The next piece that I'm still working on, may provide a better grip on the current scene. But to do this justice, it is a deep dive into our past. I like the distinction from an old friend that taught history at Princeton, who pointed out that in Britain the economic elite was brought into the government, became Lords, while in the US wealth and government were separated, but of course wealth controlled policy through access and some forms of corruption. How do we look at Musk?
What if we set aside the graphs and the charts and the books and start asking people why they voted the way they did or why they voted differently for the top of the ticket than they did down ballot? AOC got some interesting answers. We might find out that the top of the ticket deployed the wrong strategies on the short time she had. In an election that saw many people looking for change from the status quo, she said she wouldn't make any changes. Harris didn't talk plainly to people in a way that showed she understood their concerns and was going to fight for them. She campaigned with Liz Cheney and said she was going to work with the other side, which some might have taken to mean the old establishment. People were asking for change and she offered a middling around the edges. Her policies came across as peicemeal and not so much what people were asking for per ce. Harris avoided meeting people where they were. She came across as at least partically hidden from the people and her appearances in public were too curated and carefully staged and her words too vague.
Trump didn't even get half the voters. He only added a little to his total. The vote was still very close. I don't see a mandate. Not even for the cyberlibertarians.
Clearly not a Mandate. I agree that Harris would have done better if she had been able to position herself as a change candidate. I'm not sure, though that she was able to. The response was always what influence did you wield why you were VP? An unfair question for those who know the limited power of the Vice Presidency and the character of Biden. But probably many voters don't. Maybe a line of "we've stopped the bleeding and now we are best able to start the real change. We know we are nowhere near where we are want to be. Here's how we get from here to there and incidentally, we've been in bad shape for much longer than the last four years.
RE: "They do not see their government as just “out of touch,” but as a self-serving elite that is no longer meeting the country’s evolving needs."
This seems to be an empirically refuted explanation of Trump's victory, given that the voting majority has selected a self-serving wealthy elite who surrounds himself with other self-serving wealthy elites.
The empirical question may simply be whether or not that was how the voters saw Trump. He was constantly on the attack and attacking "elites," which many probably saw as a group, not the whole, of the rich. And he managed to keep the idea of the elite an open category that he could fill with his enemies which because they were his, were of course "yours."
I assume that being a wealthy elite generally entails being a cultural elite; at least as those terms are used in ordinary language. Famous athletes, actors, and musicians come to mind, but business titans like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk have all had enormous cultural impact. The converse is not true, of course. Beethoven died with debt as did Karl Marx. John Coltrane, perhaps the most influential jazz musician of the 20th century, did not die a wealthy man.
It's a very interesting question that goes way back in US history as to the existence and the composition of the elite. When some degree of deference was still a factor, the elite could be viewed as the moral and the educated, the men of honor. But even before Jackson, deference was being replaced with hostility. I would source it in the breakup of the pre-revolution elite as half supported the King. The revolutionaries were forced to ally with "commoners." But the theme appears over and over again. And rich men were able to convince people that their enemy was
And what is the “spark?” I believe that Covid induced inflation has ignited the fire. And the present government is faulted for not doing enough to protect the public from higher prices and financial distress.
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I think the fire has been growing for years, and in this case COVID poured gasoline on it. Take a look at CNBC's recent video, Why The American Dream Became Unaffordable For The Middle Class: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5pvsCztjNY&t=0s
It's no wonder, like you also said:
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The result is in general a withdrawal from public life, a cynicism about the potential of government and a general dissatisfaction with partisan alternatives.
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By the way, hello Dr. Bing! This is the son of the other, wiser Robert Orr :)
Good to hear from you Rob. We may yet have to debate the wiser claim. I called the long-term development of dissatisfaction the "dry tinder," but surely there were many small fires that flared up over the past 30 years. What is interesting is the growth of the financial sector of the economy, enabled by legal structures that created new paths for wealth accumulation that left the real wealth producers making little headway.
2024 was the Podcast election - the critical alignment of media sources for voters. There will be significant development in this area between now and the 2028 election.
