11 ms·

The end of the establishment?

113 points by l33tbro 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
mike_hearn 11y ago
This sort of analysis is helpful and needed. Explanations like "everyone is stupid" don't get you anywhere. The article doesn't say it explicitly, choosing to hint at it instead, but I think a big part of the popular revolt against big, remote establishments everywhere (also see: Brexit referendum polling) is that these institutions have normally made little or no effort to self police, or demonstrate any kind of ability to self discipline or self reform. The past 15 years especially have seen a more or less constant stream of scandals where people at the top of societies power structures very clearly acted badly or even broke laws, yet nobody was ever held to account ... except those who tried to reveal the wrongdoing. The track record of the elite enforcing the same rules against themselves that they enforce against everyone else is utterly miserable. This is not a US specific thing. It can be seen to a lesser extent in other parts of the world too. One of the biggest arguments for the UK leaving the EU is that the EU has become a vast bureaucracy that is remote, bloated, undemocratic, disconnected from the people etc. The tone-deafness was made clear when the EU demanded yet another budget rise despite the fact that the member states were all trying to cut their own deficits, often by freezing public sector wages or simply laying people off. Now mix this in with the partitioning of American society into ever more clearly distinct political tribes and it's not surprising that people who have a message of "We are outsiders just like you who won't hesitate to really shake things up" are getting so much traction. A big part of Obama's original appeal was his entirely unrealised promise to try and reform Washington. Unfortunately he lost interest in that once elected. Not that he could really have fixed anything anyway: the mismatch between emphasis on the US President and how much power they actually have is kind of ridiculous.
- bsaunder 11y ago
  I think you make some good points. When reality diverges from perception (as you and the OP seem to suggest, and I agree), it feels to me there a sort of economic potential energy there that may provide an opportunity for someone to capitalize on. Perhaps we need some scrambling unicorns to pivot and see how they could help improve democracy and level the playing field between the disconnected establishment and the general populace. As an individual, I frequently sigh at my ability to impact the momentum of things. The world may not be as I'd like it, but I see little I can do about that. I get that small changes by many individuals can have a big impact in the aggregate. Perhaps what would help would be a social amplifier app that would allow users to plan/schedule and participate in small changes in mass that could send louder social signals to the establishment. Maybe folks would to listen to us more frequently than once every 4 years. I'm sure there are other opportunities and the devil is in the details. I'm not saying this is easy, but society needs some new tools. The folks here on HN are precisely the right people that should be doing something about this.
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  > This sort of analysis is helpful and needed. It's just more noise. It's one reporter's take on current events. There's no attention given to history, or even a reasoned take on the economics involved. It's pure narrative, a bunch of facts strung together with nothing tying them together but opinion. What we're seeing is another evolution in the media-driven political cycle. Political candidacy has changed immensely in the last few years. Social media turned out to be way more politically useful than anybody ever thought it would. So candidates that use it effectively are going to be able to manipulate the news cycle more. It doesn't give them an overwhelming advantage over the traditional power base, but they have been caught flat-footed. That Americans are currently receptive to populist platforms shouldn't be surprising. We're still in the primary phase, and primaries are conducted in rural areas where the most provincial Americans live. The messaging needs to be kept simple. Once the primaries are over, the nominees are going to move to the center for the real race. Happens in every single presidential election. We're just paying more and more attention to it these day. Nobody used to care about primaries.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    Clay Shirky recently tweeted (yeah, that's right) an interesting analysis of this: https://storify.com/cshirky/republican-and-democratic-parties-are-now-host-bod https://storify.com/cshirky/republican-and-democratic-partie...
    - vinceguidry 11y ago
      Thanks, this is much better. The "quasi-parliamentarianism" bit was fascinating.
  - cdent 11y ago
    I'll think you'll find that Robert B. Reich's expertise extends a bit further than "reporting".
    - bsbechtel 11y ago
      I'd argue he's part of the 'establishment' he's purporting to analyze from the outside, however.
- noja 11y ago
  I'd argue that media ownership by the few should not be forgotten, it has a huge influence on our opinions of huge remote organisations. If I am being constantly told that something is bad, and never told when it is good, I will gradually shift my opinion. Attrition wins.
  - VLM 11y ago
    Here's a helpful poll: http://www.gallup.com/poll/176042/trust-mass-media-returns-time-low.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/176042/trust-mass-media-returns-t... So for 3/5 to 2/3 of the population, observation shows that a unified message from all the multinational megacorp journalists of anti-Trump hatred results in soaring poll numbers for Trump. Every time some elitist smarmy condescending newsreader indicates their oh so holier than thou hatred of Trump, his poll numbers go up a little more. Note this applies to the "other guys" too. Decades of screaming on fox news about how Bill Clinton and now Obama are going to destroy the country, planet, universe ... chicken little buffer overflow. If I can't vote for Trump I will vote for Sanders. If the establishment neocons on fox news hate him, he might be somewhat off, but also can't be that bad of a guy, I mean look at the other people they hate who aren't the best but aren't that bad. Obama may very well go down in history as one of our worst presidents, but hes just not that bad. Note that a 3/5 majority would be quite a landslide in a general election.
    - notahacker 11y ago
      Is that the link you intended to post? Because all it shows is that only around 40% of the public trust the media (and of those that distrust the media, a substantial proportion don't trust the media because they don't think it's liberal enough). Most people are perfectly capable of distrusting both the media and the candidate that is indisputably advocating points they disagree with. Some of them distrust the media because they think it's giving Trump an easy ride. Sure, there is a demographic that sees negative coverage of Trump (and Sanders) as proof he must be the only totally honest guy with real, serious policies. But it isn't 3/5 of the population, or anything close. I mean, you'd probably find the figure for British citizens that trust the media to be at least as low. Trouble is, trust in people that the media widely dislike is even lower, and so they still lose.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  >The past 15 years especially have seen a more or less constant stream of scandals where people at the top of societies power structures very clearly acted badly or even broke laws, yet nobody was ever held to account ... except those who tried to reveal the wrongdoing. I find this argument baffling when applied to the EU. Most of the scandals were in the banking and finance industries, not - say - the EU parliament. The Greek debacle, which was probably the biggest failure of the EU since its creation, was created by the EU's banking and finance industries. Perhaps it's the industry that's the problem, and not Europe itself? Not that the EU isn't remote, but it's not so remote that it has no interest in promoting standards of human rights legislation. By a remarkable coincidence, a key foundation of Brexit is the dismissal of the EU's requirement to treat workers in a civilised manner as "Brussels red tape". As for Trump - the idea that you can dethrone an Establishment run by and for narcissistic billionaires by electing another narcissistic billionaire seems entirely fantastic. If Trump is elected, the US establishment will be happy to do business with him, as usual. Sanders may be a tougher nut to crack, which is why he can't be allowed to win - and why the idea that these candidates "challenge the Establishment" is nonsense, when no Establishment policy is under any serious threat in this election. (Or any other.)
