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Trump’s election wasn’t about Trump. It was a throbbing middle finger in the face of America’s ruling class. It was a gesture of contempt, a howl of rage, the end result of decades of selfish and unwise decisions made by selfish and unwise leaders. Happy countries don’t elect Donald Trump president. Desperate ones do.
In politics as in life, nothing is really hidden, only ignored.
It’s the oldest truth of electoral politics: give people what they want, and you win. That’s how democracy works.
At exactly the moment when America needed prudent, responsive leadership, the ruling class got dumber and more insular.
Pretty much every major foreign policy decision in recent years has been a disaster. Yet elite enthusiasm for nation building and pointless wars continues unabated.
In a healthy society, decades of obvious failures by elites would force a change of ideas or a change of leadership. Neither has happened.
America now has not only one of the least impressive ruling classes in history, but also the least self-aware.
Countries can survive war and famines and disease. They cannot survive leaders who despise their own people.
Oligarchies posing as democracies will always be overthrown in the end.
It’s probably a fruitless exercise on their part. The status quo is over. A revolution is on the way.
One thing that every late-stage ruling class has in common is a high tolerance for mediocrity.
Elites choose to live in cocoons white enough to burn your retinas, even as they mock the middle of the country as the land of mayonnaise and Wonder Bread and Klan rallies.
