Let us assume that the story of the emperor who has no clothes, that that story is about the conversion of shared knowledge into common knowledge. Everyone, the emperor himself, his courtiers, the population at large, and of course those rogue weavers, everyone can see that he is naked. That knowledge is shared among them. For the rogue tailors, however, that knowledge is common; each knows that the other knows that the other ad infinitum.
Once the boy blurts out, “He’s naked!!!,” though, what was only shared knowledge has now become common among the entire populace. Everyone knows that everyone else etc. Let us suppose, however, that some people would just as soon not know that the emperor is naked while others don’t mind knowing among themselves (e.g. those rogue tailors), but they’d just as soon that no one outside their group knew. What then?
Those rogue tailors might make a move to mute the boy’s messages, perhaps by disparaging him and his parents, perhaps even by imprisoning him. Those courtiers, who’d just as soon believe the emperor to be clothed, for their livelihood depended directly on his largesse, the courtiers would see the rogue tailors making their move and would join them in their efforts. Surely there were others in the population who also benefited from the emperor’s power and wealth. They too would join in the effort to silence the boy.
Now the population is split in two, the party of the emperor and his supporters, and the other party, at best indifferent at the revelation but many quite gleeful as the emperor and his cronies had done them no good at some time in the past. This other party sees the boy as a hero and attempts to protect him.
At this point the parable stops being a children’s story and becomes a model of political coalition formation under epistemic stress. For it’s not this imaginary emperor that interests me. It’s a very real Donald J. Trump.
I’m casting him in the role of the naked emperor. He is widely perceived as corrupt, even among many of his allies. Thus the Big Boys of Silicon Valley are attracted to him because they want to benefit from his political power. They see that he’s also cruel and sexually profligate (or at least he was in the not so distant past, who knows these days). They may not like these characteristics in him, but they can tolerate them as long as he supports them in their business ventures. However, they cannot themselves afford to be seen as corrupt, at least not all that corrupt, just business as usual. Fortunately he has plenty of support from other businessmen. And it would help if Trump had significant support from those who favor him on other grounds.
For that we have the MAGA faithful, which, as far as I can tell, is a motley crew. Many of them may not like immigrants, but as long as he promises to kick them out, they could care less about his licentiousness. As for his cruelty, as long as he directs it to those immigrants, it’s fine by them.
But we also have the Christian right, many of whom abhor that licentiousness, but they also abhor abortion. As long as abortion is confined to secretive doctors who hide their services and to doubtful practitioners who slink around back alleys in the dark, these people may not say much. But once public abortion clinics become available, that cannot be allowed. But if Trump will appoint Supreme Court justices who are with them on this, they’ll support the Trumperor. He did and they do.
Finally among those who abhor abortion we have those who insist that a woman who has been raped must carry the fetus to term. Why? To allow the abortion is to admit that the rape took place, that men can be, are all too often, cruel. Or perhaps they want to blame the woman herself for the rape, “She was askin’ for it.” Well, as long as DJT gets rid of abortion, he can do whatever he wishes with women, but just don’t tell us about it. These are not necessarily explicit beliefs held by all individuals, but they are functional outcomes of the system.
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ChatGPT created the illustration based on the following photograph:
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