  - tomp 11y ago
    > The Greek debacle was created by the EU's banking and finance industries. No, it was created by the EU who bailed out the banks, paying them money and forcing the loss on the taxpayers. > Most of the scandals were in the banking and finance industries, not - say - the EU parliament. The EU parliament is a scandal in and of itself - "let's waste some money and have two parliament buildings in two cities!"
    - tonyedgecombe 11y ago
      >No, it was created by the EU who bailed out the banks No, it was caused by the Greeks living beyond their means.
      - justinhj 11y ago
- tonyedgecombe 11y ago
  >One of the biggest arguments for the UK leaving the EU is that the EU has become a vast bureaucracy that is remote, bloated, undemocratic, disconnected from the people etc. Except the EU isn't that big, about 33,000 staff [1]. I also seem to remember voting in EU elections so it's hard to call it undemocratic. [1] http://ec.europa.eu/civil_service/docs/hr_key_figures_2016.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/civil_service/docs/hr_key_figures_2016.p...
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    Do you also remember voting for the EU constitution? Or did that get decided for you?
    - tonyedgecombe 11y ago
      It was democratically rejected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitution_for_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitu...
      - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
        Ah, my error. I was using the wrong name. Yes, it was democratically rejected... and then replaced by the Treaty of Lisbon, which did most of the same things, and which was done in a way that nobody got to democratically vote on it.
  - mike_hearn 11y ago
    I was trying to reflect the argument as made, rather than saying I agree with it myself. That said, 33k is quite a bit larger than I expected, actually, given that the entire UK civil service is about 10x that size but the EU doesn't do benefits management, tax collection, defence, doesn't run a justice system, transport system, etc. With respect to democracy in Europe, it's a bit complicated. People tend to care a lot more about their national parliaments than the EU parliament. The UK, in particular, gets outvoted in the EU parliament a whole lot, so regardless of what you think of the system in the general sense, for the UK it results in having to do things it doesn't want quite a bit.
- rayiner 11y ago
  > A big part of Obama's original appeal was his entirely unrealised promise to try and reform Washington. Unfortunately he lost interest in that once elected. Not that he could really have fixed anything anyway: the mismatch between emphasis on the US President and how much power they actually have is kind of ridiculous. I don't think it's fair to say he lost interest in it. It's a combination of 1) having less power than people think; and 2) having to be everyone's President, not just the people who elected him. If you were President and had a good faith desire to govern by national consensus, what would you do? Deregulate industries? Increase regulation? Flat tax? Eliminate social security? Increase social security? Universal healthcare? No healthcare? End the drug war? How much of that do you think would drum up more than bare majority support?
  - waterlesscloud 11y ago
    It's probably more accurate to say reform was more his marketing hook than his genuine interest in the first place.
    - rayiner 11y ago
      Why?
      - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
        Because the questions you're asking (reform how?) were as present on the campaign trail as they are now. If you campaign strongly on "flat tax" or "end the drug war" and are elected then you have your mandate. If you campaign on "hope and change" then it creates the problem you're pointing out -- what is that supposed to mean? Change what?
      - FD3SA 11y ago
        Because he hired Henry Paulson, the ex-CEO of Goldman Sachs who single handedly devised the entire CDO ponzi scheme, as his Treasury Secretary. For those interested, more here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzrBurlJUNk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzrBurlJUNk Watch the entire documentary, lays it out plain and simple. To this day, not a single prosecution.
- scrumper 11y ago
  > the mismatch between emphasis on the US President and how much power they actually have is kind of ridiculous. Just to touch on this one point, the situation has its own twisted logic. With this election the concept of the presidency may be entering a new phase where it acts primarily as a lighting rod for disaffection. This effectively helps to strengthen existing power structures in the houses (the parties, ways of working, lobbyists etc.) by focusing popular discontent on a single office.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > A big part of Obama's original appeal was his entirely unrealised promise to try and reform Washington. Unfortunately he lost interest in that once elected. Perhaps more relevantly, it was always he lost the narrow (and unreliable, thanks to a handful of often hostile Democratics) Congressional majority at the first midterm, and it was replaced with an unusually obstructionist opposite-party majority which meant that any Obama policy initiative was dead on arrival. > Not that he could really have fixed anything anyway: the mismatch between emphasis on the US President and how much power they actually have is kind of ridiculous. Candidates often have been very eager to point this out and trying to reflect some of the attention to their Presidential campaign to other avenues (including down-ballot campaigns and maintaining an active grassroot network for their priorities.) But this tends to be ineffectual; people still act like electing a President is all you need to be concerned about, and act surprised when they don't get what they want from doing that alone.
thedevil 11y ago
Scott Adams, maker of Dilbert, wrote something similar. He was calling it the "second American revolution". He threw out some radical, somewhat silly, but interesting ideas about it. http://blog.dilbert.com/post/138023808851/the-second-american-revolution-what-then http://blog.dilbert.com/post/138023808851/the-second-america...
- HillRat 11y ago
  Arguably, the Jacksonian era was the "second American revolution," and the Confederate rebellion the third, retrograde and thankfully failed one. I think today's political climate is more similar to the 1930s, when widespread disaffection led to adherence to all sorts of populist movements and figures, from the Grange to the Wobblies, Huey Long (Trump's closest antecedent) to Father Coughlin (whose modern echo is perhaps Ted Cruz), and into dangerous fringe groups like the Klan and the Bund. What is concerning now is that the centrifugal tendencies are accelerating in our government, leading to self-sustaining structural dysfunctions that will prompt further contempt for the government and lead to a greater desire for a "man on horseback" figure to set things right. Trump, I fear, is just the beginning.
