Ben Domonech responds to Jonathan Rouch’s lunatic dispatch from inside the cocooned Beltway:
Square Rauch’s frame with the Benjy Sarlin report this week on the people who elected Trump, which is also quoted below. You can’t, because the latter offers actual data to show why people supported Trump, and I’ll give you a hint: it’s not because they’re angry about the lack of earmarks. It’s not that people believe their leadership class is corrupt – it’s that they know they’re stupid. It’s not that people are angry because a parking garage didn’t get built, it’s that they’re angry because the FBI can’t keep track of a terrorist’s wife.
Sarlin’s piece illustrates, in clear data-driven reporting, the real basis for the breakdown of our Cold War era political reality: an utter collapse in the belief that our elites, elected or otherwise, have the capacity to represent. They no longer believe our elites will ever look out for the interests of an anxious people. The “he can’t be bought” frame for Trump’s rise is best understood as code for “he’ll look out for me, not [pick your group]”.
This is not about ideology. If people trusted elites and institutions they defend to look out for them, in a non-ideological sense, the breakdown of our systems would have been mitigated or confined. The fact that it is so sweeping is due to a generation of elites who didn’t do their jobs well, or pretended things weren’t their job for too long.
We have breakdown, chaos, and upheaval in our politics today not because the people are “insane”, as Rauch writes, but because they are sane. They know the leadership class which held power for the past generation has not looked out for them.
We should never refer to them as “elites” without the scare quotes: There is nothing “elite” about them, in terms of intelligence, probity or even basic competence. Sadly, Trump would be no better, but he is what their arrogant fecklessness has delivered.
Just finished reading Angelo Codevilla’s THE RULING CLASS, which is a good dissection of the non-elite “elite” phenomenon.
The main takeaway for me is how Trump supporters are being misrepresented as clueless when they may be the only one’s with a clue.
Sadly, Trump would be no better, but he is what their arrogant fecklessness has delivered.
I agree with this, just as much as I agree with this: “It’s not that people are angry because a parking garage didn’t get built, it’s that they’re angry because the FBI can’t keep track of a terrorist’s wife. ”
Their shouldn’t be a debate about gun control. Their should be a debate as to why we need a do not fly list and 2 hour lines for security at the airport. I suspect neither is effective. The Orlando shooter gave so many red flags over recent years including the weeks leading up to the attacks, and he was cleared off the “watch list”. Now the FBI can’t even keep track of a woman they just put on the list and more importantly should be considered a key suspect in the shooting. There should be a debate about this level of incompetence, not a discussion about giving these idiots more authority over innocent civilians.