Echo Chamber Read online

  She laughs to herself, then her face grows stern. "Let me assure you right here and now: this isn't a political calculation, this isn't me saying what I think will poll well. The growing wealth gap is a threat to American stability. That's a fact whether it's popular or unpopular. What we need is massive investment in green infrastructure, a renewed focus on unions and individual working Americans, and public-private partnerships that will allow a technologically revolutionary green economy to benefit everyone.

  "Around the developed world we've seen uprisings among the working classes. Why? In my view, they arise from a perception of illegitimacy—a gap between the claims of the wealthy ruling classes and reality as experienced by those who are ruled. Rebellions around the world tend to come from two camps: the socialist left and authoritarian right. These two fringes share opposition to state capitalism, opposition to a managerial ruling class, opposition to the financialization of the economy, and opposition to globalization."

  "Ms. Hall, that's time," Lee interjects.

  Hall holds up one hand, demanding time to finish her thought. "The next twenty years will see one of two things: a dramatic reorganization of how our world economy works and who it benefits, or a rapidly increasing wealth gap that threatens massive bloodshed. Period. Call me practical if you want, I call it survival. If we don't radically transform the world economy, civilization itself may end."

  Before Lee can introduce him, Avery Axum shoots an irritated look in Hall's direction, sighing into the microphone. "With all due respect, Ms. Hall, is it necessary to exaggerate to that extent?"

  Hall cocks a skeptical eyebrow, but doesn't answer.

  Axum continues. "Moments like this are where America loses itself, where the debate breaks down. I agree with the fundamental assumption of the question. I agree with Ms. Hall that the growing wealth gap is a problem. But Ms. Hall and I part ways when she introduces apocalyptic proclamations that are simply counterfactual.

  "I'm a conservative, but I've worked in the administrations of both Democratic and Republican presidents. One thing I can tell you for sure is that we are not going to descend into Communism if we tax the rich a little more to raise the standard of living for poor and middle-class Americans. Politicians who claim that we will are fools, liars, or both.

  "But any view of the human condition must compare the imperfect present with a much more imperfect past, not with an imagined utopia in the future. We must acknowledge the progress humanity has already made and look skeptically at radical efforts to reshape the systems that have won humanity that progress. In the year 1900, sixty hours of work at the average hourly wage of the day could buy you ten days of light in your home. By 1920, the same sixty hours of work could already pay for five months of stable light as light bulbs became better and cheaper. By 1990, that increased to ten years of light. Today, sixty hours of work buys you fifty-two years of light in your home.

  "In 1965, when I went down to the record shop to buy Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys, I paid $3 for the vinyl record. That's equal to nearly $25 in today's money. With $25 today, my students tell me they can stream Apple Music for half a year." He chuckles. "Now, I wouldn't know how to use that, but they do. Millions of songs, listened to anywhere, for the same price I paid to get one record. Prices are going down. As they do, our standard of living goes up. Wage growth is a problem, I agree. But it's not the only way to measure progress and wealth."

  Hall has a hand up, like she's waiting on Lee—or Professor Axum—to call on her.

  "I can see that Ms. Hall wants to get in here, but let me say something else. I'm a patriotic man. I love America. As I've grown older, I've begun to see the world as more connected than I used to. In 1900, half of one percent of women and girls in India could read. That's one in two hundred. Now that's around seventy percent. That means there are still two hundred million women and girls in India who are illiterate. This is terrible. It also means that there are five hundred million who are literate.

  "I can't prove it, but I believe it benefits me when people in other countries learn to read, get richer, and suffer less. I imagine Tanner Futch might disagree. But I don't think it's an accident that India's tremendous progress coincided with the explosion of their economy. A capitalist economy. Possibly the most magnificent showing capitalism has ever made.