- squozzer 11y ago
  Scott will be pleased to know he's entered another circle of nerdvana.
- csense 11y ago
  How many people watch Congressional hearings on C-SPAN? How would this be different?
venomsnake 11y ago
If watched trough historical prism - if 2007 was 1929 - we are at 32-33 now probably. If you looked into the world back then - there was great revolting against establishment too - no matter the ideology (or actions) in any country during the great depression - they were exchanged for someone else. The ruling class has 2 responsibilities - economic growth and redistribution and security. They must keep reasonably safe and deliver enough to the people to not starve.[1] The post 9/11 media frenzy made people feeling permanently insecure - this is something no government can win now. The US now has 2 economies that are lumped together for statistical purposes. The one of them is doing just fine. But its recovery masks the plight of the great unwashed that all the rest of us are. The people feel the desire to burn the system. Nothing strange with that. Anyway - if the presidential election is Bernie vs Not Trump or Hilary vs Trump - you can completely write off the establishment candidate. Since the voters behind Bernie and Trump seems to hate the current order more than they are loyal to their own party. The bullying against BS supporters to vote for Hilary in case of her winning the nomination is telling. [1] Safety and not starving have different meanings depending on society, culture and past experience.
- bsaunder 11y ago
  I like the assertion that the US has 2 economies that are lumped together for statistical purposes. I would imagine there should be some supporting artifacts of this in various reports. Where would one look to see data to support this (two clustered groups experience the world significantly differently). I would imagine that publicizing this data would help people validate their concerns that no, things aren't going as well as I've been told.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    I don't think it's the dividing line used in the parent comment to yours, but one interesting dividing line is people employed full time with benefits vs everyone else. Maybe a slightly better line would be based on US GDP. Per capita it is ~$53,000, capturing a share of the economy larger than that can reasonably be described as doing ok (of course the line would be different for a household than an individual).
VLM 11y ago
There is a major error in the linked article which is claiming its the end of the establishment rather than just another turn of the cyclical wheel. Also it carefully avoids recent history. On the R side I'm one of the guys who was kicked out by the neocons for not being a bond villain warmonger or televangelist wannabe. The neos were the establishment for a couple decades, and now the wheel turns and we're going back to "real" republicans again and kicking out the neos. I'm pretty happy Trump voter, but I'm really an anti-Jeb voter or anti-Rubio voter. Is Trump the best real republican out there? Probably not, but he's the first in the limelight of this new cycle. On the D side their party kicked out all the hippies and replaced them with Wall Street shills. At least in leadership positions. The R purged their entire party whereas the D has always had hippies, just no longer in leadership. Again they're not eliminating the concept of an establishment, they're just kicking the wall street shills out and putting the hippies back in charge. Again, is Sanders the best hippie out there? Probably not, but he's the first in the limelight of this new cycle. If I can't vote for Trump I'll vote for Sanders. I trust an honest enemy more than I trust my own parties former leaders. I don't think this is an unusual outlook, either. If, oh who am I kidding, when, Hillary screws Sanders out of the nomination, Trump should pick Sanders as veep, that would be epic. The interesting part is the synchronization across party lines. Both parties having a coup at the same time? Well, the rank and file have more in common with each other than they do with their former leadership, so... Other than those minor issues its a very good article.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- mineshaftgap 11y ago
  The democratic party elites have already decided that Hillary is the nominee. In their mind it is her turn regardless of her likability. The republicans are powerless to stop Trump. Trump and Sanders would be pretty weird but probably electable.
- cmrdporcupine 11y ago
  Naturally Sanders would not accept veep, they're class enemies. I also don't accept that Sander's left populism is in the same category as Trumps' fake right populism. As another commenter stated quite well above, Trump is establishment. You can't get more establishment than a real estate tycoon who got rich from daddy's money. It's the same thing as the Bush family, just more crude.
mc32 11y ago
The rise of outsiders likely has been helped by the rise in inequality not so much between whites and non whites but between poor and the non poor combined with the tonedeafness of major candidates who tend to lump poor whites with "rich white men" and an emphasis on men. White police officers are the devil and by extension poor whites are the devil [but we see that non white officers engage in similar behavior] The notion that all Hispanics have Mexican ancestry and all want to be addressed in Spanish or that all blacks identify with Sharpton politics. People call Trump a populist and at times racist, they have said the same thing of Sanders not so much for what he says but because of who follows his candidacy [the demographics]. It looks like there are people who are rebelling against some of the divisiveness of identify politics and misguidedly people are labeling these people pejoratively as being a certain kind of people [racists, misogynists, xenophobes, uneducated, poor, etc.] when most likely they are simply rebelling against traditional politics where they have been simply useful but not tended to. For establishment candidates it'll be tough to balance efforts to underscore minorities in a major way without excluding or at the expense of browbeating majorities because unfortunately they are assuming a zero sum game even while saying otherwise.
- generic_user 11y ago
  Ask yourself, when was the last time you heard a politician or business leader mention the problems of European American "white" communities? When was the last time you watched a story on Television about the European American poverty and economic dislocation in the US? When was the last time the President or an elected official campaigning for European American Scholarships, loan assistance programs or European American organizations? They use to call the middle class the silent majority. There was an unspoken agreement between the Politicians the Media and the Middle Class that everyone was working for the good of the people, all the people including European Americans. But I think the last 15 years have shown conclusively in the eyes of the silent majority that agreement has been torn up and thrown in the bin. And the Media the Politicians and there Billionaire pay masters have turned quite dramatically against the good of the European Americans working and middle classes. So they will not be silent anymore. They will make there demands and organise and vote according to who best serves there interests. There is no amount of Media spinning demonization and appeals to white guilt that is going to put European Americans back in there nice little box. The Billionaires killed that golden goose that was the silent majority now they will have to deal with the consequences.
