Comments on: Alternate Factions

By: jerry hamrick

jerry hamrick — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 13:06:15 +0000

I know Ross Perot. He is not like Donald Trump at all. He was not like Bill Clinton or George H. W. Bush. He is a better human being than Clinton, and he would have been a stronger and better president than George W. Bush. If he had won, America would have been a better place–at least for a little while.

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 11:50:00 +0000

In reply to Alice.

I think basically that is right, though I don’t think it is as specific as the prestige hierarchies of academia. Meaning, technocratic political influence derives from a number of sources and isn’t just a product of a narrow band of elite institutions.

But essentially, this is why I think the Democrats in particular but also most Republicans can’t figure out how to respond to this crisis, much as the establishment parties in the UK and France and elsewhere cannot–because in order to respond, they have to understand what’s wrong, and that takes some degree of introspection as well as seeing what’s going on out there.

By: Alice

Alice — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 03:15:57 +0000

I for one find it a saddening and terrifying impulse. To me, it speaks to fundamental failures of our democracy – failure to represent, failure to achieve political legitimacy. These are essential qualities. Honestly, I think that college professors maybe have more work to do than politicians, because I think a fundamental problem is the hegemony of certain prestigious institutions of higher education and they way that they demand Americans from other backgrounds assimilate into their culture to gain access to political power and economic security. Placing the technical expertise of government in the hands of a single culture is simply unacceptable in a democracy.