The next piece that I'm still working on, may provide a better grip on the current scene. But to do this justice, it is a deep dive into our past. I like the distinction from an old friend that taught history at Princeton, who pointed out that in Britain the economic elite was brought into the government, became Lords, while in the US wealth and government were separated, but of course wealth controlled policy through access and some forms of corruption. How do we look at Musk?
What if we set aside the graphs and the charts and the books and start asking people why they voted the way they did or why they voted differently for the top of the ticket than they did down ballot? AOC got some interesting answers. We might find out that the top of the ticket deployed the wrong strategies on the short time she had. In an election that saw many people looking for change from the status quo, she said she wouldn't make any changes. Harris didn't talk plainly to people in a way that showed she understood their concerns and was going to fight for them. She campaigned with Liz Cheney and said she was going to work with the other side, which some might have taken to mean the old establishment. People were asking for change and she offered a middling around the edges. Her policies came across as peicemeal and not so much what people were asking for per ce. Harris avoided meeting people where they were. She came across as at least partically hidden from the people and her appearances in public were too curated and carefully staged and her words too vague.
Trump didn't even get half the voters. He only added a little to his total. The vote was still very close. I don't see a mandate. Not even for the cyberlibertarians.
Clearly not a Mandate. I agree that Harris would have done better if she had been able to position herself as a change candidate. I'm not sure, though that she was able to. The response was always what influence did you wield why you were VP? An unfair question for those who know the limited power of the Vice Presidency and the character of Biden. But probably many voters don't. Maybe a line of "we've stopped the bleeding and now we are best able to start the real change. We know we are nowhere near where we are want to be. Here's how we get from here to there and incidentally, we've been in bad shape for much longer than the last four years.
Something like “Morning in America” with a little “I hear you” thrown in.
RE: "They do not see their government as just “out of touch,” but as a self-serving elite that is no longer meeting the country’s evolving needs."
This seems to be an empirically refuted explanation of Trump's victory, given that the voting majority has selected a self-serving wealthy elite who surrounds himself with other self-serving wealthy elites.
The empirical question may simply be whether or not that was how the voters saw Trump. He was constantly on the attack and attacking "elites," which many probably saw as a group, not the whole, of the rich. And he managed to keep the idea of the elite an open category that he could fill with his enemies which because they were his, were of course "yours."
I take that to mean cultural elites, not wealthy elites.
I assume that being a wealthy elite generally entails being a cultural elite; at least as those terms are used in ordinary language. Famous athletes, actors, and musicians come to mind, but business titans like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk have all had enormous cultural impact. The converse is not true, of course. Beethoven died with debt as did Karl Marx. John Coltrane, perhaps the most influential jazz musician of the 20th century, did not die a wealthy man.
It's a very interesting question that goes way back in US history as to the existence and the composition of the elite. When some degree of deference was still a factor, the elite could be viewed as the moral and the educated, the men of honor. But even before Jackson, deference was being replaced with hostility. I would source it in the breakup of the pre-revolution elite as half supported the King. The revolutionaries were forced to ally with "commoners." But the theme appears over and over again. And rich men were able to convince people that their enemy was
the rich, i.e. the Roosevelts.
Regarding your comment:
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And what is the “spark?” I believe that Covid induced inflation has ignited the fire. And the present government is faulted for not doing enough to protect the public from higher prices and financial distress.
-----
I think the fire has been growing for years, and in this case COVID poured gasoline on it. Take a look at CNBC's recent video, Why The American Dream Became Unaffordable For The Middle Class: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5pvsCztjNY&t=0s
It's no wonder, like you also said:
----
The result is in general a withdrawal from public life, a cynicism about the potential of government and a general dissatisfaction with partisan alternatives.
----
By the way, hello Dr. Bing! This is the son of the other, wiser Robert Orr :)
Good to hear from you Rob. We may yet have to debate the wiser claim. I called the long-term development of dissatisfaction the "dry tinder," but surely there were many small fires that flared up over the past 30 years. What is interesting is the growth of the financial sector of the economy, enabled by legal structures that created new paths for wealth accumulation that left the real wealth producers making little headway.
2024 was the Podcast election - the critical alignment of media sources for voters. There will be significant development in this area between now and the 2028 election.