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The things you listed don't have a great deal of endogenous support among the populace, either. I'm most interested in cases where there is shear between popul

The things you listed don't have a great deal of endogenous support among the populace, either. I'm most interested in cases where there is shear between popular opinion and The Establishment, and who wins in those cases. It seems to me that The Establishment consistently wins, and popular opinion slowly changes to conform with The Establishment, and not the other way around. It's a peculiar characteristic of Our Democracy. At least we've come a fair way from the original claim that pro-establishment media outlets have no "appreciable agenda," so I feel the exchange has been productive.

philwelch 8y ago
> I'm most interested in cases where there is shear between popular opinion and The Establishment, and who wins in those cases. > It seems to me that The Establishment consistently wins, and popular opinion slowly changes to conform with The Establishment, and not the other way around. It's a peculiar characteristic of Our Democracy. Having same-sex marriage turned into a constitutional right, cannabis legalized in a couple dozen states, and Donald Trump in the White House are very prominent counterexamples to that contention.
- neetdeth 8y ago
  The election of Trump was definitely point scored for populism. It also triggered a full scale immune response that we're still in the throes of. Generally, it seems to be working. His orders are blocked by the courts, his executive branch employees undermine him, his own party wouldn't fund his signature campaign proposal, the special counsel investigation drags on... I mean, it's not called the Resistance for nothing. You can send a shock through the system at the ballot box, but you cannot divert its course.
  - philwelch 8y ago
    > The election of Trump was definitely point scored for populism. It also triggered a full scale immune response that we're still in the throes of. The fact that you ignored the other two examples kind of implies something about how you perceive the “establishment conspiracy”. One could just as easily say that Trump is a shadowy plot to distract people from the shadowy billionaire agenda of tax cuts, if they were so inclined. What you have here is basically an unfalsifiable conspiracy theory. If I tell you about a time when public opinion changed the status quo and overturned the preferences of the “establishment”, you can just tell me it was the establishment all along. If I tell you about a time that “the establishment” tried to do something (the Vietnam War maybe?) that the public hated and resisted so much that they forced it to stop, you can explain that away, too. It’s not even wrong so much as oversimplified. There’s no monolithic neoliberal establishment operating out of George Soros’ basement or anything. There is a general bias towards centrism and the status quo, but that’s because the status quo, almost by definition, is something that most people tacitly accept. When it comes to foreign intervention in particular, the question is usually “which intervention”. We actually tried it your way, once—in 1993 we elected a non-interventionist president who wrapped up withdrawal from Somalia and refused to intervene in Rwanda. He didn’t stay that way, but a change in perspective just happens sometimes when your inaction leads to millions of innocent people getting hacked to death with machetes.
    - neetdeth 8y ago
      We should go back to doing things my way. R2P is horse shit. I’ll let the strawmanning pass without further comment.
      - philwelch 8y ago
        > We should go back to doing things my way. R2P is horse shit. If the mass murder of almost a million people doesn't bother your conscience nearly as much as, for example, the use of NATO airstrikes against the Milosevic regime in Serbia, then we have a fundamental impasse in basic values. And I think you'd find a similar fundamental disagreement with at least a plurality of Americans, bolstering my contention that your opinion is merely unpopular, as opposed to under active suppression from powerful institutions.

philwelch 8y ago

> I'm most interested in cases where there is shear between popular opinion and The Establishment, and who wins in those cases. > It seems to me that The Establishment consistently wins, and popular opinion slowly changes to conform with The Establishment, and not the other way around. It's a peculiar characteristic of Our Democracy. Having same-sex marriage turned into a constitutional right, cannabis legalized in a couple dozen states, and Donald Trump in the White House are very prominent counterexamples to that contention.

neetdeth 8y ago
The election of Trump was definitely point scored for populism. It also triggered a full scale immune response that we're still in the throes of. Generally, it seems to be working. His orders are blocked by the courts, his executive branch employees undermine him, his own party wouldn't fund his signature campaign proposal, the special counsel investigation drags on... I mean, it's not called the Resistance for nothing. You can send a shock through the system at the ballot box, but you cannot divert its course.
- philwelch 8y ago
  > The election of Trump was definitely point scored for populism. It also triggered a full scale immune response that we're still in the throes of. The fact that you ignored the other two examples kind of implies something about how you perceive the “establishment conspiracy”. One could just as easily say that Trump is a shadowy plot to distract people from the shadowy billionaire agenda of tax cuts, if they were so inclined. What you have here is basically an unfalsifiable conspiracy theory. If I tell you about a time when public opinion changed the status quo and overturned the preferences of the “establishment”, you can just tell me it was the establishment all along. If I tell you about a time that “the establishment” tried to do something (the Vietnam War maybe?) that the public hated and resisted so much that they forced it to stop, you can explain that away, too. It’s not even wrong so much as oversimplified. There’s no monolithic neoliberal establishment operating out of George Soros’ basement or anything. There is a general bias towards centrism and the status quo, but that’s because the status quo, almost by definition, is something that most people tacitly accept. When it comes to foreign intervention in particular, the question is usually “which intervention”. We actually tried it your way, once—in 1993 we elected a non-interventionist president who wrapped up withdrawal from Somalia and refused to intervene in Rwanda. He didn’t stay that way, but a change in perspective just happens sometimes when your inaction leads to millions of innocent people getting hacked to death with machetes.
  - neetdeth 8y ago
    We should go back to doing things my way. R2P is horse shit. I’ll let the strawmanning pass without further comment.
    - philwelch 8y ago
      > We should go back to doing things my way. R2P is horse shit. If the mass murder of almost a million people doesn't bother your conscience nearly as much as, for example, the use of NATO airstrikes against the Milosevic regime in Serbia, then we have a fundamental impasse in basic values. And I think you'd find a similar fundamental disagreement with at least a plurality of Americans, bolstering my contention that your opinion is merely unpopular, as opposed to under active suppression from powerful institutions.