  "Far too many people are quick to make the leap from 'Something is wrong' to 'The government should fix it.' Or from 'I don't like something' to 'The government should ban it.' It's true that the world has never seen such income inequality. It's also true that mankind has never experienced such rapid increases in living standards. Around the world billions of people have been lifted out of poverty over the last few decades. So, as people like Justine Hall want to focus on what's wrong and rush toward socialism to fix it—"

  "That's not what I said," Hall interjects, leaning into her microphone.

  "Ms. Hall," Lee scolds.

  "No, he mentioned me by name and I get a chance to respond." She glares at Axum. "With all due respect, that's not what I said, Mr. Axum. Strong public-private partnerships do not equal socialism."

  "They don't, but—"

  "And let me address your other points. Sure, by some measures, things are getting better. Music is cheaper. Electronics are cheaper. But housing, education, and medical costs are rising. Average income isn't. The United States now has the twentieth highest standard of living. We used to be first. So music is cheaper and you've got a better phone, but while you're rocking out to Apple Music, you'll be living under a bridge roasting sparrows on a rusty car antenna."

  Some chuckles arise from the audience as Lee taps his podium with his knuckles. "Ms. Hall, please. And Mr. Axum, that's your time."

  The audience buzzes as Axum looks like he's going to respond, but instead he holds up both hands in an I yield gesture, and I swear I see him grin for just a second.

  As Lee introduces the next question, I pull my phone out of my purse. I told myself I wouldn't check it during the debate, but I'm hopelessly addicted.

  Scanning my texts, I stop on one from my old friend back at The Barker.

  Bird: Did you see this?

  The text includes screenshots from Twitter, showing that Marlon Dixon is trending. He also included a meme that has been retweeted tens of thousands of times, the meme that got Dixon's name trending in the first place.

  Now I know why Dixon isn't at his best. He must have seen this right before he came on stage.

  The image in the meme is a still from the video footage of our last debate, at which a young man named James Brockenfield busted into the auditorium looking for his ex-girlfriend, and started shooting randomly into the crowd. Dixon and Axum were able to stop him, stepping in front of his gun and breaking him out of his sick, violent trance. But not before Brockenfield killed four people.

  The meme depicts the most famous moment from the event, Dixon holding his arms out to Brockenfield, saying, "You're my brother, and I love you."

  It was an incredibly powerful moment, and a big part of the reason Dixon enjoys the top spot in our rankings.

  The text above the image, though, is new. It reads:

  WHAT DOES MARLON DIXON SAY TO MEN WHO STALK AND KILL WOMEN? "YOU'RE MY BROTHER, AND I LOVE YOU."

  My stomach does a slow roll as I realize how ugly things are about to get.

  5

  I wake to a ringing phone.

  Sliding out of bed, I check the caller ID. I don't recognize the number, but for some reason I answer anyway. "Hello?"

  "Mia Rhodes, it's Chuck Salatorro, from American News Weekly, did you get my email?"

  "I…no…what? Who did you say you were?"

  "Chuck Salatorro."

  "From American Weekly News?"

  "American News Weekly. Third largest weekly tabloid in the country."

  I stumble out of my small room on the second floor of the office and down a hallway into a kitchenette, considering whether I should hang up. "You emailed me?"

 
"We have an offer for you."

  I down a glass of water. "An offer? What are you talking about?"

  "Check your email, Ms. Rhodes. It's about Peter Colton."

  I pause, composing different versions of "Go to hell" in my mind. Anything involving Peter Colton and America's third-largest tabloid cannot be good. But it's never wise to be on the bad side of a tabloid, so I say, "Umm, okay. Goodbye, Mr. Salatorro."

  I usually don't interact with the world before coffee, but his mention of Peter has me intrigued and worried. I start a fresh pot, then sit cross-legged on the floor and find the note from Salatorro.

  Subject: We want your story.

  Dear Ms. Rhodes,

  American News Weekly is interested in the story of your relationship and breakup with Peter Colton. We know you've been contacted by other publications and have declined to comment on the record. We know you have a story to tell, and we want to help you get your side out.

