Joel Kotkin,
making an important point about the state of play:
America’s authoritarian shift did not start with Trump’s election, but has been brewing for years. In the Obama years, we lived under “pen and phone” rule by decree that largely disempowered both Congress and local control. The former president’s legacy to the progressive coalition — paused briefly when power unexpectedly went to the GOP — means continued Democratic support for agglomeration of power in the executive.
This form of executive dictatorship is now more likely to return to the White House in 2020. The notion of enlightened rule from above may have even been further justified by the very fact that what Time’s Joe Klein has called “a nation of dodos” voted for Trump in the first place. The hoi polloi can be appealed to and cajoled, it appears, but not really trusted.
If you aren't sure who the hoi polloi are, you're one of them. Back to Kotkin:
Unlike Trump, whose political methods are both offensive and self-defeating, the mandarins can count on support from most of the media, the non-profit world and the ascendant techie wing of the tech/media oligarchy, what Daniel Bell called “the priests of the machine.” Unlike the factionalized Republicans, the new mandarinate — entertainment, news media, law, software — share a strong commitment to a common progressive ideology.
More important still, the mandarins control most of the means of communication, particularly those that attract younger people. This will assist, as our secular pontiff, Jerry Brown, put it, efforts to successfully “brainwash” the masses. China’s recently anointed emperor, Xi Jinping, admired by Brown and many other American mandarins, may emerge as the new role model. That is, after Xi has shown how control of education and media can work on getting the masses to embrace “right thinking.”
What is true and proper is whatever our betters tell us is true and proper. Better get your mind right.
1 comment:
Yes, the elites control the media, but it strikes me that when I got to college in 1987 and made contact with fellow conservatives, one of the first things they gave me was a couple of "Impeach Rather" bumper stickers. Methinks that we dealt with that issue in the early nineties (through today) with Rush Limbaugh and in the early 2000s through today in social media, National Review, and other outlets.
The Communist experience is also instructive in that the controllers of news quickly became distrusted, just like the media today are learning, as well as bureaucrats. So I'm seeing silver lining, especially if the President manages to pin a felony or two on a few of the bureaucrats.
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