Trump's success is due in no small part to the condescending and disconnected attitude of the "elites" who he attacks.
Never mind Trump is one of those elites.
The American people have been getting ripped off for a very long time. They can feel it. They just don't know how or who is ripping them off. But they can feel it in their bones.
And that is where demagogues find their niche. "I'll tell you who is robbing you. It's those (fill in the blank)."
Jews, Mexicans, socialists, elites, whatever.
I can't blame people for wanting to tear the whole system down and start over. But sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
We need targeted medicine, not radical amputations of all our limbs.
I would not mind if we got rid of every federal elected official and replaced them. They are the source of the rot.
But at the same time, we can't have newbies making decisions about very complicated matters.
What to do...what to do...
If at the end of the Trump era we have a body politic which heeds the voice of the people, then maybe this was all worth it.
But I see no sign of that. If anything, the GOP is less responsive to the American people than ever before.
Fearing and heeding the torch-bearing mob is not the same thing as listening to the American people.
Vance seemed to understand this back when he wrote his elegy. Now he's throwing matches.
www.bbc.com