  For stories of this sort, American News Weekly has paid as much as $50,000 for the exclusive rights. In this case, due to Peter Colton's profile and the sensitive nature of the breakup, we might be willing to go higher.

  Please contact me as soon as possible to discuss terms.

  This story is going to come out one way or another. We'd love to help you ensure that it comes out on your terms.

  Chuck Salatorro, Senior VP, American News Weekly

  The coffee maker lets out a burst of steam, as it always does as it finishes brewing. I read the email again, focusing on one line in particular.

  The sensitive nature of the breakup.

  The kitchenette is full of the smell of coffee, so I set my phone on the floor and make myself a cup.

  The sensitive nature of the breakup.

  The phrase could mean different things, but I think it means Chuck Salatorro knows why we broke up. If he knows why we broke up, how did he find out? I didn't mention it to anyone who would have talked. Maybe he's on a fishing expedition. Maybe he heard rumors about Peter and hopes I'll confirm them. But he wouldn't offer $50,000 for that.

  There's another possibility. One I wouldn't put past Peter.

  I forward the email to my old boss Alex Vane, who runs The Barker. Along with the note from Salatorro, I include three words: Catch and kill?

  Coffee in hand, I head down to the office to check the news and give the caffeine time to bring me back to life before the staff arrives. Checking my feeds, I see the mainstream media hasn't yet picked up the Dixon story, but he's still trending on Twitter and the blogs are running with it.

  Stories are everywhere. Though some focus on the sudden shift in Dixon's narrative, most take sides in what has become a vigorous online debate. Strangely, hits are coming from both the left and the right.

  The headline of a left-leaning blog summarizes one of the narratives that has taken hold overnight:

  Supporting Abusers Means Being Complicit In Abuse

  The piece argues that the mainstream media was far too quick to call Dixon a hero after he jumped in front of Brockenfield's gun. Sure, the writer acknowledges, Dixon may have saved lives. But Dixon's ability to say, "You're my brother and I love you" to a man who showed up to kill his ex-girlfriend is proof that he doesn't care about domestic violence. "Extreme moments like the one Mr. Dixon faced," the article concludes, "call for extreme compassion for the victims of domestic violence and abuse, not compassion for the abusers."

  Right-wing blogs have jumped on Dixon as well, but for different reasons. One headline reads:

  What's "Heroic" About Sympathizing With Criminals Over Victims?

  The argument is that a true hero would have charged the shooter and taken him down. Dixon's attempt to "talk it out" is a perfect microcosm of the left's weak-willed attempts to understand criminals instead of locking them up and throwing away the key.

  A Christian blog takes a more neutral position:

  Citing Christ, He Jumped in Front of Shooter, Now Internet is Jumping on Him

  One tech blog takes a meta-view:

  Where Do Stories Come From? Anti-Dixon Discourse Rises from Dark Corners of the Web

  The piece is an example of a type of story that emerged only in the last few years. I call it an Origin Story.

  It attempts to figure out who started the memes that got Dixon trending and led to all the negative coverage. Was it a rival candidate? The Russians? A spurned ex-lover? A teenager in his mom's basement? Unfortunately, this particular article only traces the memes to an anti-Dixon forum on Reddit. All the posters are anonymous, and the author can only speculate about the true origins of the devastating memes.

  "Peter hit number one."

  I look from my laptop to see Steph standing in the doorway. I study her face, hoping to detect the mischievous look she gets when she's trolling me. She looks serious, almost apologetic.

  "When?" I ask.

  "Last five minutes. I thought you'd want to know."

  I let out a deep sigh. I'd avoided looking at our top ten list all morning, knowing this was coming.

  Steph sits across from me. "We knew this would happen. The velocity of his rise was unstoppable. I know you hoped he'd blow it in the debate but, honestly, he was pretty good."

  Post-it, the black and white cat that appeared out of nowhere on my first day at the office, leaps onto her lap.

