The Elites Can't Save You, or Themselves

For John, BLUF:  When the Elites are the problem, the People look elsewhere for help.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Removing Trump Won’t Solve America’s Crisis

The sub-headline:

The elites are the problem.

This is Mr Robert W Merry, in The American Conservative, on 18 May 2017.

Here are two early paragraphs:

When a man as uncouth and reckless as Trump becomes president by running against the nation’s elites, it’s a strong signal that the elites are the problem.  We’re talking here about the elites of both parties.  Think of those who gave the country Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential nominee—a woman who sought to avoid accountability as secretary of state by employing a private email server, contrary to propriety and good sense; who attached herself to a vast nonprofit “good works” institution that actually was a corrupt political machine designed to get the Clintons back into the White House while making them rich; who ran for president, and almost won, without addressing the fundamental problems of the nation and while denigrating large numbers of frustrated and beleaguered Americans as “deplorables.”  The unseemliness in all this was out in plain sight for everyone to see, and yet Democratic elites blithely went about the task of awarding her the nomination, even to the point of employing underhanded techniques to thwart an upstart challenger who was connecting more effectively with Democratic voters.

At least Republican elites resisted the emergence of Trump for as long as they could. Some even attacked him vociferously.  But, unlike in the Democratic Party, the Republican candidate who most effectively captured the underlying sentiment of GOP voters ended up with the nomination.  The Republican elites had to give way.  Why?  Because Republican voters fundamentally favor vulgar, ill-mannered, tawdry politicians?  No, because the elite-generated society of America had become so bad in their view that they turned to the man who most clamorously rebelled against it.

Then the author proceeds to list the areas where the elites have their own crisis, in that the votes think that the solutions offered by the elites are not working for those voters.  This is the crisis.  The elites can claim those voters are Les Deplorables, but unless they become discouraged voters, they are a problem.

Then we see the "slow motion coup" in action.  Not the solution.

Now comes the counterrevolution.  The elites figure that if they can just get rid of Trump, the country can return to what they consider normalcy—the status quo ante, before the Trumpian challenge to their status as rulers of America.  That’s why there is so much talk about impeachment even in the absence of any evidence thus far of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”  That’s why the firing of James Comey as FBI director raises the analogy of Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre.”  That’s why the demonization of Russia has reached a fevered pitch, in hopes that even minor infractions on the part of the president can be raised to levels of menace and threat.

Ross Douthat, the conservative New York Times columnist, even suggests the elites of Washington should get rid of Trump through the use of the Constitution’s 25th Amendment, which allows for the removal of the president if a majority of the cabinet informs the Congress that he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” and if a two-thirds vote of Congress confirms that judgment in the face of a presidential challenge.  This was written of course for such circumstances of presidential incapacity as ill health or injury, but Douthat’s commitment to the counterrevolution is such that he would advocate its use for mere presidential incompetence.

Good luck to us.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff