Friends, it's time for the "big reveal": my latest article is ready for your perusal! This time I expand on a theme I developed yesterday: the curious incongruity between the power and the powerlessness of the modern elite. See if you don't find my analysis jaw-droppingly insightful...
For the Establishment, These Are the
Best of Times, And These Are the Worst of Times
A few years back, leftists
began calling the richest and most powerful among us the “One
Percent”, to distinguish these arrogant neo-aristocrats from the
downtrodden multitude, i.e everyone else. It didn't take long,
however, for many of the most privileged “progressives” to
realize that they were
the “One Percent”, if indeed that term has any objective meaning.
The terminology was quickly abandoned, therefore. Now liberals
congratulate one another on being “woke” instead – a
distinction that the well-heeled and well-connected can earn just as
easily, if not more easily (thanks to the infinite avenues for
virtue-signaling that wealth and power afford), than the huddled
masses. Crisis averted!
However
one chooses to define “the establishment” and the elite that
towers over it, however, it
is becoming more and more apparent that the ruling class has arrived
at a crossroads. It has, since the outset of the pandemic, and
especially since the enthronement of Joseph R. Biden as King-Emperor
of Wokery, flexed its muscles and reveled in its mastery as never
before. On the other hand, as the saying goes, “uneasy lies the
head that wears the crown”. The establishment has seldom been more
nervous and defensive – even downright scared of the hoi
polloi that
writhe beneath it – and for good reason.
Why
would we say these are “the best of times” for the left-leaning
establishment? Because, for one thing, it successfully defeated its
nemesis, Donald Trump, in 2020 and reasserted its monopoly on
governance at the federal level. It accomplished this feat by the
flagrant coordination of almost every lever of institutional and
cultural power available to it: it formed what Time
magazine
termed a “well-funded
cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies,
working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change
rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of
information”. All this was done to ensure a “legitimate”
outcome to the 2020 election – and the establishment was never in
any doubt about the result that such a contest would produce. Trump
would lose.
Such
institutional and cultural collusion would have been inconceivable
were it not the case that,
increasingly, the establishment viewpoint dominates every major
institution and nexus of power there is in American society –
which, of course, on one level, is no surprise at all. That's why
it's called "the establishment", after all. What is rather
shocking is the ease with which non-establishment voices are being
silenced and deliberately excluded from the media, social media, our
education system, Hollywood, and beyond. These are sectors that used
to be open to a degree of pluralism. No more. Add to all that the
fact that government has grown by leaps and bounds (it now consumes
roughly 45% of GDP), and the authority of government over even the
most private aspects of our lives has, thanks to the pandemic, grown
too, and you'd be hard-pressed to think of a time in our history when
the powers-that-be were more, well, powerful. Bully for them!
On the other hand, there is the sobering result of a recent
Gallup poll on Americans' confidence in the
major institutions that dominate our politics, culture, and economy.
This poll illustrates the abject failure of the elite in building
trust in, and legitimacy for, the very foundations of its power. From
Congress, to the courts, to the presidency; from Hollywood, to higher
ed, to social media; from corporations, to cable news, to the banking
system – all these props of the established order enjoy less
legitimacy and less confidence from the American people now than
almost ever before. Yes, the establishment still tells us what to do
and what to think, but the truth is that a very substantial fraction
of the American people (based on the last election, you'd have to
say...47%?) simply aren't obeying or even listening anymore. And even
Democrats, who loathe all the people the elite tells them to loathe,
and who trip over one another to be, or at least to sound,
politically correct, don't repose great confidence in their
"betters". Just 25% and 35% of Democrats express confidence
in “television news” and “newspapers”, respectively, for
instance. No wonder, then, that progressives are wringing their hands
about past and future “insurrections”, and about the imminent
collapse of “democracy”. To them, these words signify nothing
more than the retention, or forfeiture, of their grip on power, which
means also their grip on public opinion, which has never been shakier
than it is today.
And in that strange incongruity – the seeming omnipotence of
the modern establishment, versus its paper-thin legitimacy – we can
perceive the outlines of our collective fate (or can we?). One is
reminded of the totalitarian sway of the communist regimes of the
Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc satellites, which seemed utterly
unassailable, until one day it and they melted away before our eyes.
One should not underestimate the immense resources that the
establishment can bring to bear to buttress its power and moral
suasion, nor its determination to do so. Nonetheless, if I were a
pillar of the establishment, I'd be pretty nervous right now!
Dr.
Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred
and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com.
He appears on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480/106.9.
And here it is at WND:
https://www.wnd.com/2021/07/todays-establishment-powerful-less-trusted/
***
When you're done oo-ing and ahh-ing over my latest article, consider these three BONUS articles.
The first deals with a theme near and dear to my heart: nuclear energy. As many of you know, I'm radioactive...and PROUD OF IT! I jest. Actually, we're all a bit radioactive. Just a smidge. The point is that we derive enormous benefits from nuclear power, and yet attitudes towards it remain depressingly small-minded and cringing, despite the fact that, in an age when supposedly "climate change" poses an "existential threat" to mankind, we ought to be cranking up our use of nuclear energy. Oh well. Human beings are reliably dim. What can you do, eh?
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2021/07/14/nuclear_energy_systemic_risk_or_climate_change_cure_785494.html
The second article comes to us from the fertile mind of Pat Buchanan. His analysis is spot on, as far as it goes. "President" Biden's apocalyptic rhetoric, painting Republicans as segregationists and traitors, is politically risky, if the goal is to serve the legislative agenda of the Democrats and burnish the personal popularity of Joe Biden. There's an alternative explanation, though: Democrats are talking about Republicans as monsters, as "insurrectionists", as white supremacists, because they believe that's exactly what we are -- and the survival of our Republic requires our...political elimination? I mean, listen to what Biden says. He surely couldn't countenance sharing the political stage in a democracy with the likes of you and me!
https://www.newsmax.com/patrickbuchanan/lincoln-manchin-progressives-sinema/2021/07/16/id/1028872/
Lastly, this one is good for a chuckle. Shark advocates are trying to rebrand "shark attacks" as "incidents" and "interactions" and "negative encounters". We shouldn't see sharks as adversaries, after all. Or, to put it another way, HAVE YOU HUGGED A SHARK TODAY? Give it a shot. Remember, a shark is just a fish...that identifies as a man-eating lion. Try to be accepting (you big jerk).
https://nypost.com/2021/07/15/shark-experts-insist-on-re-branding-attacks-as-shark-interactions/
