Paul Edwards
Teflon Don: He's certainly no Huey Long, but, most improbably, this obnoxious billionaire demagog has become a symbol of status quo rejection. And blatant lawfare has not stopped him, yet. (Wikipedia)
The most farcical spectacle in recent memory is that of the Democratic Party, with its collective skivvies in a twist, doing wild conceptual gyrations and contortions in their desperate effort to remove, by any means possible, Donald Trump from the ballot. There is a kind of embarrassing pathos in observing the media, clutching their pearls, and rooting for DeSantis, and Haley, the Hindu Hope, or—Jesus!—anybody, who might, just possibly, take the Golden Golem of Gulosity down. And they can’t get there.
Democrat panjandrums and pundits all tell you, warn you, and threaten you, that if you let this odious monster win he will “destroy our democracy”, which threat is less than compelling when it’s so obvious that they couldn’t give a big rat’s ass about “our democracy”, and haven’t, for generations.
They will vilify and denounce, in the darkest terms, the rank Populism that has been his support and sustenance over four years of involuntary retirement. Populism as a phenomenon has always been, in the view of official America, just a short step up from Communism, which some dimmer spear carriers in our Congressional asylum still think exists somewhere, a menace.
This Populism they indict as behind Trump, has the very same mystical vibe of horror for them in their fogged minds as the Red Menace had for their blockhead forefathers, and now they see it rising again from out of its mausoleum. They can’t understand it. They can’t comprehend how a belief so far from the gospel of Ayn Rand and F.A. Hayek can continue to exist. It is a profound, vexing, and impenetrable mystery to them.
But only to them. All governments of the world are now, and always have been, the elaborate constructs of the privileged, ownership class. This is historically true under every preceding system scholarship has known as it is of Capitalism, so that it can’t be put off on our own particular pathology of the last several hundred years. It was Capitalism’s many uglinesses and evils, though, that gave rise to the phenomenon of Populism.
Because governments are organized by elites to keep hoi polloi enslaved and quiescent, the best and only means to do so, up to and including much of the modern era, was force. That always worked until it didn’t, and then the game repeatedly came down in a great welter of blood and death.
Preferring to avoid such untoward outcomes and having learned a little about the human animal and its quirks and susceptibilities, Capitalist elites hit upon a better way. What you do is this: you create a system you call democracy, in which you inculcate the widespread illusion that the miniscule elites who own everything have great concern for their less fortunate brothers.
They don’t, of course. If they could keep the bastards in line more efficiently in some other way, say, by lobotomizing them all, or injecting them with obedience fluid, or implanting a chip in their brains—this may still be tried, btw—they would gladly do it, but there was no such way and their need for control was great.
So they created a party system of rule in which one faction is said to represent the elite, and another the people. Illusion is the key, because in reality both parties represent only the elite, but this—as the Bishop’s wife said of our descent from apes—must never be generally known. This ingenious invention has had resounding success around the world and has forestalled the guillotining of vast numbers of the Ruling Class for generations.
Its success prevailed unabated despite continual—one might say habitual—disappointment of the vast majority of subject people, struggling on, ever backing phonies, promised great things that never materialized, urged to vote again for some sleazy ass who baldfacedly assured them that, okay, mistakes were made, but this time was different, he’d get them another few bucks, make them pay only a little more of the taxes that the rich never pay at all, and rejigger their chiseling, buggering “health care” hustle.
But, all good things must have an end, and so, once again, as it happened once or twice before, a great percentage of the people began to have such a violent distaste for the crow and steaming waste they were fed, that they began to be angry. Fooled, yes; shamed, conned, dumped on; hoodled without being kissed.
So, you see, dear bankers, tycoons and political geniuses, this is what happens when an entire country absorbs the truth that neither dirty partisan cathouse gives a goddam whether they live or die as long as they can oppress and abuse them. When at last the monster con of the two party system is shown plainly for the bottomless crock of shit it is, you get Populism, dummies!
Populism erupts when a whole people rebels against a system that not only does not serve them but is actively, vigorously betraying them, running them like hogs and sheep, stripping and extracting from them everything they have and are entitled to, treating them as stupid, humble serfs, a passive, insentient profit source to be cheated, plundered and wanked without limit.
So your mystery—your Great and Insoluble Conundrum—need no longer baffle and oppress you, O, Sages, O, Guardians of The Empire. Pace, Lincoln: you can screw some of the people all of time, all of the people some of the time, but you can’t screw all of the people all of the time. That stink you smell emanates from the purulent corpse of your dead system. Be very afraid!
And your fear and dread is not misplaced. When the mass of ignorant, baffled people catch fire and rebel, the result is likely to be even worse than you imagine. Populism is not expressed in refinement of values or elegance of taste. It’s about anger, rage, fury. And it’s not about electing elevated human specimens or noble visionaries. It’s about electing anybody but you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
Garland Nixon is a radio and television talkshow host & vlogger, and leading anti-imperialist geopolitical analyst residing in the Washington, DC area.
