One of the better analyses of the election, from the sagacious Hardscrabble Farmer at theburningplatform.com:
If there’s one aspect of this past election that deserves some deep introspection it isn’t how so many pollsters and media personalities “got it wrong”. That may be the fallback position of a badly demoralized opponent, but it isn’t the truth and it isn’t going to lead anyone to a better understanding of why they are where they are a week after their defeat at the polls.
A lot of folks have weighed in on this and I have held off on adding my two cents for several reasons, not the least of which being my hesitation to rub salt in the wounds. Besides, schadenfreude is a dish best served cold. There are plenty of people in my circle of family and associates who threw in with the losing camp and I don’t wish to make their loss any more painful to endure. They have enough to deal with in the next eight years of living under a government they will likely despise.
I fully understand what that’s like and it isn’t my place to make things worse, but I thought it might be helpful to try and lay out a set of bullet points that will help them grasp what actually took place while they were thinking about a Clintonian White House and the future that outcome held for them.
The media and everyone in it’s camp deceived the public deliberately. They were caught, exposed repeatedly and yet people believed them because in their hearts they simply couldn’t accept the fact that so many people would be in collusion to defraud them of basic facts, that they would intentionally malign and revile people without just cause in order to promote others who were clearly criminals in order to pursue an agenda that benefited them. But that’s exactly what they did and they are not repentant, nor will they change the course they have committed to. You may continue to trust in them if you choose, but you cannot say that you haven’t been warned.
Getting what you want and how you get what you want are not always harmonious partnerships. Some people want to afford luxuries and so they work for them, others simply walk in, brandish a weapon and then take it away from their rightful owners. In America we have lost sight of the fact that outcomes are not always based on common values and morality. A drug pusher earns more than a carpenter, but that doesn’t make the dealer a more successful member of society.
When you normalize aberrant behaviors and marginalize virtuous ones you enter a sphere where outcomes are erratic and unstable. At a certain point the dependable craftsmen will sense that the system is flawed in it’s construction and begin to cut his own corners. The criminal or indolent layabout will no longer be able to depend on the upright and the industrious to keep their traditional agreement to do their level best and one day, when they come to feed at the trough, they will find it empty.
To continue reading: Notes On A Rout
