"Three years of making faces and hurling insults at the RN won’t achieve very much."
I couldn't help but think of what's going on in US politics because this is exactly what the Dems are doing, and, well, it could actually be working. This, of course, is the product of the peculiar workibgs of US parties, that they are (historically, at l…
"Three years of making faces and hurling insults at the RN won’t achieve very much."
I couldn't help but think of what's going on in US politics because this is exactly what the Dems are doing, and, well, it could actually be working. This, of course, is the product of the peculiar workibgs of US parties, that they are (historically, at least) institurionally porous and it is possible for outsiders to take power, but once they do, they are melded together with the older party more or less. So the electoral coalitions have shifted only marginally in the US, despite the size of the discontent. Like in Europe, a total collapse of the existing political "coalitions" (groups of insiders who wield power within the institutions) can bring about change and, somewhat ironically, Europe might be closer to that moment than we are, if only because the party institutions are more brittle and calcified and thus more easily "broken."
This still means that something has to take the place of old parties, if only as means to create coalitions, amalgamate wishes, needs, and agendas of different segments of dociety, and transform them into some kind of productive action. While we speak of the PMC losing the skill to do these, fo non-PMC possess these skills? In many ways, the leaders of the past are remarkable: skilled organizers and negotiators came out of backgrounds that did not include silly credentials. And the people who had credentials knew (or quickly learned) how to work with these people. Does anyone still have these skills and/or aptitudes now, in the West?
"Three years of making faces and hurling insults at the RN won’t achieve very much."
I couldn't help but think of what's going on in US politics because this is exactly what the Dems are doing, and, well, it could actually be working. This, of course, is the product of the peculiar workibgs of US parties, that they are (historically, at least) institurionally porous and it is possible for outsiders to take power, but once they do, they are melded together with the older party more or less. So the electoral coalitions have shifted only marginally in the US, despite the size of the discontent. Like in Europe, a total collapse of the existing political "coalitions" (groups of insiders who wield power within the institutions) can bring about change and, somewhat ironically, Europe might be closer to that moment than we are, if only because the party institutions are more brittle and calcified and thus more easily "broken."
This still means that something has to take the place of old parties, if only as means to create coalitions, amalgamate wishes, needs, and agendas of different segments of dociety, and transform them into some kind of productive action. While we speak of the PMC losing the skill to do these, fo non-PMC possess these skills? In many ways, the leaders of the past are remarkable: skilled organizers and negotiators came out of backgrounds that did not include silly credentials. And the people who had credentials knew (or quickly learned) how to work with these people. Does anyone still have these skills and/or aptitudes now, in the West?