rrggrr 11y ago
Trump = Establishment. He built his business working with and as part of a business and political system that is very much pay to play, and he acknowledges this. People are confusing political rhetoric with cold hard reality. The three likely outcomes of a Trump Presidency: (1) He plays along - most likely. (2) Continued gridlock. (3) He spends four years trying to steamroll Congress by vilifying his opponents, scapegoating and executive order abuse - causing a political and constitutional crisis with vague similarities to 1938 Germany. I'm ambivalent about all the candidates, just mainly concerned about demagoguery at time of economic and social upheaval.
- m52go 11y ago
  I don't know about that. If there's anyone who's shown more willingness to challenge the status quo, it's him. In spite of all his faults, and considering that much of his appeal is his (apparent) contrarian attitude, I most expect him to buck "establishment" expectations if elected. Of course, I'm not holding my breath. Successful politicians are wizards at portraying 1 thing and doing another, so it wouldn't surprise me if you're right. I'm just saying I think there's a slightly bigger chance that he's someone to buck that trend.
- protomyth 11y ago
  > (1) He plays along - most likely. (2) Continued gridlock. (3) He spends four years trying to steamroll Congress by vilifying his opponents, scapegoating and executive order abuse And how would that be any different from the last 7 years? The only real difference I can see is the side the press will be on. The thought process that this is a new thing is ignoring the last couple of election cycles.
  - rrggrr 11y ago
    Correct. Just as the founders intended... slow, gradual changes.
- AJ007 11y ago
  Whoever wins, the White House and government agencies will continue to be staffed and run by people with previous experience. Trump is a wildcard, for everyone, supporting him or not. His rhetoric panders towards certain groups and is worth an enormous amount of money in free press coverage. The things candidates say before and after being elected are not particularly credible but I suspect this is even less so. The track record isn't there, the Republicans certainly have no idea what he will do. If Trump was elected, the US government would still have to be filled with humans, and for the most part these will not be the type of people who are responding positively to him right now. As a side note, I don't see any problem with "gridlock." Every time a bill passes in to law, we get 1,000+ pages of new rules, exemptions, loopholes, and special favors. An acceleration of this would not be particularly desirable.
golergka 11y ago
I read the article, all the comments, and I don't think that everybody really discusses elephant in the room here. US politics is no longer country politics — it's more of an important part of world politics than an isolated thing. Just the same, US economy is more of a part of world economy. The article quotes "taxes on the rich" going down, but it omits the main reason: "taxes on the rich" are really taxes on capital (which includes not only billionaires, but individual investments of hundreds of millions people), and the capital is mobile now. If the US wouldn't lower capital taxes, the capital would just flow away. Same principle works for US blue-collar workers: sorry guys, but you're competing with workers from India and China now. And, to be honest, on a humanity level, it feels completely fair that your wages going a little down while theirs go up, tremendously. Same is true for financial elite: US financial elite is no longer financial elite of one country, but financial elite of the entire world. And, of course, same is also true for US presidential elections. Of course, only US citizens can vote in it. But the political establishment itself is already slowly morphing to being a part of international political class rather then being tied to a specific country: it's especially apparent when you look at various NGOs, think tanks, funds and other similar organizations. And both Sanders and Trump are perfectly logical candidates in this context. They may be radicals on US political arena, but in a broader, worldwide political spectrum they don't feel out of place one bit. (Which is pretty ironic when you consider how isolationist both of them are). So, the whole world is looking at this US election cycle, but if you're part of US, the whole thing will make much more sense if you take a break from the spectacle and look around.
- csense 11y ago
  > on a humanity level, it feels completely fair that your wages going a little down while theirs go up, tremendously It's not just "wages going a little down," it's more like the entire economic fabric of large areas of the country has been disrupted by globalization and has been slow to recover.
hwstar 11y ago
The establishment won't give up power without a fight. There may be a second "Business Plot": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
rogersmith 11y ago
How incredibly naive is it to believe that both Sanders and Trump aren't just as part of the "establishment" as the others. They are bones thrown at the increasingly discontent left and right fringes. On the off-chance either of them would be elected, nothing would change as far as the "establishment" is concerned. Remember how Obama was the candidate of "hope and change"?
- mc32 11y ago
  One big difference is that neither is beholden to donors or "the party" machinery. They are more viable because other candidates are choosing to do retail politics in that they campaign by polls whereas these alternatives are irreverent of polls and have platform of addressing what they believe are ignored swaths of the public.
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    Until Sanders' retail politics gets him a majority of Congress, he's not going to do much of anything as president.
  - rogersmith 11y ago
    If the "establishment" didn't want them there, they wouldn't be there, believe that.
Animats 11y ago
What "end of the establishment?". The US's Gini coefficient, a measure of economic inequality, is near its highest level since 1929. When it drops below the all-time low of 1973, we'll talk about the "end of the establishment." In the 1960s, there were about 60 lobbyists in Washington. Now, there are over 20,000. All that's happened so far is that, at last, the "establishment" message isn't selling. Occupy won the battle for the message, by focusing attention on "the 1%". That hasn't translated into action. We're not seeing pro-labor legislation getting through Congress. We're not even seeing aggressive enforcement of existing minimum wage and overtime laws. We're not seeing employers going to jail on a regular basis for wage theft or violating immigration law. All that's happened is that the GOP has managed to shoot itself in the foot. Again. Face it, all the Republican presidential candidates are worse than Bush Sr, or Eisenhower, or Reagan. It's embarrassing. This is the legacy of being "the party of No" in Congress - there's nobody with a track record of accomplishing much. Not sure what to make of Trump. He's the first national level demagogue the US has had in many decades.
- StillBored 11y ago
  My take on Trump is that he _IS_ the face of nearly 1/2 of the GOP's supporters at this time. He isn't saying anything other candidates haven't said, or at least winked about. AKA years of angry incoherent propaganda means the candidate with the most angry incoherent message will win. If the reasoned intelligent members of the party refused to refute the garbage from Faux new's (and other) pundits then they shouldn't be surprised at the outcome.

