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You can put the blame for Trump, Brexit, Bozo-naro and other populists squarely at the feet of the previous administrations. The political elite alienated the

You can put the blame for Trump, Brexit, Bozo-naro and other populists squarely at the feet of the previous administrations. The political elite alienated the population. By spying, failing to prosecute financial criminals that decimated economies, stealing several billion dollars, failing to pro-actively prevent a human calamity in the Russia x US proxy wars in Syria, squabbling amongst themselves as the non-politicians gained in popularity. Can you blame people who’s savings and jobs were annihilated by the GFC and saw no major arrests voting the incumbents out? Can you blame the underprivileged domestic populations in Europe from turning right and nationalistic when they see spikes in homelessness, criminality and culture friction when their small towns are flooded with desperate immigrants? Can you blame people voting out de-facto organised crime from power after they rob billions from a third world economy? I don’t think it’s right. I think Bozo-naro is an embarrassment of a human being. But I empathise with the people who threw the previous job out.

pas 7y ago
The people responsible for the machinations (loosened regulations, underfunded financial oversight agencies, underfunded consumer protection, etc) are now/still in power. Blaming the elites of old is a fallacy, because the elites of old are the elites of new. Brexit is a conservative issue, due to conservatives underfunding education, healthcare, fire brigades and the police and blame it on the EU and immigrants. Trump is put in place by the same party that caused the GFC. And Bolsonaro is probably even more corrupt than Dima et al. Yet people voted for him. How, why? Because they were not aggressively authoritan. Trump openly flouts with totalitarianism. Let's see how Bolsonaro will fare. (And I'm not trying to somehow wash the previous administrations clean. Clinton loosened the financial rules, he could have vetoed it, but I don't think that would have mattered, the lack of funding for competent oversight is the main point, and that was under Bush. Similarly I don't have any love for the Labor govs in UK, but fiscal responsibility aka. let's underfund the stuff that only poors use is a classic conservative trope.)
- holografix 7y ago
  I don’t blame the elites. I blame the people who were in place with the power to restrict the elite’s behaviour. Corrupt, incompetent or inconsequent politicians can not be rewarded with re-elections they need to be voted out. However when the population stops believing that any political party presents a credible choice we get populists. We get the “non-politicians”. Of course they solve nothing. They’re worse than the established politicians.
  - pas 7y ago
    There were ... really no one to reign in the elites. That's why they are the elites. Only a subgroup of them can meaningfully challenge a different subgroup of elites. (Not counting revolutions, and other serious regime changes.) Alas the re-election rate is astoundingly high. There's no consequence for being a sellout. Populism thrives on these imbeciles.

pas 7y ago

The people responsible for the machinations (loosened regulations, underfunded financial oversight agencies, underfunded consumer protection, etc) are now/still in power. Blaming the elites of old is a fallacy, because the elites of old are the elites of new. Brexit is a conservative issue, due to conservatives underfunding education, healthcare, fire brigades and the police and blame it on the EU and immigrants. Trump is put in place by the same party that caused the GFC. And Bolsonaro is probably even more corrupt than Dima et al. Yet people voted for him. How, why? Because they were not aggressively authoritan. Trump openly flouts with totalitarianism. Let's see how Bolsonaro will fare. (And I'm not trying to somehow wash the previous administrations clean. Clinton loosened the financial rules, he could have vetoed it, but I don't think that would have mattered, the lack of funding for competent oversight is the main point, and that was under Bush. Similarly I don't have any love for the Labor govs in UK, but fiscal responsibility aka. let's underfund the stuff that only poors use is a classic conservative trope.)

holografix 7y ago
I don’t blame the elites. I blame the people who were in place with the power to restrict the elite’s behaviour. Corrupt, incompetent or inconsequent politicians can not be rewarded with re-elections they need to be voted out. However when the population stops believing that any political party presents a credible choice we get populists. We get the “non-politicians”. Of course they solve nothing. They’re worse than the established politicians.
- pas 7y ago
  There were ... really no one to reign in the elites. That's why they are the elites. Only a subgroup of them can meaningfully challenge a different subgroup of elites. (Not counting revolutions, and other serious regime changes.) Alas the re-election rate is astoundingly high. There's no consequence for being a sellout. Populism thrives on these imbeciles.