The thing is, there's always a class that holds itself right, but the way
this shows up varies. The current populist flavour has its echoes in the
past - Aberhart and Jackson, for two - but it hasn't been a common thing.
Our western élites, at least, have tended towards the more subtle forms of
abject failure.
My impression, although it may be wrong, is that the current problems
afflicting the right (i. e. the people who used to be the parties of the
City, Wall Street and Bay Street, within my own memory) come from the total
collapse of an attempt to make cynical use of low-level small-c
conservatism by allowing "direct democracy" into their selection processes,
and the finding out that the transition was (1) irreversible in catastrophe
theory ways and (2) generating results wildly divergent from what they
wanted.
If the US still selected its candidates in smoke-filled rooms, Trump would
not be President, and if Doug Ford had had to go through a convention of
the sort Bill Davis had to he would not be the party leader. (David
Cameron's hubris can he left to the Kindly Ones.)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2018-04-20 02:02 am (UTC)The thing is, there's always a class that holds itself right, but the way this shows up varies. The current populist flavour has its echoes in the past - Aberhart and Jackson, for two - but it hasn't been a common thing. Our western élites, at least, have tended towards the more subtle forms of abject failure.
My impression, although it may be wrong, is that the current problems afflicting the right (i. e. the people who used to be the parties of the City, Wall Street and Bay Street, within my own memory) come from the total collapse of an attempt to make cynical use of low-level small-c conservatism by allowing "direct democracy" into their selection processes, and the finding out that the transition was (1) irreversible in catastrophe theory ways and (2) generating results wildly divergent from what they wanted.
If the US still selected its candidates in smoke-filled rooms, Trump would not be President, and if Doug Ford had had to go through a convention of the sort Bill Davis had to he would not be the party leader. (David Cameron's hubris can he left to the Kindly Ones.)