‘As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron.’
H.L. Mencken
A week has passed since Donald J. Trump was re-elected president. The stock market has celebrated with the most impressive run-up since Herbert Hoover was elected. Hoover was a take-charge kind of guy too. ‘For six years, that man has been giving me unsolicited advice’, remarked out-going president Calvin Coolidge, ‘all of it bad’.
But Hoover was elected in 1928. Thereafter, stocks rose a spectacular 40%, before crashing in 1929.
Since the election results were announced last week, one third of the country has been overjoyed, whooping and hollering, sure that happy days are here again. Another third acts as if it were looking at the Reichstag Fire. And the final third gets out the hotdogs and marshmallows.
The poor Democrats have gnashed so many teeth, it is amazing they have any left. This time, they lost by such a big margin the familiar excuses — Russian interference, misinformation, bad luck — just don’t seem to be enough. This time, the Trump victory tells us “who we really are,” says a recent New York Times headline.
Yes, we are a nation of dumbbells and dreamers…neither always good, nor always bad…but always subject to influence. And when ‘the plain folks’ speak, they don’t necessarily say what the elites want to hear.
But here, we emphasise the positive. It is a shame Americans elected Donald Trump. But it’s a good thing they didn’t elect Kamala Harris. And some other good things have come out of the experience.
For one, the benevolent expertise of the elites as channelled by their propaganda media has been thoroughly discredited. The Wall Street Journal:
‘Trump’s Win Cemented It: New Media Is Leaving the Old Guard Behind’
The old media — TV, newspapers, magazines — were overwhelmingly behind Ms. Harris. She had the support of the whole Elite Establishment — the press, the universities, Hollywood and the DC establishment. One study showed that 80% of the news coverage on Trump was negative. And yet, the public seemed to pay no attention.
The legacy media also clung to themes that favoured Harris over Trump. One was the idea that ‘our democracy is in danger’. Donald Trump was supposed to be a ‘fascist’, and should he win, or so went the line of argument, it might be the last election in America.
They held steadfast to the idea of the 6 January ‘insurrection’, too, when any fool could see that the middle-aged dopes milling around the Capitol building were no threat to the police power of the empire.
They insisted that the Covid was an ‘existential threat,’ and not just another flu. Again, the evidence told a different story.
And they even wanted to change the English language to accommodate their woke-ish fads; the ‘him’ or the ‘her’ was replaced by the fake gender-neutral plural, ‘them.’
And while they were adamant about not offending someone’s tender sensibilities by using the wrong pronoun, they were nevertheless eager to send US-made bombs overseas… so the killing of the hes, shes, and thems could continue apace.
These absurdities attached themselves to Ms. Harris like ticks to a dog. She represented the Powers-That-Be…the ‘system’ that had saddled the nation with $36 trillion in debt and made America’s rich richer than ever…but not given the working class a real raise in half a century. It was this ‘system’ that ‘the plain folks’ despised. And what could Ms. Harris say, but ‘vote for me; I’ll give you more of it’.
So, it turned out that the real threat to democracy was not the MAGA crowd. It was democracy itself. The ancient Greeks warned us about it. Allowing the masses to choose a leader is always a threat to the health of the nation. And in the election of 2024, it gave us the choice between cholera and the plague, Trump or Harris.
Voters washed their hands and tried their best to avoid getting sick. But most felt a patriotic duty to run a fever… for one or the other. And since they couldn’t stomach any more-of-the-same from Kamala, they crossed themselves and pulled the lever for Trump.
Regards,
 |
Bill Bonner,
For Fat Tail Daily