113 points by l33tbro 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

This sort of analysis is helpful and needed. Explanations like "everyone is stupid" don't get you anywhere. The article doesn't say it explicitly, choosing to hint at it instead, but I think a big part of the popular revolt against big, remote establishments everywhere (also see: Brexit referendum polling) is that these institutions have normally made little or no effort to self police, or demonstrate any kind of ability to self discipline or self reform. The past 15 years especially have seen a more or less constant stream of scandals where people at the top of societies power structures very clearly acted badly or even broke laws, yet nobody was ever held to account ... except those who tried to reveal the wrongdoing. The track record of the elite enforcing the same rules against themselves that they enforce against everyone else is utterly miserable. This is not a US specific thing. It can be seen to a lesser extent in other parts of the world too. One of the biggest arguments for the UK leaving the EU is that the EU has become a vast bureaucracy that is remote, bloated, undemocratic, disconnected from the people etc. The tone-deafness was made clear when the EU demanded yet another budget rise despite the fact that the member states were all trying to cut their own deficits, often by freezing public sector wages or simply laying people off. Now mix this in with the partitioning of American society into ever more clearly distinct political tribes and it's not surprising that people who have a message of "We are outsiders just like you who won't hesitate to really shake things up" are getting so much traction. A big part of Obama's original appeal was his entirely unrealised promise to try and reform Washington. Unfortunately he lost interest in that once elected. Not that he could really have fixed anything anyway: the mismatch between emphasis on the US President and how much power they actually have is kind of ridiculous.

