Today on MSNBC, a guest on AM Joy who happened to be a Trump/Republican apologist brought up a point that was actually kind of useful as concerns the hard right Republican MO. He argued that if the Democrats pursue the impeachment of Trump, it could work against them in the next election since it will come down to choice between their hatred of Trump and their hatred of government. And there is something to be said for this. And not only can we see this in the hard right, but we can also see it in the pseudo-intellectual pop hipster cynicism of the left.
“Hillary ain’t much better so I think I’ll just sit this one out or vote for Earth Mother Jill Stein.”
But I attribute this to intellectual laziness among those who want to think they’re enlightened. On top of that, there are those that could really care less about being enlightened and are more focused on the day to day, but tend to go where the wind blows them, what appeals to them coming from whatever ideologue that happens to come around and say something that resonates with them. But either way, it comes down to a failure to recognize how government actually works, the imperatives it tends to work under, and why we can’t always get what we want from it.
There are two approaches to a democratic system: the democratic and the Utopian. The democratic approach recognizes what any Poly Scy 101 class will tell you: that politics is the art of mediating diverse interests. And it recognizes that, because of that, we have to work towards what we want in incremental ways. The Utopian, on the other hand, wants everything right now and exactly in the way they want it to be. And that’s what we are dealing with right now: the very source of our cynicism.
And excuse the shameless opportunism at work here (my pimping of my golden egg), but this comes down to a Metaphysics of Efficiency as compared to a Metaphysics of Power. Once again, the cornerstone of it is Efficiency Potential= Resources/expectations which simply means that nothing can reduce efficiency like raising expectations or lowering resources while nothing, inversely, could increase it like increasing resources or lowering expectations.
So let’s take a really good look at how the high demands (the high expectations (of the Utopian approach has affected the system under which we all live and work, how it has made our democratic system more efficient –that is given the resources available to it. How efficient has our political system really been under Trump who is seeking to meet the high Utopian expectations of his followers?