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blackbootz  ·  2580 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Discussion Topic: Trump

I heard an interview between Ezra Klein and Kara Swisher in which the latter likened Trump's ascendency to the "creatively destructive" forces epitomized by Silicon Valley but now being wrought on government. To continue that line of thought: The constitutional framework and the country it scaffolds would probably be unrecognizable to the Founding Fathers. Yet we've kept the constitution around, in one form or another. Trump is stress-testing the limits of that system.

What if the system doesn't serve us anymore? Not because the new administration is tyrannical or despotic, but because it's ossified and unresponsive. And the methods by which we could streamline decision-making or make the system more democratic--measures to discourage gerrymandering, campaign finance rules, etc.--require inordinately difficult coordination, namely constitutional amendments.

(Natural brakes on the system are a feature, not a bug. It should be hard to pass a law, and especially amend the constitution. But I can acknowledge that design principle and still think that constitution fails in significant ways.)

Paul Gilding recently highlighted several silver linings to a Trump administration, namely that trickle-down economics and capitalism will be exposed even sooner for the incomplete and insufficient systems that they are to face the demands of the future. The business class and corporatists are in the driver's seat, so they will suffer the blame when Shit Hits The Fan. (This seems a bit like wishful thinking. Haven't we already, countlessly, put to rest trickle-down economics? Yet here we are again). Also, Trump has galvanized an enormous segment of the population. It's too soon to tell if this will result in any electoral or policy changes, but he has a point.