At The Hill Monica Crowley quotes a statement from former insider whistle-blower Richard Higgins that I think is worthy of consideration:
Higgins says the consequences of failing to eliminate the internal threat are dire. “First, the emerging two-tiered justice system†— one protective of the elite, the other for everyone else — “will ensure that these abuses happen again.
“Second, faith in government will collapse among Trump supporters. Having been betrayed by the politicians they elected, a demographic large enough to elect a president will become completely disenfranchised.
“History will understand that the Republican Party served as the defeat mechanism of the American experiment in that they got elected on issues that they never intended to address.â€
He characterizes this moment as “pivotal, but we may not fully understand the significance of current events for decades.â€
Given the public confirmation of his initial warning, he offers a fresh one: “We are fighting for this country’s future as well as her past. I warned senior [officials] on the national security transition that we were storming Omaha Beach on Jan. 20, 2017. They didn’t listen, and they didn’t survive the first wave. We still have to take that beach. The very same principles are at stake.â€
Americans have voted for change for the last ten years and they’ve been frustrated at every turn. Developments make it clear that the leadership of both political parties, the media, and the civil bureaucracy simply cannot be trusted.
You may castigate the results of this frustration as a violation of norms but it merely shows that our system is functioning as designed. The only thing that is not working is that too many voters are still complacent. I suspect that will change.
Complacency seems to be the norm, we’ve recently seen two openly socialist candidates win primaries with extremely low voter turnout.
Trump is keenly aware that the polls are less important than turnout in the mid-terms. Plus, he loves to stump, it energizes him.
If you believe the steady drumbeat of media propaganda, He’s a human cartoon caricature that somehow won the Presidency. Don’t count him out.
“Americans have voted for change for the last ten years and they’ve been frustrated at every turn. Developments make it clear that the leadership of both political parties, the media, and the civil bureaucracy simply cannot be trusted.”
Heh. A short hand rendition of Drew’s view of government and politics. And as I have noted, one of the two primary reasons for the hysterical anti-Trump fervor.
Complacency is the goal – you can’t get politicians that represent the interests of small minorities elected without it.
That is the way the parties operate now and how they will operate in the future:
– select candidates that don’t reflect the views of their constituents as a whole
– get the base out to vote to the maximum extent possible
– suppress the base of the other side to the greatest extent possible
– convince the rubes in the middle that the shit-sandwich you’re serving is less bad than the alternative
— or failing that, encourage them to stay home so the base can carry the day.
– Then, once victory is secured, unironically bloviate about the “will of the people” and proceed to shove the favored agenda down everyone’s throat.
To me, that is the future of politics in America as long as the parties keep heading down the path they are on.
Complacency is okay; resignation (which I think is closer to the mark) is not.
There was another article I read this morning but did not post on that argued that deTocquevillean American democracy is dead, killed off from a combination of the rise of an intellectual elite, the decline in voluntarism, and greater acceptance by many people of the role of consumer rather than producer of democracy.
I don’t see how the ground rules that have prevailed since 1789 can continue with such an increase in government’s role and centralization. I think there’s a sort of passive aggressive reaction going on.