bsaunder 11y ago
I think you make some good points. When reality diverges from perception (as you and the OP seem to suggest, and I agree), it feels to me there a sort of economic potential energy there that may provide an opportunity for someone to capitalize on. Perhaps we need some scrambling unicorns to pivot and see how they could help improve democracy and level the playing field between the disconnected establishment and the general populace. As an individual, I frequently sigh at my ability to impact the momentum of things. The world may not be as I'd like it, but I see little I can do about that. I get that small changes by many individuals can have a big impact in the aggregate. Perhaps what would help would be a social amplifier app that would allow users to plan/schedule and participate in small changes in mass that could send louder social signals to the establishment. Maybe folks would to listen to us more frequently than once every 4 years. I'm sure there are other opportunities and the devil is in the details. I'm not saying this is easy, but society needs some new tools. The folks here on HN are precisely the right people that should be doing something about this.
vinceguidry 11y ago
> This sort of analysis is helpful and needed. It's just more noise. It's one reporter's take on current events. There's no attention given to history, or even a reasoned take on the economics involved. It's pure narrative, a bunch of facts strung together with nothing tying them together but opinion. What we're seeing is another evolution in the media-driven political cycle. Political candidacy has changed immensely in the last few years. Social media turned out to be way more politically useful than anybody ever thought it would. So candidates that use it effectively are going to be able to manipulate the news cycle more. It doesn't give them an overwhelming advantage over the traditional power base, but they have been caught flat-footed. That Americans are currently receptive to populist platforms shouldn't be surprising. We're still in the primary phase, and primaries are conducted in rural areas where the most provincial Americans live. The messaging needs to be kept simple. Once the primaries are over, the nominees are going to move to the center for the real race. Happens in every single presidential election. We're just paying more and more attention to it these day. Nobody used to care about primaries.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  Clay Shirky recently tweeted (yeah, that's right) an interesting analysis of this: https://storify.com/cshirky/republican-and-democratic-parties-are-now-host-bod https://storify.com/cshirky/republican-and-democratic-partie...
  - vinceguidry 11y ago
    Thanks, this is much better. The "quasi-parliamentarianism" bit was fascinating.
- cdent 11y ago
  I'll think you'll find that Robert B. Reich's expertise extends a bit further than "reporting".
  - bsbechtel 11y ago
    I'd argue he's part of the 'establishment' he's purporting to analyze from the outside, however.
noja 11y ago
I'd argue that media ownership by the few should not be forgotten, it has a huge influence on our opinions of huge remote organisations. If I am being constantly told that something is bad, and never told when it is good, I will gradually shift my opinion. Attrition wins.
- VLM 11y ago
  Here's a helpful poll: http://www.gallup.com/poll/176042/trust-mass-media-returns-time-low.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/176042/trust-mass-media-returns-t... So for 3/5 to 2/3 of the population, observation shows that a unified message from all the multinational megacorp journalists of anti-Trump hatred results in soaring poll numbers for Trump. Every time some elitist smarmy condescending newsreader indicates their oh so holier than thou hatred of Trump, his poll numbers go up a little more. Note this applies to the "other guys" too. Decades of screaming on fox news about how Bill Clinton and now Obama are going to destroy the country, planet, universe ... chicken little buffer overflow. If I can't vote for Trump I will vote for Sanders. If the establishment neocons on fox news hate him, he might be somewhat off, but also can't be that bad of a guy, I mean look at the other people they hate who aren't the best but aren't that bad. Obama may very well go down in history as one of our worst presidents, but hes just not that bad. Note that a 3/5 majority would be quite a landslide in a general election.
  - notahacker 11y ago
    Is that the link you intended to post? Because all it shows is that only around 40% of the public trust the media (and of those that distrust the media, a substantial proportion don't trust the media because they don't think it's liberal enough). Most people are perfectly capable of distrusting both the media and the candidate that is indisputably advocating points they disagree with. Some of them distrust the media because they think it's giving Trump an easy ride. Sure, there is a demographic that sees negative coverage of Trump (and Sanders) as proof he must be the only totally honest guy with real, serious policies. But it isn't 3/5 of the population, or anything close. I mean, you'd probably find the figure for British citizens that trust the media to be at least as low. Trouble is, trust in people that the media widely dislike is even lower, and so they still lose.
TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
>The past 15 years especially have seen a more or less constant stream of scandals where people at the top of societies power structures very clearly acted badly or even broke laws, yet nobody was ever held to account ... except those who tried to reveal the wrongdoing. I find this argument baffling when applied to the EU. Most of the scandals were in the banking and finance industries, not - say - the EU parliament. The Greek debacle, which was probably the biggest failure of the EU since its creation, was created by the EU's banking and finance industries. Perhaps it's the industry that's the problem, and not Europe itself? Not that the EU isn't remote, but it's not so remote that it has no interest in promoting standards of human rights legislation. By a remarkable coincidence, a key foundation of Brexit is the dismissal of the EU's requirement to treat workers in a civilised manner as "Brussels red tape". As for Trump - the idea that you can dethrone an Establishment run by and for narcissistic billionaires by electing another narcissistic billionaire seems entirely fantastic. If Trump is elected, the US establishment will be happy to do business with him, as usual. Sanders may be a tougher nut to crack, which is why he can't be allowed to win - and why the idea that these candidates "challenge the Establishment" is nonsense, when no Establishment policy is under any serious threat in this election. (Or any other.)
- tomp 11y ago
  > The Greek debacle was created by the EU's banking and finance industries. No, it was created by the EU who bailed out the banks, paying them money and forcing the loss on the taxpayers. > Most of the scandals were in the banking and finance industries, not - say - the EU parliament. The EU parliament is a scandal in and of itself - "let's waste some money and have two parliament buildings in two cities!"
  - tonyedgecombe 11y ago
    >No, it was created by the EU who bailed out the banks No, it was caused by the Greeks living beyond their means.
    - justinhj 11y ago
tonyedgecombe 11y ago
>One of the biggest arguments for the UK leaving the EU is that the EU has become a vast bureaucracy that is remote, bloated, undemocratic, disconnected from the people etc. Except the EU isn't that big, about 33,000 staff [1]. I also seem to remember voting in EU elections so it's hard to call it undemocratic. [1] http://ec.europa.eu/civil_service/docs/hr_key_figures_2016.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/civil_service/docs/hr_key_figures_2016.p...
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  Do you also remember voting for the EU constitution? Or did that get decided for you?
  - tonyedgecombe 11y ago
    It was democratically rejected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitution_for_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitu...
    - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
      Ah, my error. I was using the wrong name. Yes, it was democratically rejected... and then replaced by the Treaty of Lisbon, which did most of the same things, and which was done in a way that nobody got to democratically vote on it.
- mike_hearn 11y ago
  I was trying to reflect the argument as made, rather than saying I agree with it myself. That said, 33k is quite a bit larger than I expected, actually, given that the entire UK civil service is about 10x that size but the EU doesn't do benefits management, tax collection, defence, doesn't run a justice system, transport system, etc. With respect to democracy in Europe, it's a bit complicated. People tend to care a lot more about their national parliaments than the EU parliament. The UK, in particular, gets outvoted in the EU parliament a whole lot, so regardless of what you think of the system in the general sense, for the UK it results in having to do things it doesn't want quite a bit.
rayiner 11y ago
> A big part of Obama's original appeal was his entirely unrealised promise to try and reform Washington. Unfortunately he lost interest in that once elected. Not that he could really have fixed anything anyway: the mismatch between emphasis on the US President and how much power they actually have is kind of ridiculous. I don't think it's fair to say he lost interest in it. It's a combination of 1) having less power than people think; and 2) having to be everyone's President, not just the people who elected him. If you were President and had a good faith desire to govern by national consensus, what would you do? Deregulate industries? Increase regulation? Flat tax? Eliminate social security? Increase social security? Universal healthcare? No healthcare? End the drug war? How much of that do you think would drum up more than bare majority support?
- waterlesscloud 11y ago
  It's probably more accurate to say reform was more his marketing hook than his genuine interest in the first place.
  - rayiner 11y ago
    Why?
    - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
      Because the questions you're asking (reform how?) were as present on the campaign trail as they are now. If you campaign strongly on "flat tax" or "end the drug war" and are elected then you have your mandate. If you campaign on "hope and change" then it creates the problem you're pointing out -- what is that supposed to mean? Change what?
    - FD3SA 11y ago
      Because he hired Henry Paulson, the ex-CEO of Goldman Sachs who single handedly devised the entire CDO ponzi scheme, as his Treasury Secretary. For those interested, more here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzrBurlJUNk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzrBurlJUNk Watch the entire documentary, lays it out plain and simple. To this day, not a single prosecution.
scrumper 11y ago
> the mismatch between emphasis on the US President and how much power they actually have is kind of ridiculous. Just to touch on this one point, the situation has its own twisted logic. With this election the concept of the presidency may be entering a new phase where it acts primarily as a lighting rod for disaffection. This effectively helps to strengthen existing power structures in the houses (the parties, ways of working, lobbyists etc.) by focusing popular discontent on a single office.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> A big part of Obama's original appeal was his entirely unrealised promise to try and reform Washington. Unfortunately he lost interest in that once elected. Perhaps more relevantly, it was always he lost the narrow (and unreliable, thanks to a handful of often hostile Democratics) Congressional majority at the first midterm, and it was replaced with an unusually obstructionist opposite-party majority which meant that any Obama policy initiative was dead on arrival. > Not that he could really have fixed anything anyway: the mismatch between emphasis on the US President and how much power they actually have is kind of ridiculous. Candidates often have been very eager to point this out and trying to reflect some of the attention to their Presidential campaign to other avenues (including down-ballot campaigns and maintaining an active grassroot network for their priorities.) But this tends to be ineffectual; people still act like electing a President is all you need to be concerned about, and act surprised when they don't get what they want from doing that alone.

thedevil 11y ago

Scott Adams, maker of Dilbert, wrote something similar. He was calling it the "second American revolution". He threw out some radical, somewhat silly, but interesting ideas about it. http://blog.dilbert.com/post/138023808851/the-second-american-revolution-what-then http://blog.dilbert.com/post/138023808851/the-second-america...

