Elephants in the Room: Trump, Putin and Questions for the Future

The inspiration for this year’s seminar was the ouroboros, an ancient symbol of a snake, serpent or dragon eating its own tail. It represents the cyclical nature of time, of creation and destruction, of life and death. It appears in many diverse cultures across the globe including Egyptian, Greek, Indian, Amazonian and Scandinavian art and mythology. It also represents the interconnectedness of things. Importantly, interconnectedness is neither good nor bad, but simply how things are. Things, people and places, are inherently connected, or more fashionably put, networked. In the domains of politics, media and technology, as well as the focused disciplines of journalism and diplomacy, there is an ouroboros-like continuation. A persistence of cyclical trends that include both progress and regression and interconnectedness. These domains constitute societal pillars, each expressed in various institutions and social practices, and one domain can rarely thrive while all the others falter into authoritarianism through democratic backsliding. The seminar’s discussions largely focused on the intrusions of authoritarianism into ‘traditionally’ liberal institutions by far-right politics and capitalism, coalescent by the neo-liberal assault, arguably, originating from the 1980s. In fact, Ambassador Brix opened the seminar with a refutation of Francis Fukuyama, a neoliberal thought leader and policy contributor to the Reagan administration and neoconservative movements of the US right-wing. One can view this return to rightwing authoritarianism as a century or so long cycle. Harkening back from the post-industrial Gilded Age of the early 1900s where labor movements clashed with oligarchs. Often through democratic means, right wing and ultra-nationalist political and populist movements rose to power and demagogues were able to establish authoritarian regimes. Today we are witnessing similar trends globally. The US had a particularly violent history of repressing labor movements and unions that may soon repeat. Discussions over industrial factory automation have been replaced by discussions of the impact of digital automation and generative AI, both largely pertaining to who controls this new means of production, e.g., the state, the workforce, corporations, oligarchs, and will these advances in technology serve the egalitarian public interests or accumulate wealth and power for a cartel of elites. Similar questions can be asked about who controls information systems, social media platforms and news media. Will the very same corporations, oligarchs and their co-conspirators in government own the media systems or will a vibrant locally owned news media, working for an informed and engaged citizenry? At this seminar, there was no question that new technologies could serve the public interest, but rather a resounding agreement that the volatile cocktail of politicians colluding with elite economic interests will breed corruption for the foreseeable future. In political economic terms, this corruption is driven by the privatization of economic resources organized in collaboration with state actors. Increasingly, these forces are transcending national boundaries, for example in hiding unknown amounts of money in offshore tax havens. Putin’s regime is in a more advanced stage of this process, while the Trump administration is not starting from scratch it is beginning a new push dismantle and privatize public institutions.

In my view, the elephants in the room were Vladmir Putin and Donald Trump. Their policies pose various threats, importantly to news media and deliberative democracy. Though they did not enter into every discussion, their shadows loomed large over the issues of the day. As did the overall regression in the health of global democracy, which was noted in several presentations. Both Trump and Putin are positioned to reap great havoc on Europe if they choose; Putin through hard power and Trump through tech power, tariffs and by sowing political and diplomatic uncertainty. Presentations also examined how both Russia and China where leveraging AI and social media for disinformation attacks to expand their spheres of influence. Trump has, of course, closely aligned himself with the US tech sector and its oligarchs, Bezos, Musk, Pichai, Cook, many of whom represent his highest donors. At the same time the EU attempts to regulate and contain the very same US tech corporations and their massive economic power, while scrambling to organize and develop their own AI, social media and tech sectors. None of these developments bode well for democracy or the empowerment of most citizens. In the spirit of a blog post, I reflect upon these topics in two sections, expanding upon our discussions with questions rather than proposing and working through a thesis or argumentation. To this end, I elaborate and reflect on the presentations the seminar’s participants that most impacted me and my research interests. 

