Bremmer and Hanania are the equivalent of HR in the tech business: they don't comprehend that it's the engineers who run the show. Further, their contempt for the actual workers is worn as a badge of honor, it's disgusting. The only place I'd follow either is to the gallows, so I can watch.
Hardly a scientific poll, but still. I think most people understand, if only intrinsically, that there's no use in pretending we live in a democracy if we actually don't. Given that democracy is always more an aspirational form of government than not, and even the best democracies in the world have an element of authoritarianism to them, nobody really believes in democracy as much as they think they do.
Very few of our current leaders would be considered aristocrats in a traditional sense. They would be considered bourgeois at best. At this point the entire PMC is basically bureaucratic and voting itself a share of the spoils, just like other classes are accused of doing.
One dirty little secret is that people like upper class leadership if available. Justin Trudeau’s arrogance only helped, although his grandfather made money in gas stations. Mark Carney’s arrogance and entitlement helps him versus populist PP. PP’s adopted parents were teachers while Carney’s dad was a school principal for aboriginals who was interviewed saying non-PC things, but in an educated tone.
One other problem is generational. Basically you can assume that our entire politics is distorted by their self-interested voting. For example, once they got out of university the cost of college education skyrocketed. Now we are spending money on giveaways for them and not investing in the future.
Sure, I don't actually see people like Bremmer and Hanania as aristocrats, which was my point. They actually have quite a lot in common with the oligarchs they decry. Bourgeois is definitely the more accurate term.
In America, the idea of an everyman becoming a political leader used to be a trope, one which was fetishised to a large extent. Nobody really believes it now. It's a nice idea, but people naturally gravitate towards elites being our leaders, because humans are hierarchical and won't trust someone unless they perceive them as superior in some way.
Heinlein's model of citizenship isn't without flaws, but his point is more fundamental: only those who have skin in the game, those who have something to lose other than good feelings, should participate in politics.
The idea of skin in the game is a good one and one leftists have abandoned. In Canada we have Carney whose family lives in New York and who has triple citizenship with Ireland and the UK. He seems to see the US tariff dispute as a chance to make Canada a de facto part of the EU.
We also had the Supreme Court a few years ago granting citizens abroad the right to vote. (They don’t pay taxes when resident abroad, unlike the USA.)
I recently read Neil Howe's "The Fourth Turning is Here". He makes a compelling case that we're at the end of a cycle and building up to a generation defining crisis. With that, how we resolve the crisis will define the next few generations and *could* lead to a new Golden Age.
Peter Zeihan, while a mess in many ways, has suggested that the demographic crisis will necessarily lead to a new, unprecedented economic model. This, arriving in parallel with the broader turmoil crisis, represents significant challenges, but *could* lead to a new and better society for future generations. There could be the chance to meaningfully change civilization. Hopefully for the better, and that's the challenge for "the right".
Unrelated, the older I get, the more convinced I am that Heinlen's citizenship model had it right.
You have to remember: the first half the 20th century was a tough one for the U.S. in many ways. Yet it's still remembered as the "American Century." Had World War II turned out any different, we may have never said that. It was almost entirely based on events from 1941-onward which defined the 20th century as belonging to America.
People forget: 100 years is a long time. Millions of things happen in a century. It's very possible, depending on how the Fourth Turning turns out, the 21st century could very well become an American Century once again.
Bremmer and Hanania are the equivalent of HR in the tech business: they don't comprehend that it's the engineers who run the show. Further, their contempt for the actual workers is worn as a badge of honor, it's disgusting. The only place I'd follow either is to the gallows, so I can watch.
Forgot to mention this in the essay: I recently ran a poll on X asking whether you'd prefer to live under an honest dictatorship or a fake democracy.
The results were pretty unanimous: https://x.com/AgentMax90/status/1907292377632625111
Hardly a scientific poll, but still. I think most people understand, if only intrinsically, that there's no use in pretending we live in a democracy if we actually don't. Given that democracy is always more an aspirational form of government than not, and even the best democracies in the world have an element of authoritarianism to them, nobody really believes in democracy as much as they think they do.
Very few of our current leaders would be considered aristocrats in a traditional sense. They would be considered bourgeois at best. At this point the entire PMC is basically bureaucratic and voting itself a share of the spoils, just like other classes are accused of doing.
One dirty little secret is that people like upper class leadership if available. Justin Trudeau’s arrogance only helped, although his grandfather made money in gas stations. Mark Carney’s arrogance and entitlement helps him versus populist PP. PP’s adopted parents were teachers while Carney’s dad was a school principal for aboriginals who was interviewed saying non-PC things, but in an educated tone.
One other problem is generational. Basically you can assume that our entire politics is distorted by their self-interested voting. For example, once they got out of university the cost of college education skyrocketed. Now we are spending money on giveaways for them and not investing in the future.
Sure, I don't actually see people like Bremmer and Hanania as aristocrats, which was my point. They actually have quite a lot in common with the oligarchs they decry. Bourgeois is definitely the more accurate term.
In America, the idea of an everyman becoming a political leader used to be a trope, one which was fetishised to a large extent. Nobody really believes it now. It's a nice idea, but people naturally gravitate towards elites being our leaders, because humans are hierarchical and won't trust someone unless they perceive them as superior in some way.
Heinlein's model of citizenship isn't without flaws, but his point is more fundamental: only those who have skin in the game, those who have something to lose other than good feelings, should participate in politics.
The idea of skin in the game is a good one and one leftists have abandoned. In Canada we have Carney whose family lives in New York and who has triple citizenship with Ireland and the UK. He seems to see the US tariff dispute as a chance to make Canada a de facto part of the EU.
We also had the Supreme Court a few years ago granting citizens abroad the right to vote. (They don’t pay taxes when resident abroad, unlike the USA.)
I recently read Neil Howe's "The Fourth Turning is Here". He makes a compelling case that we're at the end of a cycle and building up to a generation defining crisis. With that, how we resolve the crisis will define the next few generations and *could* lead to a new Golden Age.
Peter Zeihan, while a mess in many ways, has suggested that the demographic crisis will necessarily lead to a new, unprecedented economic model. This, arriving in parallel with the broader turmoil crisis, represents significant challenges, but *could* lead to a new and better society for future generations. There could be the chance to meaningfully change civilization. Hopefully for the better, and that's the challenge for "the right".
Unrelated, the older I get, the more convinced I am that Heinlen's citizenship model had it right.
You have to remember: the first half the 20th century was a tough one for the U.S. in many ways. Yet it's still remembered as the "American Century." Had World War II turned out any different, we may have never said that. It was almost entirely based on events from 1941-onward which defined the 20th century as belonging to America.
People forget: 100 years is a long time. Millions of things happen in a century. It's very possible, depending on how the Fourth Turning turns out, the 21st century could very well become an American Century once again.