At RealClearPolicy Paul Roderick Gregory foresees a growing “emergence of anti-status quo candidates”:
Donald Trump’s “The system is rigged†resonates because it reflects what ordinary people think. According to Gallup, only three institutions — the military, small business, and the police — are trusted by more than half. Gallup shows that Americans are as likely to trust Internet news (which the media scorns as “unfilteredâ€), as T.V. news and newspapers. Trust in Congress, meanwhile, has collapsed from one in three to one in 10 since 2000.
These figures foretell the emergence of anti-status-quo presidential candidates, who promise to restore confidence in our institutions. Any status-quo candidate should be defeated unless the conversation is shifted to peripheral issues, such as character and personality. Indeed, “Restore America’s Greatness†Donald Trump and “A Political Revolution is Coming†Bernie Sanders reflect the burgeoning anti-establishment fervor of main street America.
He goes on to list the dwindling confidence in Congress, the FBI, the IRS, the intelligence community, public education, the mainstream media, the Supreme Court, and political parties.
While Mr. Gregory focuses on governmental institutions, those aren’t the only institutions in which Americans have lost confidence. Americans’ regard for organized religion and business, large or small, has never been lower. Of jobs and professions only nurses and firefighters are rated by Americans as very high or high with respect to honesty and ethics. Even the caring professions aren’t held in as high a regard as they once were.
A clear problem with voting against maintaining the status quo is which status quo do you mean? Do you mean the status quo in which we accept more immigrants than any other country or the status quo in which we deport more immigrants than any other country? The status quo in which there is more opportunity for immigrants and minorities than any other country or the one in which immigrants are minorities are poor and persecuted?
Both anarcho-capitalism and totalitarianism have ardent proponents in the United States, IMO largely through romanticizing the imagined past. There’s nothing like living in 19th century America or the 20th century Soviet Union to make you understand the shortcomings of each system but few of us have had either experience and Americans tend not to have a great regard for history. France seems very appealing. After all, aren’t French wines and Marion Cotillard wonderful? (in the 1970s that would have been Catherine Deneuve and in the 50s Brigitte Bardot) And everyone has health care. All of which fail to recognize that France is a much smaller country than the United States with much bigger problems than we have.
In one of his most iconic roles in 1953’s The Wild One, Marlon Brando’s Johnny in response to the question “What are you rebelling against?” answers “What have you got?”. The scene is pictured in the video above. That is nihilism in its most basic form and I think we’ll see more of it rather than less.
