Intentional Consequences

by Charles Harris

  As the library cleared, Hope collected a bottle of Courvoisier and suggested they have a night cap in Dan’s guest house. By the time they reached the house, the belt on her tux jacket had come untied. Inside, she took off the jacket and placed it neatly on a chair. Her full breasts bare, she poured the cognac and proposed a toast. “Cheers,” she said. “I haven’t had sex since my husband died. I hope you’re ready.”

  He was.

  ◆◆◆

  Eva spent the night in the Balls’ guest house. Using Mary’s cell, she tried to reach Dan again but received no answer. The second time, she left a curt voicemail saying she was at the Ball’s house and going to bed.

  The next morning, Dan had breakfast with Bernbach and Mayer in the sunroom of Bernbach’s main house. They discussed the influence of social media and fake news in the 2020 elections. Bernbach grilled Dan on his thoughts. Mayer asked Dan to explain how political marketing had changed since 2008. Dan walked them through the 2012, 2016 and 2018 elections.

  At the office later, Bernbach asked Dan what he thought about the social media strategies and capabilities of the likely Democrat presidential candidates. After going through some of the announced candidates, Dan said, “If Biden decides to run, and I think he will, he’ll be better at social media than most people think. It may be easy to brand him as an old guy who’s out of touch with technology as well as social issues, but he was elected and re-elected because of the internet strategies and email lists the Obama campaign put together. I know. I was there.”

  ◆◆◆

  While Dan was enjoying his morning in Westport, Mary drove Eva to the Verizon store to buy a new iPhone and re-establish the cellular link for her watch. Afterwards, Eva called Steve Cole again.

  Cole said, “We have some early input on the forensics. Parts of our company network were breached. The good news is our cyber experts don’t believe the hackers successfully accessed our AI algorithms, our development source code or system object code for the VADS system, or the master databases we use to train our AIs. Thank goodness we maintain those on a separate server. The bad news is the hackers were able to access your email and some relatively unimportant personnel and marketing data.”

  “Do they know how it happened” Eva asked.

  The access came from credentials stolen in your home invasion. Although you changed the creds within a few hours, the hackers were able to get in and set up some access routes before you could make the changes. We dodged a lot more damage because of our policies requiring dual control for our most critical privileges and file encryption for sensitive files.”

  “Well, that’s bad but not as bad as it could have been. Do they know who did it?”

  “Given the hackers’ access to your credentials, it’s hard to tell. So far, the cyber guys suspect it was a state-sponsored group associated with the Chinese government. But they have more work to do.”

  Cole paused, then added, “Now for the most interesting news. Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “Once the hackers got in the network, they accessed and downloaded the decoy version of our VADS software we had planted for just such an occasion.”

  “You’re kidding? Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Well, that was good timing on our part. So now we wait to see whether any images produced by the decoy show up somewhere?”

  “Yes, but it could be a long wait. In the meantime, we need to keep quiet about the decoy. I haven’t mentioned it to the JPAC IT team.”

  “Understand. Do you think the home invasion is related to our drone incident?”

  “Hard to tell, but I’d say it’s more likely than not.”

  “The home invasion has really put me on edge. Electronic vulnerability is one thing. Physical vulnerability is another. I want to get these guys, Steve. Whoever they are.”

  Chapter 10

  The lights dimmed in the auditorium at Columbia University as Dr. Sally Jones walked across the stage to the podium. Behind her, a large screen repeated a sequence of color photos of the renovation of the exterior of the United States Capitol that was completed in 2016. As she reached the podium, the last slide revealed the title of the next presentation: Is Democracy Dying?

  “Good evening,” Jones said to the assembled crowd of academics. “As you know, our keynote address is being presented tonight by Valerie Johnson, one of the country’s leading authorities on the status and future of democracy in America. Although many would say she needs no introduction, let me say a just few words about her remarkable career. A native of Texas, Valerie received her BA with high honors from Georgetown University. After a Congressional internship, she earned a Master’s in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Juris Doctor degree from the Harvard Law School. She spent two years with the Brookings Institution and, after a year off, joined the faculty of UC-Berkeley. Now Thomas R. Slade Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin and Director of its respected Center for the Study of American Democracy, she has published numerous books and articles, including her recent best seller, Saving American Democracy. Please welcome Professor Valerie Williams.”

  Valerie rose from her seat in the front row and bounded up the stairs to more than polite applause. As usual for her professional presentations, she was wearing a tailored camel blazer over a white button-down shirt, with brown slacks and low-heeled pumps. Eyeglasses replaced the contacts she preferred in her personal life. Her stylish short blonde hair glistened. As was her trademark for her professional life, she appeared to be well-dressed and attractive, but hardly the wife of one of the richest people in America.

