This is old, but as more and more GOP donors start to wonder what the heck happened to their big give to the Bush/Kasich/InsertEstablishmentRINOHere super-PAC, this is something maybe they will start to pay attention to....
Where big GOP bucks could matter (NYPost, 2012)
See, almost no thinking people are "in play". They've already figured out which way they are going to vote. It's the vast swathe of generously named "low-information voters" who vote with a meme, a "NARRATIVE"(tm), and as part of the crowd, that are gettable. This is where progressives (especially economic soft-socialists and gentle-touch neo-liberal -ism apologists) have a major "structural" advantage (call this "the distributed costs problem"), but also where Hillary has a potential major issue...
Obama pulls off the "I am your King" (the defining aspect of his presidency and modern progressivism more broadly) because he has maintained an iron-clad image of altruism ("Do what I say, because I say, and because I know best"). Hillary's open commission of felonies, if combined with clear self-dealing via the Foundation, represent a major hole through which a negative popular "meme" could emerge.
This is also where most in the political class begin completely mis-understanding the success of Trump. It seems easy to "anti-meme" Trump (and therefore separate him from his low-information voter base)... until you discover that he somehow embraces and consumes your anti-meme, and hits back with an even more chuckle-inducing anti-meme of his own. At that point establishment figures (on both sides) start spluttering about truth and facts... but the first rule of low-information voter politics is that there is no such thing as truth or facts... or at least, that if they exist, they are way less important than "THE NARRATIVE"(tm) and it's daughter memes.
So what should conservatives/libertarians do? First, recognize that democracy (that is, pure democracy) was doomed from the beginning. The only question is will those who believe in individual freedom rule, or will those who believe in central control rule. Second, recognize that in a democracy, the mob will and has always controlled who rules, and it's personalities, *narratives*, that win the mob.
In the distant past this idea was that democracy would "work" only so far as the community was small enough that a single voice could be heard by all. This is absolutely still true. Today, though, the limitation is not on how loud or far the voice travels, but rather does the voice break through as one of the finite channels people are hearing among the absolute cacophony around them. This is exactly the same idea as "how loud" a single voice is... just in a different technological environment.
Third, given these facts, recognize that a voice's volume and reach can now be purchased with money. Facebook, Google, Yahoo, the Today Show, the Tonight Show, Comedy Central, The Onion, The NYTimes, CNN, Fox News, ESPN, Netflix, HBO, Hulu, etc, etc, etc. The channels "the masses" are fed their opinions through can all be bought.
Of course, this is also the great precipice we stand on... don't settle for "the masses" meme of what "fascism" is... consider this discussion, for example: Economics of Fascism (Wikipedia). You see, government knows already that the great feeding tube delivering opinions to the masses can be bought... they been renting-to-own for years.
I love listening to progs bash big business, because progs *love* big business! The bigger the business, the fewer the "market" players, the easier it is to "keep the economic players in line"... When DC says jump, Detroit/Bentonville/Wall Street/Hollywood/InsertFawning"PrivatelyOwned"ConduitOfCentrlControlHere ask how high? Big business stands as the whipping boy for progressive self-flagellation, and, in return, is assured "market" protection in the form of arcane and absolutely smothering regulation that ensure no meaningful competitors could ever emerge.
Is the creeping loss of individual liberty inevitable? Can it be stopped? I honestly don't know. But I agree with Glenn Reynolds: There are places GOP big bucks could matter...
No comments:
Post a Comment