It Can’t Happen Here (Can It?)
Tuesday, October 18th, 2016
By Reed Galen
Welcome to the American Singularity.
This dumpster fire of a campaign has three weeks to go. For a tired nation and a deeply-wounded political process, the end can’t come fast enough. Faced with the prospect of his impending loss, a humiliating one at that, Donald Trump has gone full Buzz Windrip, complete with conspiracy theories, angry rhetoric and a collection of malcontents in search of their own power. Daily, Trump now indicts and impugns the American electoral system with conspiracies enough to float a squadron of black helicopters.
Faced with an unwillingness or inability to temper his, well temper, or make meaningful progress to grow his share of the vote, Trump has instead chosen to superheat his supporters. Like adding fire to raw ore to remove its impurities, this small molten core has too often shown itself to represent too little of the best of America and too much of an ugly underbelly that is using Trump to bring itself into the mainstream political process.
“Why, why, America’s the only free nation on Earth! Besides, Country’s too big for a revolution. No, no! Couldn’t happen here!”
Like a clone army of Shad Ledue, Trump supporters forgive him his trespasses because of real and perceived trespasses against them. That he shares their anger, at whatever it might be — the system, the elites, the world, is enough for them. When The Donald first began talking about the “rigged system” many flocked to him because he was willing to say what other politicians weren’t: The government of 2016 (and for sometime) may be by the people, but it is far too often not for the people or of the people. While his words didn’t change, the meaning of Trump’s utterances certainly has.
According to a Politico/Morning Consult survey out this week, 41% of all voters, 73% of Republicans believe that the election could indeed be stolen from Trump. Trump regularly touts the specter of election irregularities and crooked surveys to claim he is actually winning the election, despite every other known indicator showing otherwise. His words shock the American political soul, are cause for concern and are a pro-active threat to how we conduct ourselves in the public square.
Hillary Clinton, however, represents the status quo on many different levels. She is the embodiment of what so many Americans (and almost all Republicans) see as a country run by elites who truly care little for their well-being. Clinton’s example is less stout, less noisy and less ugly, but no less insidious, odious or threatening to the Republic. Regardless of how she walked back her “deplorable” comment and many of Trump’s supporters are in fact deplorable, she meant what she said. The urban left has too little respect for suburban and rural America.
It’s funny that something we now consider old-fashioned, email, has been the root of so many of Hillary’s problems. First it was her own emails. She did it, but thought it was okay. Then it was a lapse in judgement. Then she wished she’d done it differently. Now it appears (shocking, I know) that there were players within the Obama Administration working on her behalf to clean up the mess she’d made with her own paranoia. Those old blackberries haunt her to this day because they make so many people, across the political spectrum, believe she’s really only in it for herself.
Then Wikileaks, or the Russians, or whomever, hacks the Democratic National Committee and we find out that they were in the tank for Hillary the whole time. Again, this should never have been surprising, but to see the DNC’s efforts to submarine Bernie Sanders so blatantly was shocking even to many people, like me, who do this for a living. Of course we saw Sanders’ supporters rightly outraged at the revelation. While many Berners will vote for Hillary, they’ll do it holding their nose, knowing Trump offers them no real alternative.
The continuing release of Clinton campaign chairman John Pedesta’s emails show that, after it’s all said and done, Democratic politicians and operatives are as calculating, insulting and tone-deaf as anyone else in the country. They’re further proof that high-level Clinton brass doesn’t apparently like too many of the people they’re so eager to lead into the next four or eight years. Working in politics, it is inevitable that your bright, shiny idealism will be swiftly and mercilessly torn away from you, but Hillary’s crew appears to have taken it a whole new level.
“Every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on.”
And the Corpos, of course, are fine with all this. Hillary may ding them here and there in her rhetoric and as president may even propose so measures that Wall Street may not care for. But at the end of the day, they know she is a pragmatist, knows where her heart-healthy bread is buttered and will do no real or long-lasting damage to them. The status quo is the best they can hope for. Clinton one day may be immortalized in bronze as the politician, perhaps even more so than her husband, who knows how to work the system.
If our tottering economy should take another tumble, President Clinton and the next Congress will have their last chance to clean up our kindle-laden political system. Should they again look to save the big guys at the expense of the little, the ensuing wildfire will be more than just an election can hope to head off. Trump may be an outlet for the anger of many Americans, but his defeat will not end their disaffection.
Only real, sustained reform that begins to address the angst, anger (of both sides of the political spectrum) yawning inequality and stagnant economy we now face will allow us to chart a new path; one back to prosperity and stability. But not stability or security for their own sake — you can get that, as President Dwight Eisenhower said, in a prison cell. It doesn’t mean you’re free.
Per the same Politico survey mentioned above, 71% of the voters they questioned believe the United States is on the wrong track. As we conclude this tortuous and ugly election season, we must hope, and probably demand, that our elected leaders take a new tack on how they operate, begin putting those that elect them first and try out different ideas that should upset some of the most entrenched interests.
To do otherwise would be a failure on their part, and a continuation down the path of illegitimacy that has only dark outcomes — or we may one day wish Donald Trump was the worst we could imagine.
Republics are first and foremost tests of faith. Hundreds of millions of people must believe in the system of government our forebears collectively agreed to; and they must believe the elections are free and fair and that the rule of law applies to all — the lowliest of the low and highest and mightiest. Otherwise, the Constitution is just so many very eloquent words written on really old pieces of paper.
Copyright 2016. Jedburghs, LLC.
If you would like to have these columns delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
If you enjoy this post, please click the green heart below.