HillRat 11y ago
Arguably, the Jacksonian era was the "second American revolution," and the Confederate rebellion the third, retrograde and thankfully failed one. I think today's political climate is more similar to the 1930s, when widespread disaffection led to adherence to all sorts of populist movements and figures, from the Grange to the Wobblies, Huey Long (Trump's closest antecedent) to Father Coughlin (whose modern echo is perhaps Ted Cruz), and into dangerous fringe groups like the Klan and the Bund. What is concerning now is that the centrifugal tendencies are accelerating in our government, leading to self-sustaining structural dysfunctions that will prompt further contempt for the government and lead to a greater desire for a "man on horseback" figure to set things right. Trump, I fear, is just the beginning.
squozzer 11y ago
Scott will be pleased to know he's entered another circle of nerdvana.
csense 11y ago
How many people watch Congressional hearings on C-SPAN? How would this be different?

venomsnake 11y ago

If watched trough historical prism - if 2007 was 1929 - we are at 32-33 now probably. If you looked into the world back then - there was great revolting against establishment too - no matter the ideology (or actions) in any country during the great depression - they were exchanged for someone else. The ruling class has 2 responsibilities - economic growth and redistribution and security. They must keep reasonably safe and deliver enough to the people to not starve.[1] The post 9/11 media frenzy made people feeling permanently insecure - this is something no government can win now. The US now has 2 economies that are lumped together for statistical purposes. The one of them is doing just fine. But its recovery masks the plight of the great unwashed that all the rest of us are. The people feel the desire to burn the system. Nothing strange with that. Anyway - if the presidential election is Bernie vs Not Trump or Hilary vs Trump - you can completely write off the establishment candidate. Since the voters behind Bernie and Trump seems to hate the current order more than they are loyal to their own party. The bullying against BS supporters to vote for Hilary in case of her winning the nomination is telling. [1] Safety and not starving have different meanings depending on society, culture and past experience.

bsaunder 11y ago
I like the assertion that the US has 2 economies that are lumped together for statistical purposes. I would imagine there should be some supporting artifacts of this in various reports. Where would one look to see data to support this (two clustered groups experience the world significantly differently). I would imagine that publicizing this data would help people validate their concerns that no, things aren't going as well as I've been told.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  I don't think it's the dividing line used in the parent comment to yours, but one interesting dividing line is people employed full time with benefits vs everyone else. Maybe a slightly better line would be based on US GDP. Per capita it is ~$53,000, capturing a share of the economy larger than that can reasonably be described as doing ok (of course the line would be different for a household than an individual).

VLM 11y ago

There is a major error in the linked article which is claiming its the end of the establishment rather than just another turn of the cyclical wheel. Also it carefully avoids recent history. On the R side I'm one of the guys who was kicked out by the neocons for not being a bond villain warmonger or televangelist wannabe. The neos were the establishment for a couple decades, and now the wheel turns and we're going back to "real" republicans again and kicking out the neos. I'm pretty happy Trump voter, but I'm really an anti-Jeb voter or anti-Rubio voter. Is Trump the best real republican out there? Probably not, but he's the first in the limelight of this new cycle. On the D side their party kicked out all the hippies and replaced them with Wall Street shills. At least in leadership positions. The R purged their entire party whereas the D has always had hippies, just no longer in leadership. Again they're not eliminating the concept of an establishment, they're just kicking the wall street shills out and putting the hippies back in charge. Again, is Sanders the best hippie out there? Probably not, but he's the first in the limelight of this new cycle. If I can't vote for Trump I'll vote for Sanders. I trust an honest enemy more than I trust my own parties former leaders. I don't think this is an unusual outlook, either. If, oh who am I kidding, when, Hillary screws Sanders out of the nomination, Trump should pick Sanders as veep, that would be epic. The interesting part is the synchronization across party lines. Both parties having a coup at the same time? Well, the rank and file have more in common with each other than they do with their former leadership, so... Other than those minor issues its a very good article.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
mineshaftgap 11y ago
The democratic party elites have already decided that Hillary is the nominee. In their mind it is her turn regardless of her likability. The republicans are powerless to stop Trump. Trump and Sanders would be pretty weird but probably electable.
cmrdporcupine 11y ago
Naturally Sanders would not accept veep, they're class enemies. I also don't accept that Sander's left populism is in the same category as Trumps' fake right populism. As another commenter stated quite well above, Trump is establishment. You can't get more establishment than a real estate tycoon who got rich from daddy's money. It's the same thing as the Bush family, just more crude.

mc32 11y ago

The rise of outsiders likely has been helped by the rise in inequality not so much between whites and non whites but between poor and the non poor combined with the tonedeafness of major candidates who tend to lump poor whites with "rich white men" and an emphasis on men. White police officers are the devil and by extension poor whites are the devil [but we see that non white officers engage in similar behavior] The notion that all Hispanics have Mexican ancestry and all want to be addressed in Spanish or that all blacks identify with Sharpton politics. People call Trump a populist and at times racist, they have said the same thing of Sanders not so much for what he says but because of who follows his candidacy [the demographics]. It looks like there are people who are rebelling against some of the divisiveness of identify politics and misguidedly people are labeling these people pejoratively as being a certain kind of people [racists, misogynists, xenophobes, uneducated, poor, etc.] when most likely they are simply rebelling against traditional politics where they have been simply useful but not tended to. For establishment candidates it'll be tough to balance efforts to underscore minorities in a major way without excluding or at the expense of browbeating majorities because unfortunately they are assuming a zero sum game even while saying otherwise.

generic_user 11y ago
Ask yourself, when was the last time you heard a politician or business leader mention the problems of European American "white" communities? When was the last time you watched a story on Television about the European American poverty and economic dislocation in the US? When was the last time the President or an elected official campaigning for European American Scholarships, loan assistance programs or European American organizations? They use to call the middle class the silent majority. There was an unspoken agreement between the Politicians the Media and the Middle Class that everyone was working for the good of the people, all the people including European Americans. But I think the last 15 years have shown conclusively in the eyes of the silent majority that agreement has been torn up and thrown in the bin. And the Media the Politicians and there Billionaire pay masters have turned quite dramatically against the good of the European Americans working and middle classes. So they will not be silent anymore. They will make there demands and organise and vote according to who best serves there interests. There is no amount of Media spinning demonization and appeals to white guilt that is going to put European Americans back in there nice little box. The Billionaires killed that golden goose that was the silent majority now they will have to deal with the consequences.

