Washington DC in a Bubble

This has been an incredible election cycle. Historic in its impacts, historic in how badly the political elite missed what was happening, historic in how poorly the losers are dealing with their loss.

There have been a smattering of intelligent commentary among the sea of outlandish accusations and charges (I noted some in a previous post). But most of the reaction to President-Elect Trump on the left has become so stupid that young ladies who support Trump are  now being called “misogynists” by hysterical Clinton supporters (first hand experience on this account). This is so stupid it burns:

Misogyny is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women or girls.

Worse, the violent reactions by those who once held signs that claimed “Love Trumps Hates” signals how out of touch the liberal base is with not just reality, but their own mental limitations (sorry, there is no burying the hatchet with thugs and bullies – just criminal charges and jail time). Violence is the answer to those who have no argument, no rationale basis upon which to stand.

The reaction to Trump’s election by the left has been so irrational that the they look more like mind controlled robots than anything representing an evolved, independently-thinking human being. It is becoming pathetic, and these fools don’t seem to recall this did not work on Trump or his supporters through the primaries or the general election. How it is supposed to work now is beyond me.

The way the Political Industrial Complex (PIC) continues to lash out at the majority of the country (not to be mistaken with the majority of the voters – which will arrive in 2020) who do not agree with their elitist views brings us to ponder what could drive such madness? To think the answer to rejection is to attack those whose very support is required to regain political influence is madness.

Or cult-like brainwashing.

For context, the PIC encompasses all those elites whose livelihoods are predicated on central-control of resources and who determine who is allowed to succeed in society. It is a bipartisan exclusive club. It includes the Politicians and their career staffers. It includes crony donors and lobbyists who reap government windfalls and special treatment that average citizens cannot obtain. It includes the PIC industrial base of pollsters, consultants, etc. And it includes the pliant news media, whose success rest on access to those in power, and in return for access making sure no bad news will disrupt said power.

As this article notes

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, the denizens of the PIC now only retain control in the last bastions of Democrat led states along the coasts:

Republican America is now so vast that a traveler could drive 3,600 miles across the continent, from Key West, Fla., to the Canadian border crossing at Porthill, Idaho, without ever leaving a state under total GOP control.

After last week’s election, Democrats hold the governor’s office and both legislative chambers in just six states—all of them on the Atlantic or Pacific oceans—compared with 25 for Republicans.

…

Democratic losses have come at all levels of government since Mr. Obama took office and his party controlled Congress. In Washington, it has been relegated to minority status with at least 60 fewer seats in the House and 12 fewer in the Senate.

The casualties have been worse in state capitols. Before the 2010 elections, 54.5% of all state legislators were Democrats, giving the party majorities in 60 of 99 chambers. Democrats controlled both legislative chambers and held the governor’s office in 17 states.

Now, the party has majorities in just 31 of 99 legislative chambers, having lost 958 seats since Mr. Obama took office. Just 43% of elected state lawmakers will be Democrats when the new state legislatures are sworn in.

The denizens of the PIC have completely isolated themselves in their little bubble of the top 5% earners and power brokers. They poll each other, consult each other, interview each other and have become completely disconnected from the rest of the country. The disassociation with the reality of the remaining 95% of the country (where all the PIC’s brilliantly stupid ideas play out) was not missed by the voters.

It was not America that lost its way, it was most of the leaders of this country, both economic and political. Note, there were plenty who did not fall into the PIC bubble, but enough did that the voters were forced to go to a total outsider to make the needed course correction.

This article I think best reflects the Trump voters and how they arrived to support real change over another round of false, political promises:

I am one of an endangered species called the American middle class. An aging baby boomer — one of the last generation, it seems, who inherited a future brighter than his parents. I grew up in manufacturing in the Rust Belt, and embraced the application of new technologies for innovation. My career spans more than four decades at companies like John Deere and Boeing and Emerson Electric. I have worked in many jobs from laborer to vice president of operations. I’ve lived and worked all over the world.

This  personal background reflects a larger-than-known number of Trump voters. My wife and I fall into this category as well; high tech, highly educated, upper middle class and fed up with PIC’s unique mix of arrogance and ignorance.

My best example of this kind of over reach by the very rich is the owner of the Redskins, who made a ton of money in the 1990’s and decided to buy the DC football franchise, which had been highly successful up until he took over. His brilliance in high tech conveyed no insight into running a professional football team, which he pretty much ran into the ground.

