Newt Gingrich was an innovator. A party leader (however briefly), he brought a revolution to the Republican Party and to the country. The hate, disinformation, polarization, and division we're living with today stems from the man who served as Speaker of the House for four years more than two decades ago. He had a powerful assist from Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, and today Gingrich's influence is overshadowed by that of Fox News Network, which is king of the conservative media universe that serves to drive the divisions that the GOP relies on and often to set the party's agenda.
In a 2018 article, written not quite two years into the Trump presidency, about disinformation ("a national-level epistemic attack: a systematic attack, emanating from the very highest reaches of power, on our collective ability to distinguish truth from falsehood"), Jonathan Rauch asked, “Will Trump and the trolls triumph?” His answer:
I doubt it. Weaponized trolling has enjoyed the advantage of surprise, but as that diminishes, the troll army will encounter a disadvantage. Trolls have swarms, but the constitution of knowledge has institutions.
He's right, I believe, to look to institutions as crucial. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt sustain a focus on institutions (and institutional failures) throughout their book, How Democracies Die, beginning on page 2:
American politicians now treat their rivals as enemies, intimidate the free press, and threaten to reject the results of elections. They try to weaken the institutional buffers of our democracy, including the courts, intelligence services, and ethics offices. American states, which were once praised by the great jurist Louis Brandeis as "laboratories of democracy," are in danger of becoming laboratories of authoritarianism as those in power rewrite electoral rules, redraw constituencies, and even rescind voting rights to ensure that they do not lose.
Another recurring theme of Levitsky and Ziblatt's remarkable book (published on January 16, 2018, marking not quite the end of Trump's first year in office) is the critical role of party leadership -- and the continuing failure of GOP officials to lead by standing up for democratic norms and institutions. The Gingrich rhetoric of the 1990s pales in comparison to the language of today's Republicans in Congress and statehouses across the country (and on cable television). Republican voters are drenched in disinformation, fear, and hate, while GOP leaders are afraid to contradict the lies that have become entrenched within the party.
Here's what Rauch's contrast -- between trolls with swarms, on the one hand, and journalism, academia, and science bolstered with institutions, on the other -- overlooks: it is not individual trolls (not even Donald Trump) that drive disinformation. It is institutions.
Fox News Channel is an institution. A popular, influential, sustainable institution. The Republican Party is an institution. The party that will be empowered whenever the Democratic Party loses favor in a closely divided country.
There is no way that internet trolls (posting on Facebook or Twitter or reddit) could convince most Republican voters that their prickly leader won the 2020 presidential election. It is Republicans in Congress who appear on Fox News. Not just the crazies who spread the most wild tales, but the leaders (even those who duck and dodge to avoid outright lies) who won't straightforwardly acknowledge the truth. It is Republican governors and state legislative leaders whose agenda makes little sense apart from the lies and conspiracy theories. (There is no room for dissent. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, among others, find themselves on the outside of Trump's party looking in.)
An authoritarian political party threatens our democracy. This isn't a case of trolls vs. institutions. It's institutions vs. institutions. I am in agreement with Kevin Drum (who doesn't overlook Gingrich's role): Fox News is the principle source of division in the United States. This chart from Drum sums things up:
