Article

2019-12-21 Home Front: Culture Wars

Secrets, Not Constitutional Authority, Are Now the Coin of Power in Politics

[PJ] - By 2017 it was obvious that the 20th-century institutions were reeling under the impact of the information revolution. The old hierarchies and the authority they had wielded from prestige, authority and celebrity were, if not in a state of collapse, at least badly degraded. The leak of secrets showed how incompetent and mendacious the elites were and the MeToo and Jeffrey Epstein affairs demonstrated how venal.

The last redoubt of establishment legitimacy rested on the claim that it was democratic, protected individual rights against the power of the police; kept the secrets of the ordinary people from any would-be STASI and that the Will of the People as expressed through the ballot box was supreme.

Now, even this last claim has collapsed. For nearly four years both sides of the populist divide have been exerting every effort to convince the publics both foreign and domestic that the executive branch is working for the KGB or that the past administration's stay-behinds in Congress are embarked upon a coup d'etat against the Constitution. The public is watching a double-feature showing the Manchurian Candidate and Seven Days in May, each side depicting the other in the worst possible light.

...As Andy McCarthy put it, "if it can be done to Trump, it can be done to the next president and the next and the next. ... And now, each party’s base will demand that it be done. If each side doesn’t impeach the enemy’s president, it will mean their partisans in the House aren’t trying hard enough."

...The current challenge is less to limit damage to the status quo ante than to find some trajectory that will eventually increase the chances of reaching a new consensus way of routinely changing political leadership. In other words, finding an off-ramp from the highway to hell. The key to achieving this may lie in changing the management of official secrets. The information revolution that made it nearly impossible for individuals to protect their privacy has also made it impossible for authority to be founded on trust.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-12-21 04:09|| || Front Page|| [11137 views ] Top

#1 The author had me nodding along until this cloosterfook of a sentence:

The current challenge is less to limit damage to the status quo ante than to find some trajectory that will eventually increase the chances of reaching a new consensus way of routinely changing political leadership.

Is he applying for a government grant?
Any idea what he means to say, in plain English?

Posted by Lex 2019-12-21 04:53|| 2019-12-21 04:53|| Front Page Top

#2 ^The old way doesn't work anymore. Gotta find a new one.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-12-21 05:11|| 2019-12-21 05:11|| Front Page Top

#3 The public is watching a double-feature showing The Manchurian Candidate and Seven Days in May, each side depicting the other in the worst possible light.

...Don't entirely agree with the TFA, but that part is spot on.

Mike

Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2019-12-21 08:01|| 2019-12-21 08:01|| Front Page Top

#4 Any idea what he means to say, in plain English?
The Rubes are onto us and we need to find a new scam, mate!

Posted by magpie 2019-12-21 10:18|| 2019-12-21 10:18|| Front Page Top

#5 Secrets and blackmail are the coin of power in politics.

Posted by JohnQC 2019-12-21 13:27|| 2019-12-21 13:27|| Front Page Top

#6 The old does not work anymore. It can't be trusted as it is part of the Deepstate and Democratic Party. Ivey sent an email to Podesta on 3-13-16 (Wikileaks) that tells what they think of Trump prior to the election. The fact that Hillary is a weak candidate is discussed and the need to keep the public uninformed and compliant:

From Bill Ivey
From:bi@globalculturalstrategies.com
To: john.podesta@gmail.com
Date: 2016-03-13 17:06
Subject: From Bill Ivey
Dear John:
Well, we all thought the big problem for our US democracy was Citizens
United/Koch Brothers big money in politics. Silly us; turns out that money
isn't all that important if you can conflate entertainment with the
electoral process. Trump masters TV, TV so-called news picks up and repeats
and repeats to death this opinionated blowhard and his hairbrained ideas,
free-floating discontent attaches to a seeming strongman and we're off and
running. JFK, Jr would be delighted by all this as his "George" magazine saw
celebrity politics coming. The magazine struggled as it was ahead of its
time but now looks prescient. George, of course, played the development
pretty lightly, basically for charm and gossip, like People, but what we are
dealing with now is dead serious. How does this get handled in the general?
Secretary Clinton is not an entertainer, and not a celebrity in the Trump,
Kardashian mold; what can she do to offset this? I'm certain the
poll-directed insiders are sure things will default to policy as soon as the
conventions are over, but I think not. And as I've mentioned, we've all
been quite content to demean government, drop civics and in general conspire
to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry. The unawareness remains
strong but compliance is obviously fading rapidly. This problem demands
some serious, serious thinking - and not just poll driven,
demographically-inspired messaging.

How are those elitist attitudes working out? Certainly, this is not good for America. Without an honest press and media, the voter is in the dark and uninformed. Yes, the MSM has let up down bigly.

Posted by JohnQC 2019-12-21 14:02|| 2019-12-21 14:02|| Front Page Top

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