When Political Power Cannot Respond to Reality
When Political Power Cannot Respond to Reality
Written on 24 August 2026.
Two political statements that initially appear contradictory can both be true at the same time:
- A dissident or alternative political movement may have “no chance in politics.”
- The established political system may be “totally incapable of responding to reality.”
In fact, the first statement may help explain the second.
Political success and the perception of reality
Correctly perceiving reality is not the same thing as possessing the institutional power necessary to change government policy. A politician, journalist, or movement may identify genuine problems while having almost no chance of succeeding within the established political system.
Meanwhile, politicians who accommodate the existing structure may continue to succeed even when that structure is failing to address reality. Political viability therefore does not necessarily demonstrate that a person is correct. It may instead demonstrate that the person is acceptable to the institutions controlling political advancement.
“No chance” as confirmation of the criticism
In August 2026, Donald Trump attacked Tucker Carlson, Thomas Massie, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, describing them as political “losers” with little or no chance of achieving anything through electoral politics. Carlson had argued that the American political system was “totally incapable of responding to reality” and had discussed the possible need for a third party or multiple parties.[1]
These two claims are not mutually exclusive. Trump was commenting on their ability to succeed within the existing system, while Carlson was questioning the ability of that very system to recognize problems and correct itself.
Trump’s response can therefore be interpreted as an illustration of Carlson’s argument:
You have no political future because the system you criticize provides no effective path for your alternative.
The political exclusion of a critic is then presented as evidence that the critic is irrelevant. This produces circular reasoning: the system first makes effective opposition nearly impossible and then points to the opposition’s powerlessness as proof that its criticism does not matter.
Managed pluralism
A country can preserve the outward forms of democracy while sharply limiting the range of politically achievable outcomes. Elections, political parties, debates, and media organizations may continue to exist, but foundational policies remain protected from meaningful challenge.
This condition may be described as managed pluralism. Citizens are permitted to choose among different personalities and parties, but alternatives that threaten the permanent political structure are marginalized by party organizations, major donors, media institutions, bureaucracies, or other centers of power.
The result is political competition within restricted boundaries. Voters can change the people administering the system without necessarily gaining the power to change the system’s fundamental direction.
A possible totalitarian tendency
The inability of political institutions to respond to reality, combined with the practical exclusion of meaningful alternatives, can be a sign of a totalitarian tendency. This is especially serious when several conditions appear together:
- Material reality becomes subordinate to an approved political narrative.
- Dissenters are dismissed as irrelevant, irrational, disloyal, or illegitimate.
- Alternative movements are allowed to speak but denied any realistic path to power.
- Institutional failure is concealed through propaganda or controlled political debate.
- The population is permitted to vote, but only within a narrow range of acceptable outcomes.
- Political and media institutions cooperate to isolate challenges to the established order.
Under these conditions, outward democratic forms can remain while genuine political responsiveness declines.
Not necessarily a completed totalitarian state
Political exclusion alone does not prove that a country has become completely totalitarian. Classical totalitarianism normally involves a much stronger concentration of power, including extensive state control over political organizations, media, education, public associations, and sometimes private life. It may also involve censorship, surveillance, imprisonment, or violent suppression of organized opposition.
A system in which alternative candidates are marginalized could instead be described as oligarchic, authoritarian, corporatist, or dominated by a party cartel. The distinction depends upon the degree of control and the methods used to preserve it.
It is therefore more precise to speak of a totalitarian tendency unless there is evidence of comprehensive control over society.
The central warning
A healthy political system must possess some mechanism for recognizing failure and changing direction. If every person who challenges a failing consensus is automatically rendered politically powerless, the system gradually loses its capacity for self-correction.
The decisive question is not merely whether opposition parties, independent journalists, or dissident politicians are formally permitted to exist. The deeper question is whether they have any practical means of influencing policy when their criticism corresponds to reality.
When a political system answers truthful criticism only by declaring that the critic has “no chance,” political power has ceased to treat reality as the final standard. The system’s ability to exclude the critic may then become evidence of the very institutional failure the critic was describing.
Selective responsiveness to reality
The claim that a political system is “incapable of responding to reality” should not necessarily be interpreted as meaning that it cannot collect information or react to changing circumstances. Modern states may possess extremely advanced systems for surveillance, classification, prediction, and military action.
The reported Israeli use of the artificial-intelligence system known as Lavender provides one example. According to investigative reporting, Lavender processed large quantities of intelligence data in order to identify people suspected of belonging to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad and recommend them as potential military targets.[2] The Israeli military disputed the characterization of Lavender as an autonomous system selecting people for assassination and maintained that human personnel remained responsible for targeting decisions.[3]
This suggests a distinction between two kinds of responsiveness:
| Political responsiveness | Technological and coercive responsiveness |
|---|---|
| Recognizing criticism | Collecting surveillance data |
| Correcting failed policies | Classifying people algorithmically |
| Allowing meaningful alternatives | Predicting behaviour and identifying targets |
| Responding to public needs | Directing police or military force |
| Admitting institutional error | Eliminating perceived threats |
A system may be slow, deaf, or immovable when citizens demand political correction, yet extremely fast when authorities identify a population, dissident, or military opponent as a threat. It does not fail to respond to reality in every respect. Rather, it responds selectively.
The system may ignore realities that would require those in power to change themselves while responding immediately to realities that can be managed through surveillance, technological classification, or force.
This produces an inverted form of political intelligence:
The system cannot hear reality when reality speaks as criticism, but it can detect reality when reality appears as a target.
Such a system may therefore be politically irrational while remaining technologically sophisticated. Its advanced intelligence capabilities do not necessarily produce wisdom, justice, or self-correction. They may instead make an unresponsive political order more effective at preserving itself.
From this perspective, artificial intelligence can become a substitute for political intelligence. Rather than understanding why opposition, instability, or resistance exists, the system identifies individuals associated with it, assigns them a risk score, and acts against them. A political problem is transformed into a data-processing and targeting problem.
This is compatible with a totalitarian tendency. Totalitarian power does not have to be ignorant of reality. It may possess detailed knowledge of individuals and populations while refusing to acknowledge any reality that contradicts its governing narrative. Its defining feature is then not an inability to observe, but an inability to permit observed reality to correct the purposes of power.
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