Divide, Conquer, Repeat
How political division became the world’s most successful business model.
There’s this ancient political tactic that has been with us for longer than the Roman Empire, doesn’t require a single tank, doesn’t even need censorship. In many cases, it doesn’t even need to involve outright lies. All it requires is the ability to convince ordinary citizens that their enemy is the person sitting right next to them.
The Romans did it. Colonial empires mastered it. Our modern-day democracies just gave it a digital makeover.
It’s called divide and conquer. That we already have, but, even the phrase “divide and conquer” has a somewhat dated feel, only popping up, in medieval history accounts involving kings and battles. However, the 21st century adaptation of this tactic takes a more complex form, which, as some have observed, does not even require the actual division of a population, but just the illusion of it. Once a society perceives itself as divided, ruling becomes incredibly straightforward.
We are not fighting over ideologies anymore, just being born into identities.
“Somewhere down the line,” noted comedian John Oliver recently, “politics… Is no longer it is not something where people are involved in, it is something where they become.”
Liberal.
Traditional.
Left.
A Nationalist.
A Socialist.
The tag comes before the words on this planet. Once identity makes an entrance into the room, all data, all facts and other useful details, go running for the back exit. “For years,” as psychologists try to explain, “humans have tried to fit in because it’s our nature to, and it provides us with security, and yet at the same time any kind of personal attack seems to personally hit all of us too.”
A policy is no longer good or bad. It’s our policy and in turn we must defend it; when in reality, we are defending ourselves. That is where the thinking really, truly stops.
The bizarre fantasy of the political tribalist, just spend ten minutes on any given social network and you will encounter people slandering perfect strangers for the sake of people they will never even meet. Whole families are torn apart on the basis of this. Friendships disappear. Communities shatter due to elections which will come and go. Meanwhile, behind the scenes — in chambers, the hallowed halls of the legislative branch, and in diplomatic meetings — politicians will face off during election cycles before coming together just the following week, hashing it all out at the negotiating table, shaking hands, collaborating on legislation, negotiating on budgets, and dining at state dinners.
There are genuine, political rivalries, and even though ideological conflicts exist, for the lawmakers of each country, politics is just about compromise. Meanwhile the common individual might be stuck with only the conflict. The show belongs to us. It always is, indignation pays. Expensive. Division has been transformed into one of the most valuable currencies of the digital age.
Algorithms on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, for example, don’t reward nuance.
It doesn’t go viral. Always… The Anger is. Humiliation as well. You don’t get millions of shares or views by saying something is nuanced and complicated. You get them by saying half the country are of unintelligent outraged individuals.
Advertising makes money. The incentive to keep our society deeply politically polarized has become largely financial not driven by some idealistic democratic process, but from platforms incentivizing it for profits. The idea that your rage would become incorporated into another stranger’s business strategy is one of the oldest political tricks in the book; not that of Machiavellian political theory per se, but rather the age-old governmental tradition of diverting citizen frustration and anger sideways by dividing a populace and having them fight amongst themselves, ensuring that workers don’t rage against corporate greed, and peasants don’t rail against landlords and political elitism because you make them fear or hate ‘the foreigner’, or ‘the big city’ against the ‘country-folk’ ‘other religious followers’, and of course, ‘the millennials’.
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If the workers blame the foreigners… If villages blame the cities… If religions blame other religions… generational tensions rise… Then no one questions you.
Why are medical expenses rising?
Why is my pay stagnating?
Why is corruption condoned?
Why is nothing improving?
The easiest way to govern is never actually through the most authoritarian rule, but always the country or territory where the population is fighting among themselves and arguing.
Democracy is not a fan club. There are people on this earth that champion and defend political figures in the same way a football team defends its star player. Any suggestion of a foul will be seen as a cheat, any scandal will get an alibi, and anything that goes awry would have been someone else’s doing. Excuse me, but that isn’t democracy.
Democracy requires skepticism. Not selective doubt. I am saying ask critical questions to your favorite politicians and distrust even those whose ideologies align most closely with your own, it will begin to return those public servants to a state of service instead of pop idolatry.
The paradox of freedom is that whereas authoritarian states require censorship, mature democracies needs disagreement, but we are overlooking the most obvious alternative — in this world that provides us the liberty to say almost anything, maybe, just maybe, we’re just too exhausted from screaming at one another to reason logically anymore? And at some level that is no longer censorship, no longer totalitarianism — it is simply the endless state of distraction.
The Origins of Totalitarianism, political scientist Hannah Arendt warns that what is most frightening about a healthy democracy is not the conflict of ideals, but rather the gradual loss of shared reality in which all citizens can engage. When this begins to deteriorate, every disagreement becomes a battle, every argument becomes a performance and our collaborative political life collapses.
And who wins in the end?
Not the average person, thats for sure. Whether taxes increase or decrease, demand for goods rises with inflation, or healthcare costs skyrocket or even educational systems improve or slide into a recession… governments will change.
Cabinets will transform.
Ultimately each party will lose the elections, new slogans replace old ones. But the responsibility for these decisions and outcomes is borne by citizens long after the campaigning signs have been dismantled and removed. The sad irony is that many would dedicate years of their lives fiercely protecting their political identity rather than holding up political competence in question. You are elected into office.The most radical and anti-heroic form of rebellion in this age is profoundly and disturbingly simple.
Do not adopt the anger. Don’t throw your outrage at strangers across the globe for the comfort and gain of political figures you don’t know. Do not let any particular ideology supersede your curiosity.
Agree with reason, question if reasonable.
If you are not confident about something then ask and dig in further, revise if necessary. Democracy at its highest stage… U.S citizens don’t need consensus but informed citizens. For the antonym of propaganda isn’t just another propaganda; it’s skepticism and the act of thinking for yourself, if any regime, regardless of ideological leanings, fears one thing more than anything, it’s the sight of an electorate taking the time to think through their options.
Power has never learned this lesson of politics: Power is, and has always been easier to maintain through division than through unity.
The question is not, will you and I disagree?
The answer to that is obvious and an integral, nonnegotiable element of democracy. The true question is, do those disagreements contribute to a healthier democratic system or do they continue to benefit and strengthen those who would rather that our division reign supreme?
Every empire, every demagogue, every opportunist has known one absolute truth: people who stop speaking to one another become very easy to speak for.
