The People Are Revolting

Most folks, most of the time, are content to allow elites to manage their governments. They reserve only the power to decided, from time to time, which group of suits gets to put their hands on the levers. When the voters begin to express an anti-establishment sentiment, it is a sure sign that the managers are failing at their tasks.

This is what has happened in Europe. The election of Francois Hollande in France and the failure of Greek parties to form a government are cases in point. The project of European Union was executed with consistent contempt for the voters. That didn't kill it as long as the scheme held together. Now that it is falling apart, Europe's elites have lost control of their peoples.

The United States has always been more democratic, which is to say more responsive to the electorate, than its European counterparts. The same trend, however, is evident here.

In West Virginia, Keith Judd, an inmate serving 210 months for extortion in Texas, won 40% of the vote in the state's Democratic Presidential Primary. Barack Obama won the remaining 60%. It is easy to say that this doesn't matter and that it is a protest vote that reflects local conditions. President Obama doesn't like coal, and a lot of West Virginians don't like that.

Now, however, the same thing seems likely to play out in Arkansas. From the Weekly Standard:

A new poll of Arkansas Democrats shows Barack Obama receiving support from only 45 percent of Democratic primary voters in Arkansas's Fourth Congressional District, while 38 percent support his underfunded and relatively unknown primary challenger, Tennessee lawyer John Wolfe, Jr. Seventeen percent are undecided in the district poll.

Much the same thing is playing out in Republican primaries. The defeat of long time incumbent Dick Lugar in Indiana is one example. Now we have Nebraska. From the Politico:

Nebraska state Sen. Deb Fischer wrested the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate from Attorney General Jon Bruning Tuesday night, riding a burst of late momentum to pull off an unexpected victory.

Her stunning come-from-behind performance amounts to a warning flare about the volatility of the primary season and the unintended impact of outside groups.

Fischer, a rancher and little-known state lawmaker, maintained a positive, above-the-fray tone while Bruning and state Treasurer Don Stenberg consistently traded blistering barbs. But she also benefited from a flurry of outside spending against Bruning, the front-running establishment favorite for more than a year who watched his polling lead evaporate during the final week of the campaign.

The Politico tries to blunt the impact of its own story by using the word "volatility", as if this were about something like the weather, and by bringing in the issue of outside money. Horse feathers. If the money made a difference, it was only because there was a difference to make. What stands out in this story is not volatility but a steady headwind. The people are mad as Hell and they aren't going to take it anymore.

Republicans may or may not benefit from these populist currents. If they do, they will have to figure out in short order how to address the public angst. There is a widespread loss of confidence in our fundamental institutions. If that is not corrected, soon, the next crisis will be a lot more interesting. Trust this political scientist on one thing: in politics, interesting is usually directly proportional to terrifying.

Comments

[larry kurtz]

It's not impossible that more Libertarian voters in the chemical toilet will hack up the earth hater vote for Romney as to deliver the failed state to President Obama in a 47-state landslide being crafted by our party.

You guys are toast.

[larry kurtz]

West Virginia is a failed red state just like South Dakota and Wyoming are:

"The president angered voters with new Environmental Protection Agency policies, which some see as a “war on coal” and have stalled mining permits for the state’s coal mining industry. Both Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and Sen. Joe Manchin, both Democrats, have clashed with Obama on the issue, and neither has committed to supporting him in the fall."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/why-felon-keith-judd-did-so-well-against-obama-in-west-virginia/2012/05/09/gIQA7GwtCU_blog.html

http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming-ranks-nd-for-workplace-fatality-rate-in/article_e47df820-c160-55e2-8016-6c957edec442.html

Red state apologists: accessories to ecocide.

[larry kurtz]

West Virginia is a failed red state just like South Dakota and Wyoming are:

"The president angered voters with new Environmental Protection Agency policies, which some see as a “war on coal” and have stalled mining permits for the state’s coal mining industry. Both Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and Sen. Joe Manchin, both Democrats, have clashed with Obama on the issue, and neither has committed to supporting him in the fall."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/why-felon-keith-judd-did-so-well-against-obama-in-west-virginia/2012/05/09/gIQA7GwtCU_blog.html

http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming-ranks-nd-for-workplace-fatality-rate-in/article_e47df820-c160-55e2-8016-6c957edec442.html

Red state apologists: accessories to ecocide.

[larry kurtz]

"Location: West Virginia

The Coal River supplies drinking water for local communities, supports fish and wildlife, and boasts a water trail for fishing, boating, and other recreation. But the river is threatened by mountaintop removal coal mining, which has already buried, poisoned, and destroyed miles of streams in the basin."

http://www.americanrivers.org/our-work/protecting-rivers/endangered-rivers/2012endangered-coal.html

Rot in Hell earth haters.

[Stan Gibilisco]

Larry, which state would you consider the most successful, the one doing things right to the greatest extent?

[Donald Pay]

What we have discovered is the end of Ayn Randian belief that the wealthy elites should run the world. Atlas shrugged, then died.

We, the non-elites, might not know exactly how we want to run things yet, but we know the people in charge of business and government have serious deficiencies. Some of the right have been sidetracked by Koch-funded organizations that are run by elites but sound populist. These people may eventually figure things out. Others of the right are simply followers of authoritarians or are slaves to religious or authoritarian ideologies.

[larry kurtz]

Probably Oregon or Vermont, Stan. Hawaii just outlawed plastic bags. New Mexico is a language and arts education leader: Los Alamos County was just named healthiest in the US.

Your thoughts?

[Ken Blanchard]

Yes, Donald. Everyone who disagrees with you is deficient in character. Now that you feel better you can go back to sleep.

[Stan Gibilisco]

Larry:

Well, I've done Hawaii! Great place, and I actually managed to make ends meet there (1999-2000). Trouble issues: (1) When the dock workers in San Francisco go on strike, people hoard toilet paper. (2) They applied both their income and sales taxes to my income (they treat royalties as sales). But wonderful progressive attitudes. Beware of pockets of "haole (white people) haters."

I'm actually starting to look more closely at Montana despite their income tax. They have no sales tax, and people I've met who were from there seemed to have remarkably open minds. Also, they seem to have less of an obsession with raping the land than, say, Wyoming does; they have low housing prices and no sales tax. In addition, they have largely avoided the budget crunches afflicting most other states; somehow they do just as well as, or better than, Wyoming without, I would suppose, such a boom-and-bust susceptibility.

At the moment I'm growing increasingly intrigued by the area around Kalispell, with an eye toward putting in a 10-kW Bergey wind turbine and giving back more to the utility than I put in.

Alas, I fight with a growing fatigue problem and a sort of indifference, a sort of doomsday attitude, like, "The heck I should try to save the world. Bah!"

Now more directly on topic ... Yes indeed Ken, the people are revolting. Finally they are seeing that all large institutions, public and private, have evolved away from their (the people's) interests. We're seeing it all over the world. One can only wonder when Europe will begin to fight wars inside itself again, like they did in 1914-1945, and what Russia and China will do as it unfolds. Then we have the Middle East ... same thing ... people fed up with tyrants and plutocrats.

Revolutions have a way of turning out differently than their initiators intend. In almost every case, the new bosses turn out just like the old ones. I think it's time to do away with "bosses" altogether. However, I suspect that the process will involve an awful lot of ugly stuff, and it's only a matter of time before we see it here on the streets of America.

That's one of the reasons Montana appeals to me, although the Black Hills aren't too bad either. Sure glad I don't live in Miami or Los Angeles or even Hartford or Minneapolis any more.

[Stan Gibilisco]

I hit "post" without even one bloody editing pass. Evident, innit?