Ahhhhhhhhhh....it didn't feel like this was gonna happen but I gotta say this is just about the perfect outcome. The woke socialism message was firmly rejected--and so was Trump! It was a 2-for-1! In the end (end-ish) it was exactly what Wall Street prayed for and, again, probably the perfect outcome for the country. It's like waking up on Xmas morning and realizing you don't have to go to the dentist. There was no Blue Wave as Republicans won more governorships and state legislatures and even won seats in the House and will likely maintain their slim majority in the Senate, while the Democrats held their majority in the House and took the bully pulpit of the White House, allowing them to pretend like they run the place. Joe Biden has $11 trillion worth of proposed spending (*) and--with or without Mitch McConnell and 51 Reps in the Senate--there's no way he's passing anywhere near that much. Glorious gridlock!
And an announcement of a Covid-19 vaccine on the way? Oh man, it's like a Led Zeppelin concert on a Xmas morning.
Trump still has to fight this result and there are theories of an ace up his sleeve, which isn't impossible. But Trump's biggest decision right now--the toughest decision of his life--is figuring just how/when to concede. He's never had to concede before (multiple bankruptcies don't require an Oscar speech, apparently), and graciously doing the right thing is kinda off-brand for him. But I've come back around to where I was on the eve of the 2016 election: Trump now has time to go back to building a media empire where he can trash Joe Biden and Rupert Murdoch in equal doses all day long. So if you think this is the end of Donald Trump, *long sigh*, no...no, I don't think so (**). I think now he has room to be louder and more obnoxious than ever before. Stifling him in the Oval Office actually shut that dude up for four years. But he has to fight for a while before he concedes so he can at least pretend like none of this is his fault and if he concedes without fighting then his fans will be let down. Never forget: Trump was our first wrestling POTUS.
The most irritating part of the recent election cycle was the constant drumbeat about the decay of democracy, how we have to defend our yadda yadda yadda. That kind of fear-mongering is the last refuge of a scoundrel--only in politics does bullshit like that get rewarded! But, since everyone else brought up the topic, there is a serious drawback of democracy as a form of gov't that never gets discussed: a propensity toward deficit spending. Why? Because politicians are just entertainers who will say whatever they have to say to win your love but know full well that they're going to be replaced soon enough. So, like the GM of a sports franchise, they know their lifespan is short and won't think twice about trading away future draft picks or minor league talent in hopes of winning now. A GM with a target on his back does not care about the #1 pick five years from now because either he will be gone (likely) or he will be cemented in the organization by that time (unlikely, but hey, that's the dream, right?). Notice that other forms of gov't do not work that way. A tyrant has to go to the bank over and over and over again and they have the power to say no and they will eventually. The productivity of our working class is such that we've been able to get away with foolish spending since the end of the Civil War; that productivity will eventually run out....but when? So for now it will be gridlock but with increased gov't spending.
The problem is we call everything "politics". Then we confuse politics with "government". Then we act like the POTUS runs the gov't. So everything rides on the POTUS, when in fact that dude is far away as Siberia or the Middle Ages. This is the danger of our collective ways: we fall prey to blaming and blame-shifting rather than rationally ascertaining problems and solutions. The POTUS ought to be the most boring bean counter we can find, when instead we go out looking for a megalomaniac rock star that can woo people rhetorically, as if that has anything to do with being president. We've totally disconnected becoming president from being president in a way that produces--thankfully--mostly just mediocrity. The job of POTUS is hard, why do we then make it harder by demanding that the POTUS also be popular? What good is that? The problem of American democracy is it encourages the citizenry to think they have to like everything. They do not and the sooner they realize that, the sooner we could actually hire the right people for these jobs instead of simply the most attractive liars (and we'll also be more able to ignore the shit we're not interested in instead of hating on it).
Trump has shown us our future: POTUS is merely a douche with a Twitter account now. Our polity has truly joined the 21st century. I'm not on Twitter myself, but every liberal I know is glued to Trump's Twitter like its a nicotine delivery device. They made him awfully popular--and will keep him relevant even after he's gone!--seems like they must like him a lot. Remember: most real conservatives still giggle/scoff at the word "Twitter", so it ain't your racist grandma giving Trump all that attention. And while Twitter has the power to raise nobodies into somebodies, it is a bitch goddess that takes away as it gives. Can any politician on Twitter ever truly be popular with more than 50% of the country? I don't see how that's possible. (The heart of Cal Ripken Jr. with the iron fist of J. Edgar Hoover...? Yeah, see that doesn't work at all)
Social media is our society now. We live not in a state of nature but in a state of media. We can deny it, we can try to go back to the old way, but that's not how progress works (then again, most people who call themselves "Progressive" strike me as merely backward-looking). Twitter empowers the People, not the politicians. Unfortunately, the People can be talked into awful spending habits and sometimes buy into bizarrely nonsensical bullshit, so Twittering them into a frenzy could be the downfall of our nation....just throwing that out there.
