Amerika

The Washington Post opines on the reason for Donald Trump’s victory:

The poll found that Obama-Trump voters, many of whom are working class whites and were pivotal to Trump’s victory, are economically losing ground and are skeptical of Democratic solutions to their problems. Among the findings:

• 50 percent of Obama-Trump voters say their incomes are falling behind the cost of living, and another 31 percent say their incomes are merely keeping pace with the cost of living.
• A sizable chunk of Obama-Trump voters — 30 percent — said their vote for Trump was more a vote against Clinton than a vote for Trump. Remember, these voters backed Obama four years earlier.
• 42 percent of Obama-Trump voters said Congressional Democrats’ economic policies will favor the wealthy, versus only 21 percent of them who said the same about Trump. (40 percent say that about Congressional Republicans.) A total of 77 percent of Obama-Trump voters said Trump’s policies will favor some mix of all other classes (middle class, poor, all equally), while a total of 58 percent said that about Congressional Democrats.

Taking this with a grain of salt, since it comes from the mouth of the enemy, we can see a pattern here: voters were dismayed by the direction the country was taking under George W. Bush, so they ran to Barack Obama; when the health of the country became even worse, they then ran to Donald J. Trump.

This is expressed in economic terms because these are the only questions that Leftist academics tend to ask. They are afraid to ask about anything else, as they will encounter a mire of discontent about social issues, racial issues, corruption and other things that will reflect badly on Leftist policy.

Voters are facing the grim fact that Amerika is buried under so many flawed assumptions, bad laws, Leftist ideals and corrupt practices that now it will take three decades of strong Right-wing leaders to remove the damage. This is typical Leftist strategy: poison the well by damaging government so much it is crippled, then call for its replacement with an even more Leftist model.

Even worse, voters are prone to act illogically. They vote with their emotions, as individuals, and in groups fall prey to “the committee mentality” and vote for what they think is the least worst option because in their view, others will support it. Voting becomes a game like pro sports where everyone wants to bet on the winning team.

This produces the mass conformist behavior that has voters putting people like Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande into office. They are ruled by fear, and compromise in order to not lose what they have, forgetting that slow death is still death. This creates an intractable Establishment which colludes with voters to pick consistently bad candidates instead of taking a risk:

Across the board, politicians and other former candidates have urgently counseled their supporters to vote for Mr. Macron to block Ms. Le Pen’s path to the Élysée Palace.

The French call this the “Republican Front,” and it has proved effective at preventing the National Front — perceived by many in France as a threat to democracy — from taking power before.

Those who get into office do so by making voters have happy feelings. They do this with words by putting ideas in the heads of voters that salve their greatest fears. Voters fear first for the economy, next for stability, and finally really enjoy demonstrations of strength including, oddly, those where a politician asserts pacifism as a higher value. All of these make them feel like their lives are succeeding with this person, and six months later when the results do not materialize, they will have forgotten.

People who are specialists at making voters have happy feelings form a professional Establishment that zeroes in on working with each other. They quickly stop caring about whatever the voters wanted, and deliver instead what the system wants, or in other words what is convenient to do within it, has minimal risk (read: minimal deviation from the norm), and creates positive feelings.

When someone comes in who wants to do something differently, all of the people in the Establishment unite against this new person because changing the order of business threatens the stability of all of the people who have been elected before. Thus things never change, even when a Trump or Farage comes along. The Establishment just trots out a Paul Ryan or Theresa May.

The process of asserting business-as-usual eventually creates a runaway virtue spiral where politicians, seeking the reward of public approval, take ideas well beyond their logical point of application:

Alexander Van der Bellen, the left-wing former Green Party leader who narrowly beat a far-right candidate to take office in January, said freedom of expression was a fundamental right.

“It is every woman’s right to always dress how she wants, that is my opinion on the matter,” he told an audience of school pupils.

“And it is not only Muslim women, all women can wear a headscarf, and if this real and rampant Islamaphobia continues, there will come a day where we must ask all women to wear a headscarf – all – out of solidarity to those who do it for religious reasons.”

Under the rules of the Establishment, voters need to have happy feelings, and they always get these from defense of the perceived underdog. For this reason, those who want to stay in the Establishment always double down on these insane policies, which project the kind of perverted strength mentioned above. Pacifism and tolerance make people feel that their society is strong enough to do the paradoxical, and therefore that their pensions, jobs and money market funds are safe. Most people have short-range goals exclusively.

You will not get what you want with democracy. You will get what is convenient for democracy. Like all things, it serves only itself. Governments are no different than corporations cutting corners in order to deliver a greater bottom line to the shareholders. Nothing will ever change until democracy is removed and logical, forward-thinking action can take its place.

Tags: alexander van der bellen, democracy, donald j. trump, marine le pen, paul ryan, the establishment, theresa may