  I make a sour face, pretending to be super-jealous to mask a tinge of real jealousy. "I think Post-it loves you more than me now."

  "You've been bummed ever since Peter." She must see the incredulous look on my face, because she's quick to add. "I mean, since he entered, not since you two broke up."

  "Post-it can tell?"

  "We can all tell," she says carefully.

  "Dixon fell to two?"

  "To four."

  "What? For real?"

  Steph nods slowly as I pull up the Ameritocracy homepage. Dixon is at number four, replaced in the number two spot by Maria Ortiz Morales. Tanner Futch is steady at number three.

  I nod toward my laptop, still open to the stories. "I read the Dixon nonsense before you came in. It's totally bonkers."

  "And they're coming from left and right. Like everyone got together in a room and decided to turn his best public moment against him."

  Steph has a way of summing things up that's helpful. In this case she's absolutely right.

  Dixon's moment with the shooter was his finest public moment. The one criticism he's been susceptible to before the shooting was that he was too showy—always wearing GoPro cameras, always making a spectacle out of his service to the poor. Of course, he countered that the stunts he pulled were his way of bringing attention to issues people were eager to ignore.

  In this case, though, Dixon jumped in front of a gunman to save others. He literally took a bullet. He was willing to die for total strangers. Ten years ago, before social media was what it is now, the moment would have been impossible to spin negatively. Now, fiction can become truth with a compelling meme and a few hundred thousand retweets. Anything goes.

  I rub my eyes, already exhausted. "It's been a long day since I got out of bed an hour ago." Steph chuckles, but says nothing. "The weirdest thing about this is that it's not even weird. It's what the internet does."

  "At its worst," Steph counters. "It does a lot of good, too. You didn't exactly choose punch cards and snail mail to transform democracy, remember."

  "Ugh, I know. I'm just—"

  "What?" she asks.

  "I've been thinking about Peter. About his strategy."

  "I've been wondering about that as well. And I seriously don't get it. He spent the whole night saying very little. Like I said, he did it well. But he talked out of both sides of his mouth."

  I've been hesitant to tell Steph my theory about Peter's plan because, deep down, I'm pretty sure it will work. "I know what his strategy is."

  "What? Spill it, Mia."

  "He's going to use his fame to pull a Thomas Morton on us, except without actually cheating." I tell
her my idea about Peter taking centrist stances, then counting on our own echo chambers to amplify the side of his message we already agree with. "He knows it feels better on a neurological level when we're told we're right about the things we already believe. He knows we can't choose not to feel good when people agree with us. It's what happens, and humans crave it. We need it. The dopamine hit when someone likes our Facebook post—they designed it to affect us like a drug. To get us hooked."

  I let out another long sigh. As the breath leaves me, I choke up.

  Saying that aloud surfaced a nagging refrain, a single sentence that's been present all year in the back of my head. Most of the time I've been able to ignore it. Now it's louder than ever.

  You're out of your league and Ameritocracy was a terrible idea.

  Steph is about to say something, but I'm determined to finish my thought. "Peter knows most of us live in self-constructed information echo chambers. And he knows we already like him. He's counting on us to hear what we want to hear. He's exploiting not only the weakness of the internet, but the weakness of the human mind."

  Steph carries Post-it around the desk and sets him on my lap. "That was bleak. You need some comfort."

  Post-it looks uncertain, but settles into my lap. "I'm not wrong, though. Am I?"

  "I don't know." Steph returns to her seat. "I don't think it's as bad as you say."

  We sit in silence for a minute. I stroke Post-it's soft fur, which gives me a little comfort. His fur has nothing to do with our situation, but the comfort is another neurological response I can't control. A splash of cat-based serotonin.

  "There's some good news, though," Steph says. "FiveThirtyEight came out with a new thing."

  She slides her phone across the desk. It's open to an article with the headline:

  Third-Party and Independent Candidates Polling at New Highs

  I slide it back. "Great, so Peter has a real shot at becoming president. I'm soooo proud of my work."