Earlier in the year I wrote a bunch of blog posts about what I call 'digital citizenship'. The idea is that once your gov't fully protects your right to be on-line and to maximize your data, then frankly that'll be all we need to the gov't to do. The people can maximize their earnings and experiences and the gov't would be simply the thin gray line where business runs into regulation and/or adjudication (and politics will stay in the home, where it belongs). This will allow people to vote online, pay their taxes online, educate their kids online, etc., with the proper protection of the gov't as the guarantor of contracts (the only thing we actually need the gov't to do, I would suggest). The Libertarians have a tradition of fearing the power of gov't, but that was in a state of Nature; in the state of Media, we need to be protected from each other far more than we need to fear the central authority. Identity theft is the scourge of the future, but what is identity but gov't details? I'm not worried about the gov't stealing my identity--the gov't is the force that cements my identity--I'm worried about my neighbors, professional rivals, vengeful strangers, psycho assholes, bored trolls, radical no-good-niks, old girlfriends, foreign powers, etc. The gov't at this stage is the least of our worries (except, of course, for the deficit spending that erodes the value of our work).
These thoughts are not political--indeed, what do we even need political parties for any more? It is a matter of wedding the Constitution with modern technology. Technology is outstripping gov't power.
For example, some wag on Reddit posted the other day that Joe Biden was not in fact the "president-elect" until after the meeting of the Electoral College and that the media is....I dunno....hypnotizing us or something. Now, technically he is probably correct: in the old days the election really wasn't decided until the electors met and did their secret handshakes and all that shit. But now we expect to know who won on election night--that is a function of technology, not politics or mind control. We have the ability (well, we almost do anyway) to know who will win by the end of Election Day and communicate it all over the world. This was not possible in the 19th century, it is possible now. The Constitution isn't to blame for not keeping up with the technology, it is the technology that must align itself with the Constitution. And calling Joe Biden the President-elect before the meeting of the Electors is merely a blip of scheduling, not a coup d'etat.
The People are now nearly fully empowered. All we need is for gov't spending to dry up and interest rates to track true economic activity and everything'll be great....oh yeah, none of that is happening any time soon. This is some O. Henry shit right here: we have already sold out our future right as we're ready to take control of it.
The moves of Congress and the Fed (and how that meshes with Wall Street, foreign investment, and American consumers), are going to be far more influential, meaningful and pervasive than anything the President does in the next four years.
I wrote in the previous post that I would prefer four more years of Trump. I stand by that but I can't say as I was ever too enthusiastic about it. Trump doesn't do much I particularly like, indeed he is so uninteresting that I find him quite easy to ignore as there is nothing he can say that could possibly impact me. What I feared was an onslaught bent on out-Trumping Trump and I don't think that's gonna happen. Neither of these candidates matter because we are in service to the Fed-run economy for the foreseeable future. (***) Since the Presidency doesn't matter, if the American people prefer a nice guy to dole out their daily press briefings, then that's fine with me.
Democracy has never been more robust (robust!) and never more sadly useless. All this voting, all these procedures, all these courts (oh yeah, I think that's coming) and states, and it's the same dumb way to choose a leader and the same dumb choice between two old-ass white guys. Hey, don't blame me--I voted for Corn Pop.
(*) By contrast Hillary Clinton had $2 trillion of spending proposals in 2016. Joe Biden needed every vote, might as well promise everyone the moon.
(**) I hesitate to even write this but it struck me as plainly obvious the other day and now I have to get it out. Here's the scenario: for three years Biden rolls along, not too high, not too low, but after Trump the world sorta appreciates the even keel-ness of the Biden White House. Then, he dies. And going into the 2024 election is President Kamala Harris running for re-election. That's how Trump comes back. I don't otherwise see him being interested in trying to navigate the party politics for 2024 because I think the Republicans are already divided against him and the fear that he would energize the Democrats would be prohibitive....unless he's running against Kamala Harris. Trump thinks he can beat her and I'm not sure he's wrong. And I think the Republicans would have to kick the tires on that proposition because I don't see anyone else out there on the Republican side ready to take a crack at 2024.
(***) Jerome Powell doesn't remind me of Oliver Cromwell, but could a usurper rise from the Fed to basically take over the country? Or has that already happened?
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