  Smiling as her eyes adjusted to the lights, Valerie said, “Thank you. It’s an honor to be here to talk with you about a topic that’s important to all of us, both as academics and as citizens. Before I begin, I want to provide a couple of disclaimers some of you may have heard before: First, my remarks today are my own and not those of the University of Texas or CSAD. Second, in pursuing my professional work, I do my best to separate any personal opinions I may have about political issues from my professional assessments. I am a registered independent. In today’s increasingly partisan world, sincere comments from well-meaning people can be taken out of context or manipulated for political gain. Although I do my best to be objective, I am human, and I do vote. If you have questions or concerns about any aspect of my remarks today, please see me after the presentation or reach out to me by email. Thanks.”

  Glancing back at the screen, Valerie brought up the title slide for her presentation as she said, “Now, let’s get started.”

  “Lest we forget, questions and concerns about the future of democracy in the United States have been with us since the founding of our country. Our nation has been through difficult political crises across our history. We’ve survived the heated debates and ultimate compromises that led to the adoption of our Constitution in 1787 and the Bill of Rights only four years later. We’ve survived a Civil War. We’ve expanded the right to vote. Over the years, and some would say it took too many years, the Supreme Court has successfully challenged presidential authority, desegregated our schools and legalized abortion and same-sex marriage. While many would argue we still have much to do, particularly in making equal opportunity a fact and not just an aspiration, we’ve come a long way in just over 200 years in building a more perfect union. And as we say in Texas about making sausage, sometimes the process has not been very pretty. Just in our lifetimes, we’ve had assassinations, race riots, demonstrations against wars, flag burnings, marches on Washington, presidential resignations, and endless political maneuvering and manipulation.”

  “With all that history, why do Americans feel so concerned today about the future of our democracy? “We don’t need a complex regression analysis to come up with one answer. Virtually any recent media search will show the conversation about the future of democracy in America has increased dramatically, and become decidedly more partisan, since the election o
f Donald Trump in 2016.” Valerie turned to face the screen as the first slide morphed into an animated sequence of annotated magazine covers and other media articles decrying the future of democracy in America.

  Fake News Threatens Democracy, Obama Says – USA Today, November 17, 2016

  Is American Democracy Strong Enough for Trump? The Case Against Panic – Politico, January 23, 2017

  This Is What the Beginning of the End of Democracy Looks Like – The Washington Post, April 19, 2017

  The Plot to Subvert an Election - Unraveling the Russia Story So Far – New York Times, September 20, 2018

  Kavanaugh Controversy Adds to Public’s Crisis of Confidence – The Wall Street Journal, September 24, 2018

  Is Democracy Dying? – The Atlantic, October 2018

  Turning back to the audience, she said, “As in prior spikes, some of this increased concern is based on political ideology and the positioning that goes with it, on both sides of the aisle. Although difficult to quantify, some of it is almost certainly based on President Trump’s personality and, shall we politely say, his somewhat different approach to communicating and governing. But our research shows much more is going on than usual, and the factors are more pervasive and dangerous than many people realize. I’d like to mention several of these factors today.” The next slide showed a list of seven topics:

  Declining Trust in American Institutions – Political and Non-Political

  Social and Political Polarization – Group Think, Tribalism and Movement to the Extremes

  Identity Politics – Envy, Hatred and Revenge versus Celebration of Heritage

  Post-Truth World – Fake News, Lies and Bald-Faced Lies

  Impact of the Internet and Social Media – Microtargeting and the Decline of Print

  Politicization and Polarization of Media – and Everything Else

  Dilution of Core National Values – Increasing Diversity and Deteriorating Assimilation

  Pausing to sip some water, Valerie went on, “One of the areas we’ve been looking at is trust. The annual Trust Barometer Reports compiled by Edelman provide some interesting historical data here for the US and other developed countries. Edelman measures trust across several institutions: NGOs, business, government and media. Their 2018 report showed significant changes in several important areas. Let me refer to some highlights from their 2018 report:

  “[Quote] The U.S. is enduring the worst collapse ever recorded in the history of the Edelman Trust Barometer. This is led by a decline in trust in government, which is down 30 points among the informed public and 14 points among the general population, while for the informed public trust in each of the other institutions sank by 20 or more points. This trust decline in the US was transversal, across age, region and gender. [Unquote]

  “According to Edelman, no market had sharper declines than the United States, where the Trust Barometer recorded a 37-point aggregate drop in trust across all institutions. In remarkable contrast, China had an aggregate 27-point gain, the most Edelman recorded in any other market.

  “Edelman also reported Media became the least-trusted global institution for the first time. Declining trust in search engines and social media is a lot of that.

  “The obvious question is why the United States experienced this steep loss of trust in these key institutions. The answers almost certainly include the political bitterness fueled by the Trump presidency, the Democratic and media resistance to it and concerns about Russian interference in the 2016 election. But they also include the still-misunderstood effect of social media on democracy and the growing polarization of both social and traditional media. The answers also include frustration over ‘fake news’, as well as concerns about the use and sharing of personal information by search engines and social media. It’s a long list.

