Democracy and The Election in The Philippines
Commentary no. 12, May 15, 2022
On May 9th, voters in the Philippines elected Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of the disgraced former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, as the successor to current president Rodrigo Duterte. Many in the Philippines were disappointed to see the Marcos family back in power after spending nearly 40 years in the shadows because of the popular uprising that led to the removal of Marcos Sr. from power in 1986. Western media outlets were, as usual, at a loss for words. In order to explain the landslide victory of a direct descendant of a brutal ex-president, the media could only point to one thing: the massive spread of disinformation. But is social media really to blame for a candidate receiving over 16 million more votes than the closest runner up?
Maria Ressa seems to think so. The Filipino journalist, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, appeared on Democracy Now on May 11th to give her thoughts on the election. The former CNN journalist expressed frustration with the fact that the campaign of Marcos Jr. was able to erase the collective memory of the horrors of his father’s regime through the highly-coordinated dissemination of disinformation on social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and TikTok. According to Ressa, social media has become a “behavior modification system” and that what has transpired in the Philippines is a “case study” of its “impact on elections.” In support of this claim, she cites the fact that the Philippines was second only to the United States in the number of compromised accounts associated with the Cambridge Analytica election manipulation scandal. Unfortunately, this is about as far as Ressa goes with her analysis of the situation. Like the rest of her peers at media outlets like CNN, MSNBC, and The New York Times, Ressa can only muster an inadequate explanation that is rife with technological determinism.
The logic of Ressa (and many others) presupposes the existence of a “pure” democracy that existed before the rise of social media, a democracy now at risk of falling apart due to the rapid spread of disinformation and fake news. The only way to “save” democracy, in their view, is for tech companies to step in and do a better job of moderating the content on their platforms. If this were to happen, everything would supposedly go back to normal, and authoritarian presidents would become a thing of the past. But this logic cannot adequately explain the recent success of right-wing, authoritarian candidates. It falls short by misinterpreting the popularity of these candidates as simple “manipulation” and neglecting the increasing repressiveness of democratic politics as a whole.
Ressa completely ignores the immense popularity of the current authoritarian president Rodrigo Duterte, and the overall unpopularity of presidents before him, who were all run-of-the-mill liberals. Recent polling has shown that Duterte has an approval rating of 67.1%, making him the first president in Philippine history to leave office with over a 50% approval rating. Not only is Marcos Jr. running a similar “personality-based” campaign as Duterte did, but he also added Duterte’s daughter Sara to his ticket as Vice President. Despite launching a drug war that has killed thousands, Filipino voters credit Duterte with “reviving the economy and making the Philippines more competitive and investor-friendly.” It should therefore come as no surprise that Filipinos elected someone with a similar persona who, as an added bonus, had direct ties to the current popular administration. But how, liberals ask, could people support a politician with such a strong authoritarian aura?
The same question was asked when Trump won in 2016, and the same answer was given back then: mass manipulation. For the liberal conscious, that is the only possible explanation. These poor, innocent people are simply being manipulated by shady forces with tons of money. If only they had the “right” facts, or access to “real” information, surely they wouldn’t vote for such deplorable characters! Such are the illusions of modern liberal thought. Unaware of the “repressive core” of democracy and the effects of incessant competition on the psyche of the subjects of capitalism, liberal thought is left completely speechless when it comes to explaining the results of recent democratic elections. “Not our democracy!” they cry, as yet another right-wing populist comes into power. But it is precisely their democracy that is at the heart of this development, a conclusion made clear by analyses from thinkers like Robert Kurz and Thomas Meyer.
According to them, in the face of capitalism’s existential crisis, the ability of democratic politics to affect any sort of change on the capitalist mode of production (that it is inseparable from) has been severely diminished. Although politics has never been able to fully control the economy, gone are the days when mass social movements could effectively petition for a larger share of the wealth produced by capitalist society. Now that automation is increasingly undermining the process of capital accumulation, the only thing left for the state to do is manage the crisis by brutally repressing every expression of dissent and systematically eliminating all the millions who have been made superfluous by widespread automation. As a result, there has been a generalized shift to the right among all political parties. While this is often interpreted as an “erosion of democracy,” Kurz and Meyer would argue that this is just democracy showing its true colors, as it did so infamously in the early 20th century.
For the first time in the history of capitalism, workers are confronted with the possibility of running out of work. In a neoliberal global society that has never been more atomized, this confrontation inevitably leads to the sorting of the population into “winners” and losers.” Since there is no insight into this dynamic whatsoever among the public, the “losers” appear not as victims of a blind, irrational system, but as “failures” who only have themselves to blame. Criminals are simply “bad” people, the unemployed simply “lazy.” Such simple explanations lead to a similarly simple solution: eliminate them. That is exactly what Duterte did, and the fact that his popularity didn’t suffer as a result only shows how irredeemable the capitalist subject in crisis is.
Liberal thought is totally incapable of grasping these dynamics. As Robert Kurz showed in his book Schwarzbuch Kapitalismus, liberals prefer to project democracy’s authoritarian tendencies onto some foreign “other,” and insist on the eternal sanctity of democracy as a mode of political organization. In the case of Ressa, the problem lies in the shadowy groups behind the spread of disinformation that “corrupt” democracy from the outside, and not democracy itself. But even access to “perfect” information, which is not even possible, would not ensure the downfall of right-wing movements, because these movements are deeply appealing to broad sectors of the population during times of capitalist crisis. Without understanding this, and realizing that democracy is not something to appeal to, but rather something to critique, adequately explaining the victory of someone like Marcos Jr. remains totally impossible.
The Middlebury Madman
Commentary no. 11, April 15, 2022
Over the last few years Bill McKibben has become a regular guest on Democracy Now. Apparently, the Middlebury College professor and co-founder of 350.org and is their go-to expert for discussions of the climate crisis. So what did he have to say last week about rising gas prices and the war in Ukraine?
A Distorted Reflection
Commentary no. 10, March 1, 2022
Last Wednesday, on February 23, Russian forces launched an invasion of Ukraine in the dark of night by bombing military facilities across the country and bringing ground troops across the border on three sides of the country. News of the Russian invasion was met with fierce condemnation from people around the world, even in Russia. The US media had a field day, enjoying ratings they hadn’t seen since the Trump era. Americans are looking on in horror without realizing that what they are looking at is simply a distorted reflection of what their own country did in Iraq just 19 years ago.
COVID-19 and In-Person Classes
Commentary no. 9, September 1, 2020
In August, colleges across the country opened their doors for in-person classes, only to switch to online learning within weeks after spikes in the number of COVID-19 cases. This was entirely predictable, and anyone with half a brain could have anticipated that putting thousands of students who have been cooped up for months in the same city during a pandemic was not going to end well. But it happened, and in the weeks since there has been a huge wave of outrage about the perceived failure of administrators to protect their college communities. But the problem isn’t that the administrators opened the schools back up. The problem is that they had to.
Goldman Sachs is Immune to COVID-19
Commentary no. 8, July 15, 2020
On July 15 Goldman Sachs reported $2.42 billion in profits during the second quarter of 2020, much higher than what was predicted by analysts. Amid a huge recession and a global pandemic, one of the world’s premier investment banks is doing just fine. How is this possible?
Valorization Kills
Commentary no. 7, July 1, 2020
On June 23, a Missouri appeals court upheld and order for Johnson & Johnson to pay over $2 billion in damages to women who have developed ovarian cancer as a result of using their talcum-based baby powder, which contained asbestos. A huge settlement like this is certainly a victory for the women affected, thousands of whom still have pending cases against the pharmaceutical giant. However, we must realize that cases like this are not merely instances of bad corporate behavior, but demonstrations of the destructive nature of the capitalist valorization process.
COVID-19 and the Limits of Democracy
Commentary no. 6, June 15, 2020
A critique of capitalist society never fails to trigger the gag reflexes of those on the left, who inevitably vomit the word “democracy” in response. From liberal vote-shaming, to Bernie Sanders’ “democratic socialism,” to Marxist economist (?) Richard Wolff calling for the “democratization of the workplace,” more democracy seems to be the only solution the left can conjure up to fight capitalism. But what has COVID-19 taught us about democracy and its limits?
Racial Equality: An Oxymoron
Commentary no. 5, June 1, 2020
In the future, after “racial equality” has been declared, people of all races will be free to sell their labor power to the highest bidder, without fear of being harassed or discriminated against. The police will only arrest the “bad guys,” and only murder those who are seriously “disturbed.” Such are the grotesque dreams of the liberal imagination.
Another Empty Debate
Commentary no. 4, May 15, 2020
With almost all of the states in the country reopening at least partially this past week, there has been much debate in the media about how best to restart the economy while minimizing the risks to public health. Unfortunately, for all this talk, nobody has seriously questioned the legitimacy of the autonomous economy that makes such a ridiculous opposition possible.
Chicago Syndrome
Commentary no. 3, May 1, 2020
Calls to open up the country so that people can get back to work are eerily reminiscent of the 1973 Norrmalmstorg robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, after which the hostages famously refused to testify in court against their captors, giving birth to the term “Stockholm Syndrome.” The movement to reopen the country in the midst of a global pandemic is indicative of the Stockholm Syndrome like attitude that the modern commodity subject has towards work in general, in which work is glorified, or at least viewed positively, despite the obvious negative effects it has on people and their environment. I call this condition “Chicago Syndrome.”
Is Boredom Transhistorical?
Commentary no. 2, April 15, 2020
As we suffer through yet another week without work, that divine gift of capitalist modernity, we long for the return to normalcy, for the end of this boredom. But what is boredom, and why is it so painful?
What do we do with ourselves?
Commentary no. 1, April 1, 2020
The total domination of people by labor is such that, when given time off of work, they feel useless. That is the situation we find ourselves in amidst the global outbreak of COVID-19.
Oliver Blackwell 