The Whirlwind Is Here

I have to admit something. Unlike most of my PJM colleagues and many in the right punditocracy, deep down I never thought Mitt Romney would win.

I’m not bragging here, not in the slightest. I’m no Nostradamus of any sort and I wish to God it had been otherwise. But if you look back at the collective prediction post of the other day, you will see that mine was very short, almost terse. I was hiding behind Michael Barone, a friend whose knowledge I respect immensely, relying on his views and obfuscating my own, almost willing them away.

Also, I thought maybe it was my DNA – seeing Storm Troopers behind every door – that made me think that way. I didn’t want to be a kill joy.

Still don’t, but analyzing what occurred in any but the bleakest manner is to be Dr. Pangloss times ten. Anyone who continues to think America is a center-right country is chugging so much Kool-Aid he or she is in danger of turning into a blimp and floating off into space. (That includes me for listening to and believing my good friend Hugh Hewitt when he said this repeatedly.)

A country with 8 or who knows what percent real employment, headed for insolvency in a global meltdown, with a national debt reaching to Alpha Centauri, just voted for more of the same. Romney did worse than McCain in many areas.

Boy, have we got work to do.

I don’t blame Mitt Romney. He wasn’t the greatest candidate, but plug in any of the others who were competing and it likely would have been worse. Imagine how Rick Santorum would have dealt with the bogus and repellent “war on women” and imagine an electoral map almost exclusively blue. And that’s just for starters. There was little anyone could do. The electorate had already been brainwashed (more of that in a moment).

Yes, the president has luck that makes the Irish seem like failures: A hurricane arrives in the nick of time to save him from his Libya lies (not that the media wasn’t already covering up for him, but still). And he gets a boost from a Republican governor more interested in his own survival than the country’s.

But even with that luck you would think the electorate would have the brains (self-preservation really) to put him out of office.

So we have a problem with democracy. It’s not working or, more specifically, has been turned on its end, with the masses manipulated against their own self-interest, creating power elites similar to those described in Milovan Djilas’ The New Class.

How did that happen? I think many of us know there are three pillars of our own destruction: the educational system, the media and entertainment (the popular arts).

Those three areas are so corrupted those who legitimately are on the center-right (or anywhere close to it) will increasingly find themselves swimming upstream against a current so great who knows where it will take them. (Think Hayek, Orwell, etc.) We must address ourselves to these three immediately before it is too late. In many ways, it already is. Culture is the mother of politics and mother is turning into Medea.

If it sounds as if I am depressed, I am. Extremely. We are indeed riding the whirlwind. The America we thought we knew was not there. The face of the globe just changed as well. The enemies of democracy are laughing.

There is only one thing left to do: roll up our sleeves. All the way.

****

Thumbnail image courtesty shutterstock / Daniel Loretto