What is a country to do when it's leadership proves incapable of addressing the moment? Or when its for-profit media decides that pimping for page hits goes above their stated mission of factually reporting the "news"? Or when the elites just decide that the hoi polloi are too stupid to be entrusted to make their own decisions?
These are questions that Americans will face over the coming months as the bag of hammers that used to be a functioning political party embraces the Bronzed Ego and the loose collection of special interest groups that used to make up the left embraces the Anointed One.
Historically when the official institutions start to fail the collapse of an empire was not far behind. The machinery of the bureaucracy working efficiently being vital to the salvation of the state. In America, it's possible that this is different.
Because the machinery of the State has been malfunctioning for quite a while, and life has continued to move forward.
Executive Offices? Broken since at least the Clinton regime. And odds are, despite most people thinking their state is the bee's knees, your State apparatus is a clunker as well. In Texas, where I live and work, much is made of the so-called "Texas miracle" which provided jobs to some in an overall jobless National climate. Politicians bragged and wanna-be politicians waxed poetic, none of them admitting that they had very little to do with things going well.
In fact, Texas succeeds in spite of itself. Administratively, the State is broken. Inefficient and improperly administrated getting something done in Texas is a shit-show of passing the buck and frustrating meetings and phone calls. I'm willing to bet your state is just the same.
At the municipal level our cities are being ran into the ground by elitist, progressive mayors who view the job as nothing more than an opportunity to establish a patronage system and buy votes. Newly elected Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner has spent more time in office ensuring that his patrons receive lucrative board positions in quasi-governmental agencies than he has doing anything else. Trust me, your Mayor is just the same.
Currently, America is ruled by a rather witless, mean-spirited man who has clearly spent most of the last eight years trying to hide the fact that he's wholly unqualified for the job. It's so bad that even his supporters can only blather along about "respecting the office of the President" rather than respecting HIM as the President. That all of that is just so much bullshit (there is nothing about ANY elected political office that is due respect) is besides the point. When the truth is inconvenient, repeat the lie. In this case the lie is that President Narcissus has things under control.
Legislatively it's only slightly better but still bad. There's too much "there out to be a law" or 'Something! must be done." thinking and less trying to figure out how to get the law out of the way. If you want to see the symptoms go try and get through the federal register, see all of the laws that you could be breaking right now but had no idea they were laws.
At a State level it's even worse. High-minded legislators identify a solution that needs a problem and doggedly work to find it. Typically this 'problem' is that the rubes over which they rule are too stupid, in their opinion, to think for themselves. This leads to a poorly crafted law designed to 'fix' a problem that doesn't exist which creates unintended consequences elsewhere.
Municipal government, especially in authoritarian, progressive cities are the well-spring of most modern day idiocy. Before bad ideas reach the State and Federal levels they are typically piloted in poorly ran cities. It's almost as if the State and Federal Legislators are deliberately picking the worst ideas to foist on Americans just so they can laugh at the struggle.
"We're the government and we're here to help." is a threat today, not a promise.
I'm willing to bet you don't have the respect for the judicial branch any more. And why would you? You're less likely to get a serious hearing in a Federal court of law than you are to get ran though the ringer by the bureaucracy. Criminal justice and regulatory reform are not just nice things to have, they're mandatory if the government wants to re-elevate it's standing in civil society.
Even worse than the government however, is the media. I've said about all I can say about the current state of newspapers, they're a hopeless case that, to be honest, have no more place in the public discourse. They could have maintained a very important role had they decided to focus on local issues in an honest and transparent manner. Had they decided to watchdog the governments that local citizens often lack the time to.
Instead they retained the old, wheezing business model that elevated the unsigned editorial and increasingly based news coverage on those ideals. They became separated from their reader based and, over time, began to view them as too stupid to be trusted. Today, media elites at newspapers operate only as courtesans for the ruling class. They serve no meaningful function and should be roundly ignored.
Now, after all of that, the good news.
As you wake up this morning and watch what used to be a political party rally around the Bronzed Ego, as you stare in dumbfounded awe as so-called "revolutionary" FeelTheBern sells out to the Anointed One and a book deal and as you watch the horrific news from Nice and you see President Narcissus on ESPN, of all places, lecturing you on his topic du jour remember this:
It is still possible, just, to operate in America today. Yes if you want to start a business you have to navigate a Minotaur's maze of red tape and regulation, and yes you certainly don't want to get on the bad side of the local magistrate lest your life become hell. But business is still moving along. Jobs are still out there to be had and wealth can still be created.
All of this happens because the strength of America is not in her ruling or courtesan classes. It is present in her people and that has not been entirely stripped from us.....yet.
