You Can’t Un-Ring the Bell
In the legal world there is an expression; “you can’t un-ring the bell.” It applies to jury trials, when some information is revealed in open court that the jury isn’t supposed to hear. But they do hear it, and no matter what, you can’t make them un-hear it; you can’t un-ring the bell.
In our real world of today the term also applies. In 2016, both the United States and United Kingdom made enormously consequential decisions. In June of 2016, the United Kingdom voted in a national referendum to leave the European Union. It was 52% leave, and 48% stay, with Scotland and Northern Ireland voting to stay, and Wales and England voting to leave. Now, two years later, the United Kingdom can’t decide how to get out, and is facing a “cold divorce” from the rest of Europe that could completely disrupt their economy, risk reigniting Ireland, and perhaps drive Scotland to consider leaving the United Kingdom again.
In November the United States also made a consequential decision, voting (albeit by a minority of votes) Donald Trump into the Presidency. Now two years later our government is shutdown, we are in the middle of a national crisis over the political crimes of the Trump campaign, and it is just possible the President is an asset of Russian Intelligence. We have abandoned many of our international obligations, from the Paris Accords to Syria, and are now threatening to leave NATO and the United Nations. Things have been bad in America before, even as recently as Vietnam and Watergate, but it certainly feels like now things will get much, much worse before they get better.
We now also know that both of these events, Brexit and the Trump election, had a lot more in common than we realized at the time. Both elections involved Russian Intelligence; who used the powerful influence of social media to manipulate public opinions for separation and for Trump. Both were also impacted by Cambridge Analytica, the right-wing funded company that created individual targeting profiles for use on social media. Cambridge Analytica was run by Steven Bannon who ultimately would be Trump’s last Campaign Chairman. The Russians and Bannon used social media to inflame racial tensions in both nations, creating hate to drive voters to the polls.
We know that nationalism is growing throughout the world, and while it’s not exactly like the 1930’s, it’s close enough that we should all take pause – are we seeing history “rhyming,” with Russia in the place of Germany, and the helplessness of the United Kingdom and the United States repeated?
In the United Kingdom there is a suggestion that the Brexit question should be re-voted, that now that the consequences of the decision are apparent; “let’s have a do-over.” In the United States we are searching for a similar mechanism to undo all the perceived damage done by the Trump Administration.
But the way forward cannot be to go back. We cannot “undo” the decisions of our nations, even though that would seem to be the best. We cannot rewind the clock, back to 2014 before it all occurred. We cannot “un-ring the bell.”
Why not? The hot emotions stirred by Bannon and Russia were there before they were blown into flames. While the modern social media “attacks” definitely made the decisive shift, a large minority already held those nationalistic views. Un-ringing could well have the opposite effect than intended, it could easily serve as the final fuel on the nationalistic flames; violating, in their eyes, their democratic rights. It might create all the incentive needed to make their view the majority view, and push both nations even farther along into the nationalistic isolationism that seems so similar to the 1930’s.
Both nations must find a way through our crises without undoing our democratic traditions, even though they may have been subverted. We must allow our democracies to use all of the established mechanisms to right our paths, without denying the choices our nationalistic minorities have made. If we try to “undo” their history, we take the chance of empowering them even more. We cannot “un-ring” their bell, but we can ring our bell even louder.