Anyway, back to the real world:

Since Ronald Reagan, I have not seen a politician deliver on their promises to the American people; not Democrats and not Republicans. George H.W. Bush told us to read his lips, there would be no new taxes; but of course there were. President Obama promised that if you like your health-care plan and doctor, you can keep your health-care plan and doctor, and your costs will go down. We couldn’t, and they didn’t. He and his surrogates, including Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) here in Missouri, promised back in 2012 that there would be huge infrastructure projects, producing thousands of “shovel-ready jobs.”  They never materialized. Hillary Clinton said the events in Benghazi were caused by a video. They weren’t. She also promised that she’d never handled any classified material on her private server, though she had.

The old adage “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” comes to mind. And it did so to this reluctant Trump voter:

Election cycle after election cycle, we sent politicians to Washington to fix these things, and cycle after cycle they failed us. In fact, they betrayed us.

…

But you, the pollsters and the incredibly biased “mainstream” media, wouldn’t listen to me. You have been too busy promoting your own poisonous agenda. You did everything you could to brand conservatives as homophobic, xenophobic, greedy racists. You focused on spurious issues like genderless bathrooms and celebrity sex changes. You rebranded “pro-abortion” as “pro-choice.” You rebranded radical Islamic terrorism as “workplace violence.” You have continued your Machiavellian spinning of information and public perception, purposely drowning the voices of reason in your wake, year after excruciating year.

…

You fail to understand this because you are listening exclusively to America’s worst critics; people who believe only in tearing down the traditions, perspectives and governmental foundations that made us great. You were trained up by liberal professors, most of whom have seen little of the world outside their classrooms. And now, you scratch your heads, wondering how you could have been so clueless. You spend endless television and radio hours interviewing not the typical Americans like me, but one another — asking what happened.

How would the person seated next to you in a New York City television studio know?

Main Street USA has better insight and understanding on what is going on in this country than a majority of the PIC and their brutal followers.

Which had some of us realizing we had seen this plot before. Where the ruling class is hold up in their isolated enclaves of pampered inanity, the denizens of which fill their days with endless galas and award shows jammed with “participation” trophies. Placated by echo-chamber interviews and the promise to get out into the hinterlands to see how the others live, these enclaves insulate the well-off from the burdens and trials of those who provide the luxuries these people consume.

The analogy did not take long to become crystal clear:

The Hunger Games trilogy takes place in an unspecified future time, in the dystopian, post-apocalyptic nation of Panem, located in North America.^[7] The country consists of a wealthy Capitol city, located in the Rocky Mountains,^[8] surrounded by twelve (originally thirteen) poorer districts ruled by the Capitol. The Capitol is lavishly rich and technologically advanced, but the districts are in varying states of poverty.

…

Collins also cites as a classical inspiration the Roman gladiator games. She feels three key elements create a good game: an all powerful and ruthless government, people forced to fight to the death, and the game’s role as a source of popular entertainment.^[10]

A contemporary source of inspiration was Collins’ recent fascination with reality television programs. She says they are like The Hunger Games because the Games are not just entertainment but also a reminder to the districts of their rebellion. On a tired night, Collins says that while she was channel-surfing the television, she saw people competing for some prize and then saw footage of the Iraq war. She described how the two combined in an “unsettling way” to create her first ideas for the series.^[11]

Now, you may think this is a bit of a stretch, but reality sometimes lines up with fantasy – possibly as a clear warning that we do not want to actually create the world of say Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four or Bradbury’s Fahrenheit-451.

It dawned on me the analogy to the political elites’ reaction to Trump – in both parties and the media – was reflected by the scorched-Earth reaction by the Capitol City to the Districts of Panem becoming independent thinkers.

And then I saw it all so clear – on Morning Joe.

The prime guest was Micheal Moore describing his insights on how Trump won and how the signs were there from early on he would win.. The counter argument was provided by one Anand Giridharadas, an MSNBC commentator from one of the PIC coastal enclaves.

You just cannot make these things up. First Anand Giridharadas.

Second, Panem character Ceaser Flickerman

Separated at birth?

Here is the interview on Morning Joe. Listen how Anand complains Americans outside the PIC enclaves are not “curious” about the denizens of the PIC and their challenges (actually, he notes the challenges of those workers serving the leaders of the PIC – not the PIC themselves). The parallels are just amazing – and scary. We may have just dodged a terminal bullet to our democracy and our country this election cycle.

Tags: Hunger Games, Political Industrial Complex