Our politics have always had a built-in distrust of authority, ever since we cosplayed as natives to protest taxes by throwing tea into Boston Harbor. We tell ourselves that power comes from the people, and have instituted all sorts of checks on political power, with different branches and levels of government monitoring each other, to ensure that no one is deproved of their voice unjustly. This is why we consider everyone innocent until proven guilty, and we say that even a guilty conviction shouldn’t prevent someone from running for office, because power ultimately comes from the people, not what the courts say.

The problem comes when:

• The people are morons who think whatever their screens tell them to think
• Those screens get crap pushed to them by algorithms that value engagement over truth
• Politicians coordinate across branches and levels of government to evade accountability, rather than hold each other accountable

So now we still think power comes from the people, but the people are outsourcing their beliefs to their devices, which are being filled with crap by algorithms who are convincing us to trust the wrong people.

(And it’s not just a Smartphone thing: this goes back to Rush Limbaugh on AM Radio, and ultimately back to Roger Ailes, who thought that Nixon’s real problem was that he didn’t have his own news network who could attack his opposition and tell people what to think