rrggrr 11y ago

Trump = Establishment. He built his business working with and as part of a business and political system that is very much pay to play, and he acknowledges this. People are confusing political rhetoric with cold hard reality. The three likely outcomes of a Trump Presidency: (1) He plays along - most likely. (2) Continued gridlock. (3) He spends four years trying to steamroll Congress by vilifying his opponents, scapegoating and executive order abuse - causing a political and constitutional crisis with vague similarities to 1938 Germany. I'm ambivalent about all the candidates, just mainly concerned about demagoguery at time of economic and social upheaval.

m52go 11y ago
I don't know about that. If there's anyone who's shown more willingness to challenge the status quo, it's him. In spite of all his faults, and considering that much of his appeal is his (apparent) contrarian attitude, I most expect him to buck "establishment" expectations if elected. Of course, I'm not holding my breath. Successful politicians are wizards at portraying 1 thing and doing another, so it wouldn't surprise me if you're right. I'm just saying I think there's a slightly bigger chance that he's someone to buck that trend.
protomyth 11y ago
> (1) He plays along - most likely. (2) Continued gridlock. (3) He spends four years trying to steamroll Congress by vilifying his opponents, scapegoating and executive order abuse And how would that be any different from the last 7 years? The only real difference I can see is the side the press will be on. The thought process that this is a new thing is ignoring the last couple of election cycles.
- rrggrr 11y ago
  Correct. Just as the founders intended... slow, gradual changes.
AJ007 11y ago
Whoever wins, the White House and government agencies will continue to be staffed and run by people with previous experience. Trump is a wildcard, for everyone, supporting him or not. His rhetoric panders towards certain groups and is worth an enormous amount of money in free press coverage. The things candidates say before and after being elected are not particularly credible but I suspect this is even less so. The track record isn't there, the Republicans certainly have no idea what he will do. If Trump was elected, the US government would still have to be filled with humans, and for the most part these will not be the type of people who are responding positively to him right now. As a side note, I don't see any problem with "gridlock." Every time a bill passes in to law, we get 1,000+ pages of new rules, exemptions, loopholes, and special favors. An acceleration of this would not be particularly desirable.

golergka 11y ago

I read the article, all the comments, and I don't think that everybody really discusses elephant in the room here. US politics is no longer country politics — it's more of an important part of world politics than an isolated thing. Just the same, US economy is more of a part of world economy. The article quotes "taxes on the rich" going down, but it omits the main reason: "taxes on the rich" are really taxes on capital (which includes not only billionaires, but individual investments of hundreds of millions people), and the capital is mobile now. If the US wouldn't lower capital taxes, the capital would just flow away. Same principle works for US blue-collar workers: sorry guys, but you're competing with workers from India and China now. And, to be honest, on a humanity level, it feels completely fair that your wages going a little down while theirs go up, tremendously. Same is true for financial elite: US financial elite is no longer financial elite of one country, but financial elite of the entire world. And, of course, same is also true for US presidential elections. Of course, only US citizens can vote in it. But the political establishment itself is already slowly morphing to being a part of international political class rather then being tied to a specific country: it's especially apparent when you look at various NGOs, think tanks, funds and other similar organizations. And both Sanders and Trump are perfectly logical candidates in this context. They may be radicals on US political arena, but in a broader, worldwide political spectrum they don't feel out of place one bit. (Which is pretty ironic when you consider how isolationist both of them are). So, the whole world is looking at this US election cycle, but if you're part of US, the whole thing will make much more sense if you take a break from the spectacle and look around.

csense 11y ago
> on a humanity level, it feels completely fair that your wages going a little down while theirs go up, tremendously It's not just "wages going a little down," it's more like the entire economic fabric of large areas of the country has been disrupted by globalization and has been slow to recover.

hwstar 11y ago

The establishment won't give up power without a fight. There may be a second "Business Plot": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

rogersmith 11y ago

How incredibly naive is it to believe that both Sanders and Trump aren't just as part of the "establishment" as the others. They are bones thrown at the increasingly discontent left and right fringes. On the off-chance either of them would be elected, nothing would change as far as the "establishment" is concerned. Remember how Obama was the candidate of "hope and change"?

mc32 11y ago
One big difference is that neither is beholden to donors or "the party" machinery. They are more viable because other candidates are choosing to do retail politics in that they campaign by polls whereas these alternatives are irreverent of polls and have platform of addressing what they believe are ignored swaths of the public.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  Until Sanders' retail politics gets him a majority of Congress, he's not going to do much of anything as president.
- rogersmith 11y ago
  If the "establishment" didn't want them there, they wouldn't be there, believe that.

Animats 11y ago

What "end of the establishment?". The US's Gini coefficient, a measure of economic inequality, is near its highest level since 1929. When it drops below the all-time low of 1973, we'll talk about the "end of the establishment." In the 1960s, there were about 60 lobbyists in Washington. Now, there are over 20,000. All that's happened so far is that, at last, the "establishment" message isn't selling. Occupy won the battle for the message, by focusing attention on "the 1%". That hasn't translated into action. We're not seeing pro-labor legislation getting through Congress. We're not even seeing aggressive enforcement of existing minimum wage and overtime laws. We're not seeing employers going to jail on a regular basis for wage theft or violating immigration law. All that's happened is that the GOP has managed to shoot itself in the foot. Again. Face it, all the Republican presidential candidates are worse than Bush Sr, or Eisenhower, or Reagan. It's embarrassing. This is the legacy of being "the party of No" in Congress - there's nobody with a track record of accomplishing much. Not sure what to make of Trump. He's the first national level demagogue the US has had in many decades.

StillBored 11y ago
My take on Trump is that he _IS_ the face of nearly 1/2 of the GOP's supporters at this time. He isn't saying anything other candidates haven't said, or at least winked about. AKA years of angry incoherent propaganda means the candidate with the most angry incoherent message will win. If the reasoned intelligent members of the party refused to refute the garbage from Faux new's (and other) pundits then they shouldn't be surprised at the outcome.