Impeaching Democracy
The world does not have much experience with democracy. What we know of it comes from the century or so the West been tinkering with it and, of course, what can be learned from the ancient Greek experiment with it. Unlike monarchy or various forms of despotism, democracy has had a relatively short run. We have more real world experience with various types of totalitarianism than we do democracy, so it stands to reason that we are just coming to understand its benefits and liabilities.
One thing we are learning about modern democracy is that it is a myth. The people are not in charge. They get to vote on things and select representatives, but those representative don’t actually represent the interests of the people, who voted them into their positions. The office holders in a modern democracy represent the interests of the money-men who sponsored them. Politicians in a democracy are like prize fighters, in that they are controlled by a management team.
Like a price fighter, one of the demands placed upon a modern politician is that he must at all times seek the attention of the public. Much of what we see in our modern democracies is false drama, designed to gain attention. This is why women have proven to be so successful as politicians. Women are naturally gifted with the ability to get attention, especially through false drama. It turns out that democracy is a form of governance modeled on the beauty pageant.
This is the point of the impeachment fiasco. The Democrats are the party of girls and gay men, so they naturally seek drama. Trump’s great sin is that he is a great showman, so he gets all the attention. Impeachment allows the vagina party to one-up him and force him to pay attention to them. If you look at the people celebrating in the streets, it’s lesbians and middle-aged woman. They are not celebrating because they hate Trump. They are happy someone is noticing them.
Another feature of modern democracy is its insularity. Again, this impeachment fiasco offers some insights. Outside of the rage heads on the Left, no one cares. It’s not even interesting as a civics lesson. Months of marketing this thing by the ruling class media has just dulled interest in the subject. Like the new Star Wars movie, the word it out and the public is not being suckered in by the hype. Impeachment 3, Blowhard With A Vengeance is a box office flop.
Despite public apathy, the ruling class continues to put on their show as if they are in front of a roaring crowd. Besotted old Nancy Pelosi staggered out in a funeral dress, thinking she was giving Mark Antony’s funeral speech. The flunkies, coat holders and seat warmers all took turns delivering their best lines, mostly to one another and the panting press corp. If this were a movie, the critics would give it five stars, while the public would give it two stars and the cold shoulder.
That’s the thing about the French Revolution that is germane here. The Jacobins and the aristocracy were black boxes to one another. At several turns, the King and his supporters in the old order could have avoided disaster, but always read things wrong and made the wrong mistake. At the same time, the rebels could not discern the forces controlling the old order. Both sides were left to guess as to why the other was doing what they were doing. The result was revolution.
That seems to be true with impeachment, as well. The public and some parts of the GOP establishment are baffled as to why the Democrats are doing this. The Republicans are grasping about at the approved list of answers, but none of them make much sense. The public seems to be baffled by it all. Even Trump, who has been trying to use this to drum up support is struggling to make sense of it. The workings of the inner party are a black box, even to the people in Washington.
One reason for this, in addition to the insularity, is the fact that modern democracy needs a ruling ideology to legitimize itself. In this regard, it is no different from communism, which claims to be the most democratic and egalitarian of modern political models. If everyone is in charge, then no one is in charge, so ideology sets the rules and legitimizes the process. Just as with communism, the ideology eventually intensifies and burns itself out, usually in a blood bath.
Now, one always has to consider the nefarious in these matters. That is one of the defining features of modern democracy. The people assume that vice is the primary motivator of their public servants. Greed, sexual perversion, gluttony, envy and so on are the default assumptions when analyzing democratic politics. It is one of the ironies of democracy. The system that boasts of being morally superior to natural hierarchical rule is assumed to be driven by the seven deadly sins.
In this case, many assume, and not without evidence, that this whole charade is a complex move to cover up the Ukraine scandal. Team Trump had stumbled onto evidence that many Democrats were on the take by Ukrainian oligarchs. In order to prevent this from becoming a public issue, they manufactured this phony Ukraine collusion story to then hold impeachment hearings. It is a version of 4-D chess to explain the bizarre behavior of the Left.
In fairness, there may be truth to it. Pelosi was dead set against impeachment until she had a secret meeting with the Lawfare people, who ran the Ukraine scam. Suddenly she was in favor of impeachment. Now they seem to be pushing her to stall sending the articles to the Senate, in order to prevent a trial next year. Ostensibly, they don’t want Team Trump presenting evidence or calling witnesses. The fear is, so the story goes, his team will dish dirt on them and their Ukraine dealings.
That’s a bit conspiratorial, but after learning that the FBI, CIA and the Obama administration orchestrated a wide ranging plot to overturn the last election, it is no longer responsible to dismiss conspiracy theories. It is clear that the ruling class is no longer operating by the official rules. Instead, it is like as a gangster state. Wealthy interests buy favors. The politicians scheme with and against one other on behalf of their benefactors. It is one big corrupt scramble.
In that same vein, this ridiculous drama could simply be the distraction to push through laws that the public detests. For example, Trump will giddily sign off on a defense bill that gives amnesty to Liberian migrants. The whole point of Liberia was to send our Africans back to Africa. Now we are importing them back. No one knows what else the schemers are pushing through Congress, as all the news is about impeachment and the public is turning away from the whole thing.
In the end, it really does not matter what is behind impeachment. It is just another indictment of democracy as a political system. It is a system in which no one appears to be in charge, because the people foolishly think their votes matter. Instead, the people really in charge are the parasites and pirates that feed off the organic social capital of the people. The embrace of democracy is the embrace of a cancer that will eventually weaken and kill the body of the people.
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