As much as I enjoy ridiculing “our democracy” which is poised to die at any minute from the triumph of “authoritarianism” and literal “fascism” at the polls (yes, by people voting), I am honestly enjoying the ride. I’m increasingly optimistic that we are seeing a resurgence of common sense.
When I look at these people, I see a distinct social class with professional class jobs that lives in metro areas on the coasts which is defined by qualities like sanctimony, hypocrisy, hysteria, ruthlessness, narcissism, intolerance and self-righteousness which conflates its own self-interest and ambition with the nation as a whole and which assumes it has a divine right to lord it over the rest of us and is determined to remove all obstacles to its power like the filibuster, the U.S. Constitution, Senate and Electoral College.
PMCs use the phrase “our democracy” as a synonym for themselves and their grip on power as a social class. They are panicking about their declining legitimacy, power and authority under Joe Biden. “Democracy” isn’t imperiled. More people are stirred up and voting than at almost any previous point in the last century. The wrong sort of people are voting and trends aren’t going their way. If Red States and Purple States are engaged in “voter suppression,” they aren’t doing a very good job at it.
The latest terrible news is that most people in this country are rolling their eyes, focusing on their own priorities and tuning out the hysteria from PMC control freaks in New York and DC.
“It was the scariest of times, it was the stablest of times.
Contemporary American politics offers an unsettling study in contrasts. On the one hand, Donald Trump’s lies about a stolen presidential election in 2020 and his attempts to undo the results of that contest, culminating in the violent storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, provide blaring warning signs that our democratic system is in peril. Far from turning on Trump, a large portion of his party has continued his project: In 2021, Republican state legislatures passed new restrictions on voting access while attempting to seize control of the levers of election administration; meanwhile, GOP congressional leaders moved to isolate Republican lawmakers most critical of Trump’s conduct and claims. And the House’s Jan. 6 committee continues to unearth evidence that Republican House members schemed with the White House to overturn the election.
Worries about the state of American democracy didn’t begin when Trump rejected the election’s results — indeed, they predate his entrance into politics. For the last two decades, analysts have connected dysfunction in governance to deepening party polarization, marked by an asymmetrical Republican shift toward procedural hardball and extremism. Trump’s rise both extended and accelerated a disturbing trend. When he trafficked in authoritarian rhetoric and brazenly mixed personal and public power — while steadily consolidating the loyalty of his party — analysts portrayed it as a lesson in “How Democracies Die” and “How to Lose a Constitutional Democracy.” As nearly 200 scholars with relevant expertise warned last summer: “Our entire democracy is now at risk.”
But for all the alarm and political tumult caused by recent developments in the Republican Party, voting behavior has not changed in response; it’s shown remarkable stability and continuity with patterns established at the outset of the century …”
If you have been to DC or New York lately, you can see why they are going to lose. COVID was the reason that Joe Biden and the Democrats were barely restored to power and they blew it.
It is worth noting that the same people are panicking about the Omicron variant. Life returned to normal here over a year and a half ago. There are still hundreds of thousands of children out of school in New Jersey. New York City has segregation based on that COVID vaccine card which is hilarious given that so many people who have been vaccinated are getting COVID anyway. The fact that COVID has persisted contributes to the overall impression that these technocrats have no idea what they are doing.
This is the current state of COVID infections in New York City after all the bullshit that people who live there have put up with for almost two years now and after most went out and got vaxxed. As Larry noted yesterday, the actual authoritarianism that exists is COVID authoritarianism in Blue States andthere has been a mass migration of people moving to states like Florida to escape from it.
We don’t have a southern border. We don’t even have a country let alone a “democracy”.
Brad
I’d like to challenge you or request of you that you consider writing something up about flyover state shitlibs, the kind who, despite living in deep red areas, have all the sensibilities and attitudes of coastal PMCs.
I know you live in Alabama. I too live in a Deep South area, but I’m originally from an Appalachian area of the south. My county of birth is as deeply red as any in the south, and the demographics where I was raised are extremely favorable, more so than most places in the south. Yet, I grew up with more than a few people, particularly women, who embody everything we talk about here.
I know this one woman from HS who owns a small business, I’ll not be specific for obvious reasons. It’s the kind of place that has rainbow flags and mocking posters of Trump hanging on the front glass door. It is unambiguous that she hates almost everyone who lives in the community, save for her little clique of gay men and overly pierced and tattooed anarchists. I don’t know how she has enough clientele to stay in business. I suppose a lot of apolitical types just ignore the bullshit. I’m sure she has friends and customers from neighboring counties. Still, these people may only comprise 5-10% of any given southern community, but in bigger cities like Birmingham, Jacksonville, Charlotte, Knoxville, or Little Rock, these people cluster and have a tremendous amount of local political power collectively.
In some ways they are more dangerous for us at the local level than the PMCs on the coasts are. They often have access to our children and sometimes influence over them. Their family members with similar views might be teachers in our communities. They may have influence over the local public library. They are the people, usually white women, who chip away at our culture from the inside.
We all know people like this. Many move off to live in bigger cities, or even blue states, but many linger in our communities and put pressure on our local politicians. They are every bit as nutty as the coastal PMCs, but often they are worse because they were raised differently or at least raised around good people who were raised differently, yet they covet the cosmopolitan culture that they read about in magazines and see in the movies and media.
The term “shitlibs” makes us feel Good but accomplishes Nothing.
Why do you support White children being taught gay anal rim jobs in public schools? Are you so desperate for welfare money that you’ll sell out our own kids like that?
Huh?
Was this directed at me?
And?
Last night on the Insomnia Stream (odysee), Devon Stack aka “Blackpilled” said the PMCs are psyching themselves up to lash out in an even bigger way than 2020, comparing them to various animals he has cornered on his property. Is this right, or are we just observing Burgerland-style performance art?
It seems like everyone is just kicking back and having a beer. The left is totally own goaling itself. Some say the Democrats are “serious,” i.e. a better governing party than the GOP, but I dunno — Limbaugh used to say that Democrats always overreach. Boomer wisdom, perhaps.
The bigger picture is what the GOP does with its power. If it helps the rich again after 2024, wokeness will be firmly institutionalized in 2028 when voters boot the GOP out again for doing unpopular things.
>The fact that COVID has persisted contributes to the overall impression that these technocrats have no idea what they are doing.
The bureaucrats knows what they are doing, since so few of them lose their job for racism, climate heresy or for being anti-vax.
That all the bureaucrat care about is to stay within the Overton window, damn the truth, makes the bureaucracy or managerial class institutionally incompetent. Nothing the institutionally incompetent do will have the intended consequences, so the USA will only devolve for god how long, as there are mechanism to correct it.
It’s not just NY and DC. Take a look at Virginia, they couldn’t figure out how to clear an accident on I-95, a major freeway for 24 hours. People were sitting in their cars for 24 hours because of incompetence and no man power due to “covid”