Americans try one thing. Then we grow discontent and want the opposite.
We are trying out having a president of bad character who is openly self-serving.
There have been two moments in the past decade when Americans were so shocked by undeniable examples of Trump's bad character that they stopped to reconsider him. The first was the Access Hollywood tape. It was disgusting, but was it disqualifying? It wasn't, not to almost half of Americans. Democrats made the opposite decision, expressed in the #MeToo movement.
The second was the January 6 events. Even most Republicans were shocked. We saw people climbing the balconies. That disapproval passed. Trump re-wrote history, describing the event as peaceful protest seeking last-minute justice to repair a rigged election. Republicans accept Trump's version, or pretend to. They don't care if it is false.
Republicans have entered a steady-state equilibrium for understanding Trump's character. Some of it is bad. Even people in the Fox and conservative media silos get hints of it, but they do not care.
-- He shorted vendors and subcontractors.
-- He cheated on wives.
-- He openly enriches himself with meme-coin crypto schemes, business deals for his family, gifts from foreign countries.
-- He is flagrantly vain in seeking glorification and praise, in coins, banners, named buildings, prize-seeking, ballrooms, and arches.
-- He tweets hyperbolic rants in the middle of the night.
-- He lies about Iran, tariffs, his political opponents, the economy, and even the price of gasoline, which we can see on our own is higher than he claims.
Americans understand that Trump is all about what is in it for him. Americans are living in that reality. Republicans have a majority. Now, after very aggressive gerrymandering, they may well keep it after the midterm election. Trump, the openly self-serving president is the status quo.
This is creating an appetite for something opposite. Maybe it will be a retired general or admiral, talking about duty and honor. I have not seen that person emerge, but there is time if someone acts now. Possibly it will be a Democratic politician who integrates selfless duty into his or her message. There is room for a self-confident Democrat who voices a higher purpose. It won't look like ambition. It will look like patriotism.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is not my favorite politician to lead the Democratic Party. I see her as pie-in-the-sky, unrealistic, immature, and insufficiently grounded in the world of practical getting and spending. But I recognize that the current political environment -- Trump's character and a Gilded Age concentration of wealth -- creates a moment for dramatic change. Trust-busting, progressive Theodore Roosevelt was perceived as an extraordinary change agent 125 years ago. Maybe Americans want dramatic change, and I am just too old and comfortable to realize it.
Here are two minutes of AOC. She isn't describing her character. She is revealing it. She is describing her purpose. Americans are getting ready for this or something like it. This may be the future:
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10 comments:
American Exceptionalism: the only developed nation without universal healthcare, the only developed nation with unregulated gun violence, the wealthiest nation in the world with people living on the streets, a "democratic republic" ruled by multi-billionaires, etc.
I too am old and comfortable, but I'm more than ready for some dramatic change.
I wrote off AOC as a serious politician (prematurely, obviously) when I read that she'd uttered the following vapidity, on video, and AFTER her election to the House:
"If we work our butts off to make sure that we take back all three...uh, chambers of government--the Presidency, the Senate, and the House....".
Hillary Clinton would have scoffed at such a mistake...when she was nine years old. Is Trump capable of such ignorance? Sure. So, just like AOC?
Perhaps in this day and age she's his natural successor.
He was an associate of Jeffery Epstein, the most notorious pedophile, sex trafficker and blackmailer in history.
Have we forgotten?
That's a great idealistic rap she has going there. She may even believe it. And clearly, the audience loves it.
But if she wants to actually get something done, she's going to have to descend into the realm of practical politics. And as she does that, we will see the sharp, clear edges of her rhetoric blur as she works on putting together a big enough coalition to power the changes she wants.
Or maybe she will stay "pure" and cater to her base of left-wing idealists, and bask in their admiration while channeling their continuing frustration at how no one else believes what is so obvious to them.
AOC has the temerity to suggest that government should promote the general welfare. That obviously sounds outrageously radical to those who haven't read the constitution, and/or the oligarchs in charge.
The nation that invents most of the new tech.
The only nation with Google, Apple, SpaceX, Nvidia, Oracle, Palantir, Anduril…
Watch it twice. Presidents come and go. Not being attached to a title is liberating. Change is forever.
What a breath of fresh air.
Re: your first reply above. The technocratic elite. Oh yeah, right. Like they are going to save the working class!
I'd take affordable education and healthcare over all those any day.
So AOC is NOT looking for an upgrade to Senator, or President? That is indeed a breath of fresh air.
Perhaps she can better effect change as a dilettante leveler alongside Hasan Piker and Zoran Mamdani.
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