Via Jesse's Cafe Americain blog,

"This whole 'red scare' thing has become so thoroughly ridiculous, so blatantly propagandist and overblown, so pervasively passed around by mainstream media outlets without serious investigation, so obviously picked up off a shelf in ad hoc convenience, and so completely hypocritical by the professional elite, that I am tempted to write it off and forget about it. But I should probably be deeply troubled for other reasons. It is a sign of the establishment going further off the deep end, and further dropping its pretenses. It is a sign of a desperate elite that will say anything, do anything, and risk everything to control the narrative and protect itself. We are descending into farce. Deeply dangerous farce." Reader M. M.

This is a short video from Thomas Frank. (I have included two more short videos that are optional.)



Every pundit who is grinding their axes about the various forces that unjustly took the election from Hillary needs to listen to this.

Thomas Frank is absolutely right. Everyone who had their eyes open could see this loss by the Democrats coming, or at the least a much closer race than expected. Donald Trump certainly saw it, and used it for his advantage.

And even now, the core political and entertainment establishment clearly is not accepting this, does not care in their cozy complacency.

A good part of this is because of the credibility trap, and their sense of entitled superiority.

If you don't believe this, watch the Democratic establishment mouthpiece channels like MSNBC almost any evening.

I hate to bother you with yet another posting on this subject, but the context of the situation shows that the message needs to be repeated, and driven home in order to penetrate the echo chamber of the Beltway Bubble.

The widely accepted attitude of the Wall Street Democrats was that the working middle class had 'no where else to go,' and so their interests could be sacrificed, time and again. They chose consciously to spend their energy in the pursuit of specialized big money interests.

And they were richly rewarded with huge sums of campaign donations, personal speaking 'repayments,' and sinecures during the out-of-office periods that the big money donors could provide.

The courtiers in the media and big money donors around the world are very put out that their claim checks for the spoils of a Hillary victory were invalidated. Their outrage and disappointment is remarkable, as if they have somehow been cheated of their due, their turn at the pig sty of public looting.

They blame racism, the Russians, sexism, Bernie bros, hackers, the 'deplorables' in a bit of an ironic twist on the Romney moment, the electoral college, and even the roots of democratic process itself.

They and their strategy failed. Spectacularly.

But they cannot fail, because they are so exceptional. And there is the work to return to the real world for them, in overcoming themselves and their selfish disappointment and cognitive dissonance.

I have been very clear that I was no supporter of Trump, and could not vote for him in good conscience under almost any circumstances I could imagine.

But like so many others I could not in good conscience comfortably pick the 'lesser of two evils' in this case, especially after the serial betrayals of the reforms, the reforms he promised and for which he was elected, that we had at the hands of Obama and his party. The nomination of Hillary was an 'in your face' gesture to the people by the worst of the embedded and outdated elements of a inwardly focused party in its decline.

The same and worse could be said of the Republicans, but that is another story. They just were not able to ruthlessly suppress their insurgents as had the DNC. And if you do not realize that they did so, then you are blinded by your ambitions and should step aside.

If anything, the antics of the DNC during these primaries showed that their callous disregard for the broader economic interests the people, and the hypocrisy which their self interests enabled, knew no bounds.

Think of the arrogance of their mindset— vote for our candidate because she is not good, but less bad than the other fellow, and once again you really have no other choice.

And they wonder why they were so soundly rejected.

The final refuge of the exceptionally arrogant is to dismiss those who have rejected them, and expect them to come crawling back, asking for another chance.

This is certainly preferable to admitting that they had the choice of the people and the winning candidate in their own ranks, and defeated him because they could, because it felt good to exercise power and influence once again, especially when it served their own selfish ambitions.

And in doing so, they defeated themselves.

But perhaps the people will not submit again, and choose whatever is offered, the less worse of a bad deal.

Perhaps the political class will have to eventually let go of their delusory arrogance, and face the work, and the pain, of remaking themselves into what they and their party had once represented: a real constructive and progressive choice, and not just another flavor of less abusive but equally audacious oligarchy.

For in truth, it is still just another form of arrogant oligarchy that serves itself, albeit under the fig leaf of a rationale of 'public service' in constructing a false moral high ground, that is an inch above the swamp.

And if they have the time for it, here are two more short videos that need to penetrate the collective consciousness of the party in order for meaningful progress to occur.