Populism Reincarnated- The Rise of the Anti-Politician

Populism Reincarnated- The Rise of the Anti-Politician

All of us should have seen this coming from some time back- cycle upon cycle of professional politicians promising one thing and, if not delivering the complete opposite, delivering nothing at all. While the balance of power has shifted to and fro, in both the White House and in the halls of Congress between two major political parties, very little has changed- and what has changed has been for the worse.

When taken to excess, moderation breeds mediocrity and the excessive constraints on free speech, illegitimately bred from the demands of political correctness, has strangled and suffocated political speech to the point of utter silence. The professional political class has been emasculated to the point of irrelevance and what do they have to show for it? An electorate whose trust in public service has reached an all-time low, and the vacuum that has thus been created has resulted in the rise of the anti-politician.

The anti-politician is the candidate who is deemed outside the political mainstream. On the left, a Bernie Sanders fits the mold of the anti-politician- a self-styled and self-identified socialist who wants to end free-market capitalism in toto. Sanders is Barack Obama on steroids and has capitalized (forgive the term) on the leftward lurch of the Democratic Party that came into fruition with the nomination of Obama in 2008. Elizabeth Warren also fits the mold, wanting to take this country to a place it would otherwise dare not go. The only difference between these two is that the former, Sanders, admits he is a socialist and is officially running for the Democratic nomination, while the latter, Warren, admits nothing and is not running- not yet, anyway. Warren is just one Hillary Clinton indictment away from tossing her hat into the ring, for she is smart enough to know that neither Sanders, nor Joe Biden, nor Lincoln Chafee, nor Martin O’Malley, nor Jim Webb, nor an indicted Hillary have the goods to   ultimately be elected president. Were she actually a Native American, instead of pretending to be one, her Native-American name might be “Waiting in the Wings” Warren.

On the other side, there are several anti-politicians vying for the presidency. Most talked about is Donald Trump, the real estate mogul who has a history of patronizing career politicians from both parties in order to do his bidding- and, bravely, he not only admits it, he brags about it, to boot. Ben Carson, a noted pediatric neurosurgeon, and Carly Fiorina, a former business executive, have virtually no political experience at all, but these two candidates have elevated their respective standings in the Republican Party at the expense of established politicians like Rick Perry, Chris Christie, Rick Santorum, George Pataki and Lindsay Graham. Despite what all agree was a very poor debate performance, “the Donald” has managed to keep his dominance of the GOP field intact, and has miraculously enhanced his numbers over establishment rivals like Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, the latter being the “outsider inside Washington” whose unforgiving conservative credentials account for his solid standing in a soon-to-be-shrinking field of seventeen wannabes.

While the reporting class (a.k.a. the mainstream media) and the political class (i.e. Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, et al) collectively wring their hands and gnash their teeth about the prospect of a Donald Trump grabbing the nomination, the growing legion of Trump supporters couldn’t care any less. They continue to fill stadiums which ensure that their candidate will get the attention he seeks. The same holds true for the leftist loons who believe in their hearts that Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren can lead them to the promised land of a European-styled socialist utopia- despite the reality that Europeans who live in such socialist utopias do not view their countries as utopian- no, not by a long shot. Sanders and Warren are merely trying to grab the baton from Barrack Obama and run us further down the road into mediocrity, a road that Obama has paved quite thoroughly, here at home and around the world.

The moral to the story, and the message to the political class, is simply this- just keep screwing around with the demands of the people, while you continue to marginalize their message, and eventually, the people will marginalize the politician and cleave to the anti-politician, instead.

-Drew Nickell, 24 August 2015

© 2015 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved

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