It's also exactly backwards. People are prone to conspiratorial thinking precisely because of our collapsing institutions. We are in a deep crisis--just about everyone intuits this--so everyone is want for an explanation, an understanding, or something that gives them a sense of certainty in response to its opposite. The idea that so-called fake news erodes our "faith" (lol) in the state's institutions is liberalism to a T in that it treats the effects, and only the effects, of a malady without ever understanding its cause.
our institutions are collapsing because the capitalists in charge will do everything in power to make sure they don't have to fund them, including actual conspiracies
The idea that so-called fake news erodes our “faith” (lol) in the state’s institutions is liberalism to a T
There's a certain amount of truth in the observation that, say, the Murdoch Press take-over of a host of smaller independent news journals has eroded faith in institutions by deliberately amping up the distrust and hysteria already chronic within journalism. The Washington Times being bought out by the Moonies, the Epoch Times being pushed by the Falun Gong, the WaPo being bought out by Amazon... These don't go unnoticed, nor do their editorial shifts occur without some degree of blowback. Scientologists and Mormons and Catholics and Evangelicals and Peter Thiel all using their legal clout to intimidate or bankrupt any media hostile to their interests will drown out opposition voices. And the end result is a mainstream landscape of news that's either too vulnerable to challenge anyone in power or too partisan to be taken seriously by anyone outside their niche.
All that does, in fact, "erode faith in institutions" that were otherwise held in high regard.
The actual failure of those institutions definitely undermines their own cause. But we do run into a kind-of Chicken/Egg dilemma, in which a guy like Ronald Reagan or Barack Obama can call out departments as corrupt, only to step into office and stuff them with their own suite of know-nothing stooges and hacks. Which came first? It doesn't seem like the EPA was always headed by Scott Pruitts. The Defense Department wasn't always run by Donald Rumsfeld. The courts weren't always stacked with Federalist Society cronies. And the state legislatures weren't always beholden to ALEC.
In order to displace the comparatively benign local interests with an openly parasitic class of nationally syndicated elites, corporate boards had to spend a ton of time, money, and manpower actively undermining and attacking the existing office-holders. The whole Reagan Revolution was predicated on displacing public leaders and privatizing away public property, and the first step in that game was to denounce these institutions for corruption and incompetence far in excess of what actually existed.
In the same way that the CIA sponsors Color Revolutions abroad by exacerbating and outright fabricating reasons for outrage, US media and the domestic bourgeois seize and maintain control by vilifying anyone or anything contrary to their interests.
It's also exactly backwards. People are prone to conspiratorial thinking precisely because of our collapsing institutions. We are in a deep crisis--just about everyone intuits this--so everyone is want for an explanation, an understanding, or something that gives them a sense of certainty in response to its opposite. The idea that so-called fake news erodes our "faith" (lol) in the state's institutions is liberalism to a T in that it treats the effects, and only the effects, of a malady without ever understanding its cause.
our institutions are collapsing because the capitalists in charge will do everything in power to make sure they don't have to fund them, including actual conspiracies
There's a certain amount of truth in the observation that, say, the Murdoch Press take-over of a host of smaller independent news journals has eroded faith in institutions by deliberately amping up the distrust and hysteria already chronic within journalism. The Washington Times being bought out by the Moonies, the Epoch Times being pushed by the Falun Gong, the WaPo being bought out by Amazon... These don't go unnoticed, nor do their editorial shifts occur without some degree of blowback. Scientologists and Mormons and Catholics and Evangelicals and Peter Thiel all using their legal clout to intimidate or bankrupt any media hostile to their interests will drown out opposition voices. And the end result is a mainstream landscape of news that's either too vulnerable to challenge anyone in power or too partisan to be taken seriously by anyone outside their niche.
All that does, in fact, "erode faith in institutions" that were otherwise held in high regard.
The actual failure of those institutions definitely undermines their own cause. But we do run into a kind-of Chicken/Egg dilemma, in which a guy like Ronald Reagan or Barack Obama can call out departments as corrupt, only to step into office and stuff them with their own suite of know-nothing stooges and hacks. Which came first? It doesn't seem like the EPA was always headed by Scott Pruitts. The Defense Department wasn't always run by Donald Rumsfeld. The courts weren't always stacked with Federalist Society cronies. And the state legislatures weren't always beholden to ALEC.
In order to displace the comparatively benign local interests with an openly parasitic class of nationally syndicated elites, corporate boards had to spend a ton of time, money, and manpower actively undermining and attacking the existing office-holders. The whole Reagan Revolution was predicated on displacing public leaders and privatizing away public property, and the first step in that game was to denounce these institutions for corruption and incompetence far in excess of what actually existed.
In the same way that the CIA sponsors Color Revolutions abroad by exacerbating and outright fabricating reasons for outrage, US media and the domestic bourgeois seize and maintain control by vilifying anyone or anything contrary to their interests.