The problem with pinning Donald Trump down: Americans' attention spans are too short

The Age of Trump has assaulted and undermined America’s governing institutions and the rule of law, civil society, and shared sense of normalcy. Beginning to heal these many great challenges, as President Obama and Michelle Obama implored last month in Chicago, will take much hard work. In total, it will be a project of democratic renewal that will last decades and not just one debate or election cycle. Doing the work of democratic and civic renewal will require that the American people develop a different relationship to time.

The attention economy with its endless and empty “content” and algorithms is how the late capitalist experience machine distracts and profits. This dynamic of constant stimulation in an age of spectacle has contributed to epidemic rates of loneliness, social atomization, depression and other mental and emotional unwellness. We've seen a decline in the type of social capital essential for a healthy democracy. How can the American people and their leaders do the work of reinvigorating democracy and defeating Trumpism and the larger neofascist threat if average attention spans have been greatly decreasing over the last two decades?

For example, research shows that the average American’s ability to focus on a computer screen has decreased from 2.5 minutes in the early 2000s to 47 or so seconds today. Other research suggests that many Americans can only pay attention to one task for 8 seconds — that is less than a goldfish.

For decades, the American news media with its endless 24/7 coverage, sensationalism, traffic-chasing, and an “if it bleeds it leads” ethos has contributed to this problem instead of intervening against it. The Age of Trump has been enabled and normalized by that behavior and how the corrupt felonious traitor sexual assaulter as confirmed by a court of law ex-president is worth billions of dollars in advertising revenue to the news media.

Anton Jäger describes this late capitalist media and political environment with its rejection of substantive mass politics in favor of empty identity politics and performance, with its “brands” and virtue-signaling to get attention on social media and across the digital space as an example of “hyper-politics”:

“hyper-politics” is what happens when post-politics ends — something like furiously stepping on the gas with an empty tank. Questions of what people own, and control are increasingly supplanted by questions of who or what people are, replacing clashes of classes with the collaging of identities and morals.

Social theorist Henry Giroux offers a complementary framework (what he calls “emergency time”) for understanding the crisis in American and global democracy:

The Republican Party is now mostly a vehicle for fascist politics. The United States has reached the endpoint of a cruel economic and political system that resembles a dead man walking–a zombie politics that thrives on the exploitation of the working class, immigrants, the poor, dispossessed, and helpless children dying under the bombed-out rubble of state terrorism. White Christian nationalism merges with the most extreme elements of capitalism to enforce cruel and heartless policies of dispossession, elimination, and a politics of disposability. Mouthfuls of blood saturate the language of authoritarianism, and policies of destruction, exploitation, and utter despair follow. Public time based on notions of equality, the common good, and justice fades into the dustbin of a white-washed history. As James Baldwin once noted, until the Nazis knock on their door, these “let’s be balanced” types refuse to have the courage to name fascism for what it is.

In the face of emergency time, it is crucial to develop a great awakening of consciousness, a massive broad-based movement for the defense of public goods, and a mobilization of educators and youth who can both say no and fight for a socialist democracy.  The fight against fascism cannot take place without new ideas, vision, and the ability to translate them into action. Dangerous memories and the resuscitation of historical consciousness help. And are even more necessary as democracy is choking on the filth of demagogues, white nationalism, class warfare, militarism, and Christian nationalism.  Those Americans who believe in democracy and justice can no longer accept being reduced to a nation of spectators; they can no longer define democracy by reducing it to a voting machine controlled by the rich; nor can they equate it with the corpse of capitalism;  they can no longer allow the silence of the press to function as a disimagination machine that functions to largely depoliticize the public;  they can no longer allow education to be pushed as machinery of illiteracy, historical amnesia, and ignorance.

Ultimately, the American people and their leaders need to take a breath, slow down, and gain perspective as they try to step away from the spectacle.

