Trump is a new version of an old problem.
Basically I consider myself an average college educated person
and I have no idea what that means. I say that though because I have a point
later on to make.
First I still read and am working on one project that in
actuality is a very intense study. Much more than I am sure I wanted to
undertake, yet as I get older I do not want my brain to rot so I am making the
effort. You can find it on Substack along with this blog. In working on that
project I am reading quite a bit beyond the book I am studying. I mainly comment
as a journal what I learn from the reading about the book. Occasionally I take side trips just to
discuss related thoughts and topics in general.
As part of the reading I bought the book “the Political and
Social Ideas of St. Augustine”. I am not going to discuss St. Augustine’s ideas
in this post.
Reading through the introduction there were two paragraphs
that hopefully shed some light on my frustration with trying to get people to
understand why we need change in our country. Or actually may be helping me
understand why no one wants to listen.
Here is part of one paragraph from the introduction to the book
mentioned above written by Herbert A. Deane:
“…In quiet times men tend to
take for granted the state and the order and security that it provides. After a
period of stable government and security for life and property, they are
tempted. To regard peace and order as “natural” and “given” and to forget that,
to a great extent, they are results of elaborate, delicate contrivance.” This is footnoted and references Thomas Hobbes
“Leviathan”
Why it matters to me is that we have been in quiet times so
maybe what I have been saying for the last forty years had no interest in the
academic world or academia. And I say we have been in quiet times for decades
probably starting with the 1950’s. Yes I know we had Vietnam, the protests, the
Nixon administration and resignation, the cold war, the post cold war and more.
Yet for all that happened most Americans including the working class had a
sense of security of life and property. People were able to obtain a decent
life for themselves. There was nothing that truly shattered their world view.
So let’s go to the next paragraph in the introduction:
“When, however, men face serious
difficulties which the traditional political and social system seems unable to solve, when
conflicts between groups, classes, regions, or religious sects within the
society become so intense that consensus evaporates, and above all, when a
crisis of the most fundamental kind undermines the body politic because
traditional beliefs, attitudes, and values no longer command virtually
automatic assent from most members of the society, thoughtful men are once more
driven to the effort to examine the bases of social and political order and to
suggest new answers to the questions of politics.”
Are we at this point? Obviously you know I am going to say
we are at some juncture here or I wouldn’t be writing on this topic.
And there are two situations where the body politic is no
long receiving assent from most members of society or we are ascending to that
point.
One of the two is the AI problem which I am not going to
address in this post. It is a problem that will definitely cause us to examen
where we are in our society and it is rushing at us faster than we can cope.
The other problem is the more traditional problem of
economic and political endeavors. And the Trump problem is not new. He is just the
updated version of this problem and that is elitism is taking over the country
and the body politic. Trump himself is more the catalyst to the problem than
the actual problem. Elitism has been building in this country for a few
decades, but not until recently with Trump’s false promises for the working
class has it been thrust into our faces with what is really going on with his grift
and corruption.
The other way elitism has taken over is how our Congress is
controlled by lobbyists and large donors.
Elitism that causes the elitists to try and control all
aspects of our lives only for their benefit eventually creates dynamic social
change. I think most people are beginning to see we are well into this dynamic
playing out.
My anger rests in the fact I saw this coming. And this goes back to me confessing the I am
an average college educated person. All the academia stood in their ivory
towers and few professed nothing but ignorance about what was happening starting
in the 1980’s until now with the slow gradual shift to elitist self-serving
policy.
I was not educated enough to ridicule the academic elitists
to cut through their need to sound superior to us in what they said was wrong
with our country. Their ignorance led to a social revolt of the working class
buying into Trump’s nonsense. I just saw that the two parties had created a
duopoly that was becoming self-serving for their own power and becoming beholden
to an elite class.
And yes I know I was not the only one who saw this coming,
but now that we are sitting on the cusp of possible major social change I am mad
because I screamed at people there was an easier solution twenty years ago.
I screamed we needed new parties without being able to cut
through the morass of people not affected by what was coming. Again it goes
back to the “quiet time” when men took for granted the social order.
We see now the hate being played out by the very people
losing to the elitists that is directed by the elitist mentality of pitting
democrats and republicans as two sides and each side must win. All the while
the two sides are actually the same side, the American people. And again this
has been pointed out for decades by more capable people. And again this fell on
deaf ears by large chunks of academia and politicians because they existed in
that quiet time where some semblance of prosperity existed.
And to me, I get angrier because this can be fixed. Our
country can regain the quiet time (well except for the AI problem developing)
by going back to educating the people what I have been saying. Lose the partisanship
in our politics, take money out of our elections, either force the duopoly into
developing new leadership and ideas or create new parties to do such. We are
still at a point where drastic social upheaval change is not needed. This isn’t
going to last much longer though.
And the irony is that the elitists upending our society
would still benefit from us reclaiming our (the people’s) interests in our
government, economy and society.
As long as we have a market economy there will be rich
people/elitists. That isn’t the problem, it is their control of our lives that
is the problem. We created a government that can hold that in check. We let the
“quiet times” blind us to the need for constant vigilance.
So now I ask you do we let this wonderful country slip into
moral decay due to the powerful thinking they are above us? Or do we do our
diligence and reclaim the basic and fundamental aspects of our government, society
and economy and continue this wonderful experiment called the United States of
America?
And yes I am reading St. Augustine’s City of God, yet that
did not cause this sudden understanding of our moral decay. I saw this coming
in the 1980’s and have been screaming in the woods ever since. My current
readings including City of God only make my anger stronger since I am seeing
how easy it is to reclaim our lives and it falls on the ignorant ears of our so
called intellectuals that are blindly stupid.
I hope we can reclaim it all before the elitists destroy the
fabric of us as people and then have AI destroy them.
