{"id":72129,"date":"2024-02-15T06:00:56","date_gmt":"2024-02-15T11:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=72129"},"modified":"2024-02-10T13:54:14","modified_gmt":"2024-02-10T18:54:14","slug":"trump-and-the-failure-of-the-elite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/02\/trump-and-the-failure-of-the-elite\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump and the Failure of the Elite"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cTrump is the sign and symbol of elite failure.\u201d So says Martin Gurri in The Free Press\u00a0<\/em>in an article entitled\u00a0 Trump. Again. The Question Is Why?<\/a><\/p>\n

He is trying to account for the Trump phenomenon, both why, despite everything, he has so many dedicated supporters.\u00a0 And why he inspires so much visceral hatred from his opponents.<\/p>\n

Put simply, Gurri argues that the elite expect to run things.\u00a0 But they haven\u2019t been doing a very good job.\u00a0 When to their surprise the iconoclastic rude and crude Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, they realized that they were not controlling the country anymore.\u00a0 He was elected because so many Americans no longer trust the elite establishment.<\/p>\n

\n

In this climate, Gurri agrees that democracy is threatened, but not because Trump is an authoritarian.\u00a0 But because the elite, as its contempt for Trump broadens into contempt for the ordinary Americans who elected him, is turning against the ideals of representative democracy.<\/p>\n

According to Gurri,<\/p>\n

\n

The importance of Trump isn\u2019t Trump. He is what philosophers call an epiphenomenon\u2014a surface symptom of a deep and previously hidden malady. Trump appears to act as a sort of funhouse mirror on which the progressive elites who run most institutions, including the federal government, see themselves reflected in the most monstrous and frightening light. The malady now exposed is this: the elites have lost faith in representative democracy.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This turn against democracy on the part of the elite is manifested in the elite\u2019s \u201cvisceral contempt for voters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The undisputed champion in this sport is Hillary Clinton, whose \u201cbasket of deplorables<\/a>\u201d seemed like the supreme expression of aristocratic disdain for the peasantry until it was exceeded by\u00a0her recent call<\/a>, in the spirit of the Khmer Rouge, for \u201cformal deprogramming\u201d of Trump supporters. Not too many years ago, such abuse of ordinary voters by a politician who once led her party would have been a cause of mass astonishment. Today, it\u2019s just another voice in the choir. President Biden, for example,\u00a0has accused<\/a>\u00a0those loyal to Trump of \u201csemi-fascism.\u201d These enemies within \u201cpromote authoritarian leaders and they fan the flames of political violence,\u201d the\u00a0president holds<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And if the citizens who support Trump are \u201csemi-fascist,\u201d or even \u201cfascists,\u201d as I have heard them described, then they must be harshly dealt with.\u00a0 To be sure, the elites think of themselves as fighting to protect democracy, but Gurri notes, they tend to say they want to protect \u201cour democracy.\u201d\u00a0 That is, the democracy that belongs to them, the democracy that they have controlled.<\/p>\n

\n

The implications are clear. Not only Trump, but the nearly\u00a075 million<\/a>\u00a0Americans who voted for him, must be silenced and crushed. To save democracy, it must be modified by a possessive: \u201cour democracy.\u201d Only one side of the political divide has legitimacy. The progressive elites and their Democratic allies must rule in perpetuity since any defeat entails the triumph of fascism. Given their criminal and subversive tendencies, Republicans and their ilk must be smothered under the heavy hand of the state. Dissenters to the progressive creed of identity should be treated as domestic terrorists. Disfavored opinions\u2014about Russia, about Hunter Biden, about Covid-19\u2014must be barred from the prestige media and censored in social media. Noble lies must be told by scientists and intelligence experts. In \u201cour democracy,\u201d the ideal election is a choice of one: Trump must be knocked off the ballot. He should be investigated, impeached, prosecuted, not just once or twice but as many times as it takes to destroy him forever.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ironically, when the elite does this, that inflames ordinary citizens against them even more and intensifies their support for Trump.<\/p>\n

\n

The public, we saw, deeply mistrusts the established order. In this context, Trump is once again an epiphenomenon: a club in the hands of an alienated public, with which to bash the elites and their unresponsive institutions. . . .We should never think of Trump\u2019s vulgarity and weirdness as personal attributes. They are political signals. It\u2019s his way of saying, \u201cI am not them,\u201d of standing apart\u2014while making rude noises\u2014from the petrified dignity of elite politicians.<\/p>\n

Every attack validates his stance. . . . The frenzied assaults by institutional forces give him an air of authenticity. He looks, to the public, like a true agent of revolt.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What do you think of this analysis?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Trump is the sign and symbol of elite failure.” So says Martin Gurri, who tries to account for why he is so hated by the elite and loved by so many non-elite Americans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":72183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,12,19,36],"tags":[12691,14382,13748,3881],"class_list":["post-72129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america","category-culture","category-government","category-politics","tag-2024-presidential-campaign","tag-americas-class-conflict","tag-cultural-elite","tag-donald-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump and the Failure of the Elite<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""Trump is the sign and symbol of elite failure." 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