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As I often warn here at Salon and elsewhere, the American people are not well. Sick societies produce sick leaders. In the Age of Trump, it appears that we "the Americans" are even more afflicted with a 21st-century version of the malady known as “Americanitis." In an essay in Smithsonian Magazine, Greg Daugherty applies this therapeutic language: “Too much stress, too little sleep, rushed meals, technology that seems to change faster than we can begin to keep up with. If those complaints sound familiar, chances are they’d have resonated with your great-great grandparents too":

More than a century ago, Americans had much the same concerns, and some leading thinkers and medical practitioners even took it a step further. They suggested that the country’s legendary work ethic and go-getter spirit might be a form of mental illness that they called “Americanitis.”

The Journal of the American Medical Association acknowledged the condition as early as 1898, linking it in one article to the increased noise level in industrialized America. “Who shall say how far the high-strung, nervous, active temperament of the American people is due to the noise with which they choose to surround their daily lives?” the author asked.

It wasn’t long before Americanitis had spread beyond the medical journals and into everyday vocabulary, shorthand for a deadly mix of hurry and worry. Orison Swett Marden, a self-help author and editor of Success magazine, and Elbert Hubbard, the flamboyant “Sage of East Aurora,” were two of the many popular writers to address the subject.

Marden devoted a chapter to “The Cure for Americanitis” in his book, Cheerfulness as a Life Power. “How quickly we Americans exhaust life!” he wrote. “Hurry is stamped in the wrinkles of the national face.” The “cure,” as he saw it, was to stop worrying so much. “Instead of worrying about unforeseen misfortune,” he advised, “set out with all your soul to rejoice in the unforeseen blessings of all your coming days.”

Hubbard attributed the disease to “an intense desire to ‘git thar’ and an awful feeling that you cannot.” He advised readers to “cut down your calling list, play tag with the children, and let the world slide. Remember that your real wants are not many—a few hours work a day will supply your needs—then you are safe from Americanitis and death at the top.”

Theodore Dreiser raised the question “Americanitis—Can It Be Cured?” in The Delineator, a women’s fashion magazine he edited. “The morning paper gives us a daily list of deaths by suicide, apoplexy, and insanity,” he lamented, “men in the prime of life rushing into eternity, desperate because they are left behind in the race, or driven mad by the rush of the business world.” He recommended learning to relax the muscles.

Harris, Walz, the Democrats, and other pro-democracy leaders and organizers have a great challenge ahead of them. They need to continue to sound the alarm about the existential dangers of Trump and the MAGA movement and the larger neofascist tide without creating a sense of mass despair, futility, learned helplessness, and nihilism that fuels the vibe that “nothing really matters anymore.”

They must also continue to mine the energy of “joyful warriors” for democracy. But being joyful warriors must not mean being conflict-avoidant or retreating from a high-dominance leadership style against Trump and his MAGA forces and their agents. In all, Harris and Walz can be joyful warriors who still pack a great punch and are willing to do all that is necessary to defeat Trump and the other enemies of American democracy.

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Whatever the outcome on Election Day, the American people will need to take a breath and collect themselves as they prepare for the hard work of democratic renewal if Harris and Walz win or what will be the even more difficult work of resistance if the worst outcome of Dictator Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, taking the White House comes to pass. Either way, time is not (and will not be) on the side of the American people.

On this, Rick Wilson, co-founder of the pro-democracy organization the Lincoln Project, recently counseled here at Salon:

That was my first big campaign,1988. At this point in the election contest, Dukakis was ahead by 17 points. Here are the lessons from that defeat. Don't ever take anything for granted. Run through the tape. Never take your foot off the pedal. It's a simple and what should be an inviolate rule. You have to run all the way through. You have to fight all the way down. You can never, ever, take a break from the campaign at this early point. You've got to drive through the tape.

One of the things we have to watch for here is that Trump can beat Trump. Harris can beat Trump. Trump, I do not believe can beat Harris with the popular vote. But Trump could beat Harris because of the Electoral College….My worry tank is diminished meaningfully. My hope tank is on three-quarters, but I'm going to stop for gas again soon before Election Day in November.