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Notes -
Whose life?
In their lives, this is exactly how it works. They don't live in a world of reality, they live in a world of procedure; they don't live in a world of action, they live in a world of discussion and abstraction. They can even play-fight their own organizations (public-sector unions being the best example of this, since it's government negotiating with itself).
They don't have to produce any actual work, or any measurable results; they're getting paid either way. That's how the levers of power work for these people, and they are experienced in working them. (This causes anxiety in the personnel who pride themselves on doing the actual work- performing well is actually a detriment to your job security.)
"Gaining power through manipulation of reality generating better outcomes" and "gaining power through manipulating the first group" are two very different things. The second group's power ultimately depends on the consent (manufactured or not) of the first group.
Trump, and the set of political undercurrents his movement represents, all represent a withdrawal of that consent. Some places- Western Europe, for instance- have atrophied so hard, and diluted the power of the second group so effectively, that the second group is unable to withdraw their consent. [Mass migration is instinctively encouraged by the first group for that reason.] The US is able to field a Trump specifically because it hasn't fully atrophied in that way.
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