Post by ck4829 on Nov 23, 2016 11:57:48 GMT
Academics, pundits and politicos are still going over the entrails of Hillary Clinton’s unexpected defeat at the hands of Donald Trump.
Poor turnout, complacency and hubris, Clinton’s emails: these are used to explain the Democrat’s loss. Celebrity culture, middle-American angst, white rage and post-fact politics, are employed to explain Trump’s victory.
But such explanations are only the froth on the top of a larger and deeper sea of reasons. They explain nothing at all about why the United States chose to elect someone as their president viewed as a foul mouthed, misogynistic, race-baiting, sociopath. Trump is merely the symptom of discontent with a system of governance that provides the illusion but not the reality of choice.
A Princeton study a couple of years ago declared that the U.S. is not in fact a democracy but, rather, an oligarchy. The trick for this oligarchy remaining in power has been to convince the mass of American voters that, by marking their “x” on a ballot every four years, they have the power to change their lot in life; that the system is not “rigged” against them but in fact offers a meaningful choice.
edmontonjournal.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-no-revolution-in-donald-trumps-win-the-swamp-is-too-deep-to-drain
People Power is now more necessary than ever.
Poor turnout, complacency and hubris, Clinton’s emails: these are used to explain the Democrat’s loss. Celebrity culture, middle-American angst, white rage and post-fact politics, are employed to explain Trump’s victory.
But such explanations are only the froth on the top of a larger and deeper sea of reasons. They explain nothing at all about why the United States chose to elect someone as their president viewed as a foul mouthed, misogynistic, race-baiting, sociopath. Trump is merely the symptom of discontent with a system of governance that provides the illusion but not the reality of choice.
A Princeton study a couple of years ago declared that the U.S. is not in fact a democracy but, rather, an oligarchy. The trick for this oligarchy remaining in power has been to convince the mass of American voters that, by marking their “x” on a ballot every four years, they have the power to change their lot in life; that the system is not “rigged” against them but in fact offers a meaningful choice.
edmontonjournal.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-no-revolution-in-donald-trumps-win-the-swamp-is-too-deep-to-drain
People Power is now more necessary than ever.