The title of Robert Putnam’s well-known book (2000), Bowling Alone, became a mantra for those arguing that community in America had withered or even fractured. Since then, loneliness has become a running theme, culture and media in tandem growing our isolation.
While there are some situations in which being alone, and acting alone, has advantages, resistance is virtually never among them. Maybe more than any other public act dissidents fare better when they act in tandem. When instead of dissenting alone they do so with others.
There are of course exceptions. For example, some whistleblowers successfully expose corruption and deception. But by and large, precisely because they are acting alone, they don’t fare well. Usually, whistleblowers put themselves at risk precisely because they are solitary Davids taking on behemoth Goliaths. They are lone followers challenging powerful leaders.
In recent years ordinary people have seemed easily to grasp the power of numbers. Millions of Americans had no trouble demonstrably opposing President Donald Trump on three separate No Kings Days. Elites, on the other hand, perhaps because they felt they had more to lose, never got the message. Early in the president’s second term they were striking in their aloneness. As, for example, law firms like Paul Weiss and universities like Columbia – both exemplars of trying to pacify the president while operating from a position of what they should have understood was obvious weakness. The weakness of those standing alone rather than alongside others.
Maybe the lesson has been learned. Remarkably, America’s mainstream media have just banded together. Have just decided to join forces to resist Trump’s ban of three media outlets from setting foot inside the White House.
This remarkable cooperation – remarkable both in its alacrity and efficiency – is on two levels. First, the three media targets, CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, have already joined forces to file a lawsuit against the administration challenging its ban against them. Second, even more amazingly, the five major television networks have banded together in solidarity. They have announced that until the ban against their brethren is lifted, they will halt all video coverage of all presidential events.
Be clear here. Normally these networks fiercely compete, one against the other. But because they understand that if one is at risk, all are at risk they are acting strategically. Instead of bowling alone they are bowling together.