I haven't seen MTV since we had teenagers in the house and that ended when the youngest left it 17 years ago.
This extremely well spoken guy guy makes some serious and accurate points about how the cultural scene affects political outcomes. Big shift outcomes generally come as this one did. Quite unexpectedly, Those transitions have always been flash events as opposed to the gradual erosion that the Uberthumpers on one hand and the anarchy alarmists on the other have been warning us about since it seems like now, forever.
This one fixes pretty easy if, in fact, the latest winners can be kept from destroying the democratic process as, for example, what has been going down in the North Carolina Legislature since the election. But not as likely to, from what is appearing on the surface.
Clinton/"New Democrat"/DLC run by professional neoliberals posing as progressives but, rather, self determined elites threw this one into a spectacularly narrow loss. Presuming arrogantly that everything from center right all the way over to the left end would come along for the ride. As horrible an approach as that was they still won the overall vote, but lost in a system that was in place and well known and understood and had nothing to do with "rigging" as the stupid crybaby "abolish the Electoral College" movement is pushing . Got exactly what they've had coming for 25 years.
I was part of State conventions and campaigns that painfully watched the party here in Minnesota effectively hand over elections to horrible Republican winners by letting the political pros in the party foist miserable candidates and fetid neoliberal platforms on to the voters. Had it coming and could have been easily avoided. And now very close to puking it all up in what once was a seemingly locked up Dem enclave.
This loss was a massive institutional failure and should hopefully change the structure of the newly positioned opposition. I'm not particularilly hopeful of that, but it could be easy. Will be interesting to watch. It remains, maybe even more so than it did when some of the early surveys that were done 20-30 years ago, that taken individually basic progressive positions on matters of the economy, personal freedoms and the environment, education and equality find heavy support across the population. For some reason the leadership of the one of the two big parties that should have been able to bring that together has failed miserably. Not to be ignored, I suppose, is the cost of running for and holding office. When seeing that nearly all of the money it takes to do so comes from the same basically regressive sources to both parties I suppose you can find an explaination. And, of course, the fact that the damned Party managed to elevate a candidate who from out of the millions of it's members and organic supporters the one person who was the perfect personification of everything that made it a target for criticism of what it had been morphing in to via neglect for over a quarter century.
The folks who are going to be in charge all up and down now are most certainly going to overplay their hand. If there is anything left, because of a quarter century of neglect on the part of those who historically have naturally opposed them, of an effective rebuttal to that remains to be seen. I have a hard time envisioning their being much stomach or ability to do that. And, again, even if so if there will be a process left for doing so.
