What? Chomsky and Bannon Agree!

[JackLuis]

Let’s Maybe Not Trash the ‘Establishment,’ OK?

Trump promised to drain the swamp, but he's only made it worse. And now Democrats are running against the establishment, too. That’s a bad idea.

While Bannon and Chomsky have radically different ideologies, their diagnoses of the anger, discontent, and fear that have crept into Western politics are remarkably similar. They both talk constantly about working and middle class wage stagnation. They both condemn an economic system increasingly dominated by finance—what Bannon describes as the maximization of shareholder value instead of citizenship value. They both accuse a small ruling class of disregarding the interests of the majority of the population in pursuit of ever-increasing concentrations of wealth and power. And most of all, they despise what they regard as the guiding ideology of the postwar political establishment.

The establishment doesn’t have many fans these days. According to Pew data, public trust in government has been collapsing since the middle of the twentieth century. While there was a resurgence in trust throughout the 1990s and at the beginning of the 21st century, it fell from 54 percent in October 2001 to just 18 percent in December 2017. These numbers suggest that Bannon and Chomsky’s diagnosis is right – decade after decade of frustration with the establishment opened the way for a subversive candidate like Trump.

With well-known populist candidates like Sanders and Warren in the 2020 race, the broad outline of the Democratic primary is already clear: There will be another battle between the progressive and establishment wings of the party. This will hobble the victor going into the general election and may end up handing Trump a second term. Then we’ll all get another excruciating four-year reminder that there are worse things in the world than the establishment we’ve all learned to despise.

If the youths hadn't refused to vote in 2016 we may have had another 'Subversive Candidate' in office. Think about that!