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Notes -
Let's discuss democracy, and the decay and potential recovery of two anglo-origin democracies.
South Africa is clearly having a rough time at the moment. Anemic growth, mass joblessness, the spread of slums, ultraviolence on the streets.
The party largely responsible for this the ANC has a declining vote share but still commands the loyalty of a plurality of the electorate. In addition, most of the parties opposing the ANC are not exactly free marketer reformers of the type that might rapidly turn some of these issues around. Since Apartheid ended more than 20 years ago and these trends are deepening, it seems that the decay has not swayed most voters away from the policies that caused the issues.
A friend of mine said that he has full faith in the UK (Great Britain) to recover fully from its current woes, because one day voters will wake up and see that governance is terrible and getting worse, and they will vote for the opposition who will fix things.
Certainly, some of the parties in the Yookay are trying to fix things through structural economic and social reforms (Reform, Restore), but the plurality of voters including young voters favor parties that would either deepen or continue the issues (Greens, Labour, Muslim Indie Bloc)
Note: from the perspective of this poaster the main issues facing the UK are: Low Skill Immigration, Economic Stagnation, Integration of Non-European Migrants, Crime
So I ask the Motte: Do you believe that in anglo origin democracies that enough decay will have voters seek out parties with effective fixes for the issues, or merely cause voters to slowly rebel against the incumbents?
I feel increasingly disillusioned with our ability to fix issues. Elite circles have successfully ideologically homogenized to such a degree that pretty much no smart & capable person would willingly, publicly go against the main tenets. It just fucks up your prospects too much.
It further has result that our systemic problems are increasingly caused specifically by ideological blindspots, because all problems that aren't can be fixed, while these are the only ones left to fester. Racism, for example, in the lower and middle classes can be a serious problem yet be fixable if the elite is clearly & openly against it. Racism in the elite is coup-complete.
So the opposing politicians are all clearly dysfunctional in one way or another, even when they're right on some core issues. You can find smart people arguing against ideological dead angles, but either only in a small scale that doesn't call into question the entire framework, or pseudonymously online.
Modern multiculturalist neoliberalism isn't the worst ideology, certainly better than, say, communism, but this also means again that as a smart person there is less pressure to change the system: You can make your own life good just fine, so why bother?
I expect it to be supplanted in the longterm, but most likely by an ideology I consider significantly worse.
To the extent that this is true I think it because the words "smart & capable" are more often a short-hand for displaying behaviors and beliefs associated with the elite, rather than anything to do with intelligence or the capacity to solve problems.
As men like Donald Trump and Elon Musk aptly demonstrate, you can be hugely successful across multiple domains for decades and still get dismissed by affluent liberals as an idiot/incompetent for having the wrong aesthetics.
What the hell? You're grouping Trump together with Musk?
Trump was never hugely successful at anything. "The Apprentice" was perhaps the only real success.
What did he ever outperform at, given his ambition (which any idiot can be born with) combined with absolutely massive inherited wealth (400m usd or so)?
The man leveraged a middling career in reality TV to go 2 for 3 against the entire political establishment of the most powerful nation on earth. I know he hasn't turned that into fulfilled promises, that he's running into hard walls and making bad decisions. But if he is a failure, he has failed to greater heights than most will ever dream of.
He's a success because of the failure of the system. It's not a novelty, it was always the criticism of democracy that it would allow charismatic demagogues to claim political power. The miracle was supposed to be figuring out a way to either keep them at bay or check them
Trump is clearly skilled at moving the public. He's not skilled in some sort of objective domain like someone like Musk who we can say is more impressive at that than the bulk of the elites.
(And I think that Musk also failed at government).
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