{"id":6477,"date":"2016-11-09T17:52:43","date_gmt":"2016-11-09T23:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=6477"},"modified":"2016-11-09T18:15:55","modified_gmt":"2016-11-10T00:15:55","slug":"how-politics-as-usual-failed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2016\/11\/09\/how-politics-as-usual-failed\/","title":{"rendered":"How Politics as Usual Failed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Vote<\/a>How did America, the “Shining City upon a Hill”\u2020 manage to elect a thin-skinned, sexist, racist cretin as a president? \u00a0It just seems crazy \u2014 until one begins to analyze the depths of despair some large segments of American society have experienced over the past few decades. \u00a0And realize how far a desperate people will go.<\/p>\n

American journalist\u00a0and author Glenn Greenwald describes the large reasons why Clinton and the Democratic Party failed to prevail over Trump in his essay in The Intercept\u00a0<\/em>today (Nov. 9). \u00a0Titled “Democrats, Trump, and the Ongoing, Dangerous Refusal to Learn the Lesson of Brexit<\/a>” it outlines three major\u00a0points last night’s election results illustrate. \u00a0They are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Democrats have already begun flailing around trying to blame anyone and everyone they can find \u2014 everyone except themselves \u2014 for last night\u2019s crushing defeat of their party.<\/li>\n
  2. That racism, misogyny, and xenophobia are pervasive in all sectors of America is indisputable from even a casual glance at its history, both distant and recent.<\/li>\n
  3. Over the last six decades, and particularly over the last 15 years of the endless war on terror, both political parties have joined to construct a frightening and unprecedentedly invasive and destructive system of authoritarian power, accompanied by the unbridled authority vested in the executive branch to use it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    While the entire article is worth reading, the reasons why Democrats blame everyone but themselves (#1 above) and what needs to change most interests me here. \u00a0As Greenwald write in July about Brexit, so is true here (emphasis mine):<\/p>\n

    Instead of acknowledging and addressing the fundamental flaws within themselves, [elites] are devoting their energies to demonizing the victims of their corruption, all in order to delegitimize those\u00a0grievances and thus relieve themselves of responsibility to meaningfully address them. That reaction only serves to bolster, if not vindicate, the animating perceptions\u00a0that these elite institutions are hopelessly self-interested, toxic, and destructive and thus cannot be reformed but rather must be destroyed. That, in turn, only ensures there will be many more Brexits, and Trumps<\/strong>, in our collective future.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    The elites\u00a0<\/em>in this case are the economic elite (the 1%, in both parties), the political elite and the most influential members of the press (journalists). \u00a0They collectively caused or ignored or denigrated the plight of many Americans who would go on to vote for Trump. \u00a0Greenwald again:<\/p>\n

    The indisputable fact is that prevailing institutions of authority in the West, for decades, have relentlessly and with complete indifference stomped on the economic welfare and social security of hundreds\u00a0of millions of people.\u00a0While elite circles gorged themselves on globalism, free trade, Wall Street casino gambling, and endless wars (wars that enriched the\u00a0perpetrators and sent the poorest and most marginalized to\u00a0bear all their burdens), they completely ignored the victims of their gluttony, except when those victims piped up a bit too much \u2014 when they caused a ruckus \u2014 and\u00a0were then scornfully\u00a0condemned as troglodytes who were the deserved losers in the glorious, global game of meritocracy.<\/p>\n

    That message was heard loud and clear. The institutions and elite factions that have spent years mocking, maligning, and pillaging large portions of the population \u2014\u00a0all while compiling their own\u00a0long record of failure and corruption and destruction \u2014\u00a0are now shocked that their dictates\u00a0and decrees go unheeded. But human beings are not going to follow and obey the exact people they most blame for their suffering. They\u2019re going to do exactly the opposite: purposely defy them and try to impose punishment\u00a0in retaliation. Their\u00a0instruments for retaliation are Brexit and Trump. Those are their agents, dispatched\u00a0on a mission of destruction: aimed at\u00a0a system and culture they regard \u2014\u00a0not without reason \u2014\u00a0as rife with corruption and, above all else, contempt for them and their welfare.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    That dam was eventually going to burst. \u00a0And it did, in this election where against odds and expectations and prognostications and common decency, they elected Trump.<\/p>\n

    This oppressive system absolutely needs\u00a0destruction. \u00a0But who could do it? \u00a0Who could clean up the mess? \u00a0Surely there are decent men and women out there who can see it and could do something about it, if they were President. \u00a0Except. \u00a0In this country, in this day, only the most connected, most egotistical and most wealthy have any chance at all at winning such an election.<\/p>\n

    Trump was, in a perverse way, just the right man for the job. \u00a0He was wealthy enough and ego-driven enough, and had enough fame, that he could get elected and upset the apple cart. \u00a0Will he, not through good intentions and moral character, but rather via outraged supporters and simple chaos be enough to provoke the needed change? \u00a0Can he cause the Democratic Party or even the Republican Party to throw off their institutional, elitist self-serving policies and behaviors?<\/p>\n

    Let’s hope so.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \u2020From\u00a0the 1630 sermon “A Model of Christian Charity” preached by Puritan John Winthrop while still aboard the ship Arbella with future Massachusetts Bay colonists.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Photo credit: \u00a0@nodigio on Flickr, CC by attribution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    How did America, the “Shining City upon a Hill”\u2020 manage to elect a thin-skinned, sexist, racist cretin as a president? \u00a0It just seems crazy \u2014 until one begins to analyze the depths of despair some large segments of American society have experienced over the past few decades. \u00a0And realize how \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6477"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6489,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6477\/revisions\/6489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}