Putin, Ukraine and rearming Europe

In the wake of the Ukraine war, Russia’s invasion has realigned regional, if not global, security strategies, reshaped allegiances and economic priorities. The conflict also highlights the role of news media in framing wars and producing reliable, unbiased information and the importance to nation states to see their strategic narratives prevail. There were no previous illusions that Putin was an authoritarian, nevertheless, the EU and Scandinavian states pursued policies toward Russia that reflected some confidence in the deterrence created by NATO and the small but significant geographic buffer of the Balkan states. The invasion has ended the post-World War II European continental peace and alignments. As well as the perceived distance between Russia and the heart of Europe, which Poland and Finland among others never enjoyed. The European members of the conference, academics, journalist and diplomats retained an urgency and grave concerns over Russia’s invasion and disinformation campaigns. In my view, this urgency over Ukraine and Russia has been somewhat lost with the US-based attendees, who are more focused on Trump’s re-election and his attacks on the administrative state and social institutions. Yet, there are many connections. Putin and Trump share an uncomfortably close, sometimes mysterious relationship, including freezing European partners out of key peace talks. Trump’s willingness to publicly criticize Ukraine and, even personally humiliate Zelensky, are a shocking departure from the previous administration’s policies and diplomatic efforts. The receding US commitment to European security, means rearming the continent. Trump has frequently attacked NATO and the scope of its mission with threats to defund it. One diplomat noted his country was both landlocked and does not broader Russia or its allies, therefore domestic rearming efforts make little difference but still seem like a necessary response to Putin’s aggression. It would be more productive to send arms to Ukraine, Poland or Finland, yet there is no current structure to do so within the EU, outside of NATO members or direct country-to-country military aid. This begat several foreboding questions from discussants, particularly diplomats, on the future of the European Union. What role will Germany play as the largest economic power? Will Germany rearm? Should German acquire a nuclear weapon from France? Should the EU raise a centralized army? Who will represent Europe in the inevitable peace talks and arms agreements with Russia? In lieu of a united NATO representative, will France or Germany sit at the head of the table for Europe, or an EU representative? To what extent will the EU tolerate the Russian sphere of influence inside the EU, e.g., states like Hungry or Romania? This has also pushed crucial decisions about societal priorities to the background, as Professor Jensen pointed out, societies will soon choose between powering cities and hospitals or server farms and data centers. The energy costs and environmental impact of AI processing centers are insurmountable without sacrifice. If rearming Europe is necessary to deter Putin and it moves forward as expected, social programs, infrastructure projects, as well as science, medical and academic research funding will all shrink.

Trump, strategic narratives and epistemology

Trump’s re-election came with deep changes to US policy, diplomacy and importantly, political communications. Trump has shattered the Transatlantic Alliance, most notably expressed by his policies of defunding NATO and enacting tariffs against even the US’s closest Western allies. But, also, from sowing uncertainty. From a communications and diplomatic perspective, Trump manifests chaos. This should be considered a strategy. As clumsy as his communications may look from the outside, or in fact be, there is no reason to doubt that there is a plan within the administration. Through various tactics, Trump is often able to direct, sometimes control, media narratives and set premises in the wider discourse, even if it appears haphazard and improvised. Following the communications model employed by Putin, Orban, Modi among others, Trump and his administration limit access, ban or bypass all news media critical of the administration or its policies. For example, Trump banned the Associated Press reporters for failing to acknowledge the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico and ridiculed them for being radical leftists. Undoubtedly, banning from the White House AP’s reporters hurts that organization. Furthermore, it chills other journalists for fear of losing access, with an overwhelming tendency to soften their coverage and criticism. The administration rarely concedes failures and has little patience for combative journalists. Therefore, details are rarely hashed out or officials held to account by the press corp. Finally, Trump and his officials communicate directly through social media bypassing the press altogether, but the press are nevertheless compelled to report these statements. Through social media, typically the platforms Truth Social or X both owned by members of the administration (Trump Media Group and Elon Musk respectively), officials can reach core constituencies and supporters directly. At the same time, they can attack and dismiss critics as fake news, again, with no accountability or fact checking. Shadow banning is employed to marginalized and downplay content that runs contrary to Trumps narratives. As Professor O’Loughlin pointed out, the ontology of their claims is irrelevant. Trump, as well as Putin - though he is more careful with his messaging - bypass critical news media, select favorable media for interviews, and ignore fact checkers whenever possible, effectively manufacturing their own epistemic sources and information networks. Therefore, whatever the ontology is, e.g., the facts, events and so on, do not matter, only the success of strategic narratives and interests that motivate such claims. Through social media, the administration is creating and curating content for, what Professor Marwick calls counterfactual communities. Therefore, creating online communities and spaces of epistemic homogeneity to deliver messages unfettered and uncontested. All of this points to serious questions about the future of the US news media, knowledge producing government agencies and even higher education. The health of deliberative democracy in the US was on the decline before Trump, these trends will only make it worse and generate more questions for the future. Will Trump successfully end what little funding public media receives? News organizations have been chilled; there is a notable decline in news media aggressively criticizing the administration compared to Trump’s previous term. Will journalists fight back, find courageous editors and outlets willingly to support their work or will epistemic homogeneity continue to reduce and narrow the boundaries of discourse? Will the ontology of facts, events and societal conditions matter or only who dominates the news cycle and social media’s algorithms? Will US social media platforms be held to account be some form of regulation or governance? Can a form of US deliberative democracy survive long term if the interconnected forces of neoliberalism continue to envelop knowledge producing institutions?