is still out. Trump claims to want to restore America to pre-eminence, though is also against endless wars, and largely disliked by the Neocons who always want war.
Harris has been part of a left-leaning movement in the Democrat Party that wants socialized services including medicine and generally wants more government whereas most little-r republican types want less.
In the past thirty plus years, the US and/or global Elites have decreased manufacturing in the US to the point where the population depends on other countries for basics like steel and medicines. America does not make its own aspirin any more, for example, and when the pandemic hit it turned out that only one manufacturer could make masks, supplying about 10% of pre-pandemic levels and unable to meet new demand - most products are like that now. This has hollowed out the skilled working class and is largely responsible for Trump’s political rise. The elites are widely seen as being anti small-town, ‘Main Street’ Americans, (especially those who are white and go to church!).
The latter have been attacked by cultural initiatives which denigrate white people in general (they are immoral colonialists who murdered millions of native people), men in particular (‘toxic masculinity’); movies feature female leads even in the action genre, not to mention increasing numbers of homosexuals and transgenders which serve to devalue ordinary heterosexual relationships, marriage and raising children, so-called ‘family values’. Much of the current conservative or republic party membership feel under attack by overbearing elites.
If nothing else, the large influx of immigrants from all over the world increases the sense of living in ‘Babel’, further weakening and undermining any sense of cultural and civilizational homogeneity in the US. This has made the electorate feel anxious, not confident. Some watching the debate want reassurance.
Trump has made great inroads with blacks, especially men, and Hispanics. He is also increasingly seen as a champion of the working classes, especially those in skilled trades, whereas the Democrats are increasingly the home of those who are disaffected with America as a vision and want something entirely different, also university-educated left-leaning academics, think tanks and so on who increasingly control all branches of local and national governance.
Kennedy just joined the Trump campaign and they are offering a historic, potentially game-changing Coalition. Trump did not mention this during the debate, which may prove a fatal error on his part, but the development could be extremely important depending upon how it unfolds the next two months.
Trump survived an assassination attempt in which the blatant neglect of the Biden Administration run Secret Service raises many questions –of course not being raised by the mainstream media - 90% of whom openly back Democrats and daily demonize Trump. Harris entirely ignored this dimension of Trump’s persona, describing him only as a convicted criminal and insurrectionist, as her side always does, whilst also decrying all the division in the nation which she wants to heal, whilst salting that wound further. Her supporters do not see the hypocrisy and double standards. The viewership is deeply divided.
Trump is not a career politician and is hated almost as much by career politician GOP insiders as by career politician Dems. Harris is a career politician par excellence having only worked for government her entire career.
Trump gets votes from about 90% of the counties in the US but not the major urban ones; the Dems get the urban votes which outnumber the rural ones. If it were not for the Electoral College system, the Dems would win every election by a landslide. Most people on welfare vote for them, as will nearly every illegal immigrant (to continue to receive free room and board from the State).
In order to win, Trump has to win by a convincing landslide otherwise the ballots and machines will tweak the results and the Establishment will continue to persecute him. Harris only has to win by a whisker, like Joe Biden did in 2020. Republicans fear the republic will not weather this and America as originally constituted will no longer exist if this election is lost. More anxiety.
Class: upper classes process this differently from lower classes; working poor differently from those on welfare; those who have lived in the US for generations differently from those more recently, and also illegally, arrived; women from men – especially when there is a female candidate. So how different groups process the same ostensible facts or events is another layer.
The debate is part of a process to attract votes in order to win a contest. Like much of America, it is adversarial, combative. So it is not a way for the American people to explore various issues from different points of view, rather a way for one person to persuade the voting public that they are more worthy of their vote than their opponent. In many ways, therefore, the contest overshadows the issues. Many – though by no means all - find the process unpleasant and unsatisfying and find themselves more confused after the debate than before.
Inside, not outside. Viewed on television and computer screens, not a live event.
Some believe that the entire political arena is controlled by hidden actors and thus is largely performative kabuki, aka kayfabe.
Okay, I could go on for pages. But as you can see, this simple event of two people on a stage ‘debating’ comprises no end of layers and levels in the mix. We call it a debate between two candidates, which of course it is, but so many themes are layered into its nature, both causing it to come to be and involved in each and every sentence uttered by the moderators and each candidate. The nature of our intelligence is that we automatically process these layers, perhaps not each of us each layer, but most of them, instantly.
So this Layers and Levels series is a casual exploration about how our experience, aka ‘reality’, is indeed multi-layered. Always. I’ll be coming up with more examples over time, though am still in the ending construction process of moving into a new home so it will be a while before regular writing ensues again.
I suddenly feel far more informed about the US election. I was dimly aware of most of the layers you mentioned but only in a rather crude way. Now I consider myself a lot more aware, so thank you for that.
I guess it partly comes from living on the other side of the Atlantic and somewhat of the opinion that it doesn't ultimately matter which gilded puppet sits on the throne, and also from eschewing the television or MSM news. Regardless of any of that though, or any of my own opinions, clearly it's the opinions of the American people themselves which are important (not mine) - and those, as you elucidate, are the layers.
On a philosophical note, I like your bit about not really noticing that we don't notice. I would agree with that - most people, as a result of the brain's evolved tendency towards 'efficiency', simply synthesise all these layers inside their subconscious, then the brain simply presents their conscious awareness (pre-frontal cortex, shall we say) with the finished product, so to speak. Which is why it is always helpful, and pleasingly revealing, to do these little deconstructions and present the layers consciously.
If only the MSM did that. Or at least the education system...
Your remark on "to notice what we notice often without noticing that we are noticing it!" somewhat resembles what Immanuel Kant has to say as he introduces his term 'synthesis'. To rephrase it again, it's our faculty of synthesis that allows for the processing of details within our field of awareness, and it also 'puts' [dt. stellen] the objects in there for us to recognize. It's a great word, with the original greek meaning both to assemble something from parts, and something present that is assembled.
Edmund Husserl, however, adds a radical twist to it that is enormously consequential. For him, all perception is essentially synthetic. That means that 'whole' things are not assembled from parts by the faculty of synthesis, but rather it's the other way round! He goes to great lengths to show how that occurs in our awareness and recognition of 'things', which through this view show themselves not as the constitutive elements - the building blocks, if you will - of an independent, 'outside' reality, but as strictly (irreducably) connected to our perceiving them. Hence his term synthetische Apperzeption.
I will remark that this position is not merely another form of philosophical idealism, in the classic sense as opposed to realism. Rather, the whole problem gets undermined by this thorough analysis of object constitution, and is exposed as tied to a problematic premise, though Husserl himself doesn't go so far as to call it out on that. I, however, will do so, and declare the metaphysics of substance a paradigm which is now obsolete and about to be replaced!
Of course the old way to see things (aka the world) permeates our thoughts and language deeply. As an example of a notion that might be seen in a different light, your essay provides the term of 'layers' to something. Of course that is a valid and important observation, but also our experience is not constructively multi-layered (made up from layers), but rather it's the other way round.