  “The more interesting question is why this decline in trust is so troubling, and what it suggests about the future of democracy in America. In other words, why should we care the public is trusting these institutions less? To answer this question, we need to consider how these institutions affect our society and how they influence the decisions we make individually and as members of various groups. As Walter Lippmann wrote in his Public Opinion in 1922 and Edward Bernays echoed and expanded a year later in Crystalizing Public Opinion, these and other institutions are instrumental in creating the social stereotypes that help frame our beliefs, our politics and our lives.

  “These institutional stereotypes define our world and much of what we think and do, and even what we believe to be true or false. If you’re an optimist, these institutions provide the expertise and guidance the public needs to exercise their rights as members of a democracy. Without these institutions and their elites, there would be no limits on the passions or ideas of the people and no way to help the people obtain the information and guidance they need to make decisions ostensibly given to them in a democracy. If you’re more pessimistic, these institutions channel the public to a range of acceptable decisions while still making them believe they’re free to vote as they please. Regardless of how you think about them, the stereotypes provided by these institutions and their elites help maintain social control. We decide and act within them. Because we do, the stereotypes maintain the power of the institutions and elites that provide the stereotypes to us.

  “Depending on your point of view, if we lose trust in these institutions one of two things will result. The stereotypes that currently frame and enable our democracy will be replaced by different stereotypes supplied by the same or different sources. Alternatively, if we fail to replace the stereotypes essential to the proper functioning of democracy, our system of government will become unstable and ineffective, potentially culminating in mob rule, anarchy or revolution. Either way, the potential for radical change is high and the potential impact of that change on our existing elites and our democracy is large.

  “As trust in traditional institutions falls—institutions like government, schools, churches and local newspapers—ask yourself where the new stereotypes will come from and who will gain or lose power in the process. I would submit those traditional institutions are being largely replaced by the internet and its ebbing and flowing mob of influencers, social media manipulators and social activists. President Trump gets this, by the way, which is one of the reasons he likes Twitter. He gets direct access to motivate the mob without being filtered by the traditional media or other institutions or elites.”

  Her speech went on for 50 minutes. Afterwards, Valerie mingled with some of the attendees at a reception held in the hall outside the auditorium. Introducing herself to Valerie, a young associate political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis shook hands and said, “I have a question. Why make such a big deal about your objectivity? In today’s world, politics is life. That’s the reason for the polarization we see. That’s not a bad thing. People are finally willing to take a stand and call out the people who don’t get it…the racists, the right-wingers, the men who disparage women’s rights to their bodies. Your research is brilliant, but you need to start taking a stand.”

  Surprised by the woman’s tone and her message, Valerie said, “Thanks for your candor. I agree it’s important to be passionate and stand up for what you believe. I also see value in trying to help people understand the facts, as well as the pros and cons of the issues that divide us. Objectivity is falling fast, which is not good for democracy.”

  The woman said, “People have always seen things through different colored glasses. Thanks to the internet, the tints are more vibrant and immediate. Vibrancy is good. It increases our willingness to act.”

  Valerie said, “Are you saying I need to do more personally, or I need to tailor my professional work so it supports a particular point of view?”

  The woman said, “Both, but my main point is the latter. People listen to you. Rather than trying to be so damn objective, you should find a way to make your data support the positions that need to be supported. Objectivity today
is fluid, not absolute. How we assess the truth depends on the group we belong to. You need to be an advocate, but I can see you’re not ready to help. Thank you for your time.” She turned abruptly and walked off.

  Left standing with the woman who introduced her, Valerie said, “Sally, who is she?”

  Jones said, “She’s a rising star. I don’t agree with her, but her point of view is more prevalent than I like to admit. Our college campuses, especially the elite schools, are not exactly bastions of free speech and balanced debate. Professors are losing appointments and promotions based on political views that are mainstream but on the “wrong” side. Administrators are folding at any sign of student unhappiness with some commencement speaker’s business or public service.

  “Did you see the Protect Abortion protesters when you came in today?” Jones asked.

  “I did. First time I’ve seen protests at one of our conferences,” Valerie said. “Maybe it’s good they think we have some influence over what happens. America needs voices and engagement. Still, glad I’m leaving through the back.”

  ◆◆◆

  As Valerie stepped toward her waiting car at the rear entrance to the conference hall, an amplified male voice called out from a bullhorn, “Professor Jain, Heads’ Up, Rich Bitch!” Valerie looked up, trying to locate the source of the voice and surprised to hear someone use her married name instead of her professional name. As she paused by the open door to her car, two balloons filled with bright blue paint arced from the corner of the building and landed on the hood and windshield of the car, spraying paint across the front of the vehicle. Fortunately, none of the paint hit her or her driver, who was standing next to her. In an instant, her driver grabbed Valerie’s bag and pushed her into the rear seat of the car, saying “Get down, Ma’am. Lie across the seat, face down.” Jumping into the driver’s seat, the driver quickly surveyed the scene. Seeing no threats, she turned on the windshield washers and pulled away. “Are you OK, Mrs. Williams? Best if you stay down until we get a couple of blocks further.”