Populism Isn’t For Sale Anymore

Guest Post by Tom Luongo

There’s something happening that the unelected oligarchs I like to call The Davos Crowd hate more than anything else. They can’t seem to buy people off anymore.

When we look around the world today at the plethora of popular/populist uprisings both peaceful and unruly we see the same thread running through them at their core.

The people simply don’t believe that the system works for them anymore. Whatever the catalyst was that got them off their couches and into the streets was the proverbial last straw.

And they can’t be bought.

We’re coming up on the one year anniversary of the Gilet Jaunes protests in France. The original €0.25 tax on diesel fuel died a long time ago. President Macron of France though he could just throw the unruly peasants some scraps, not take their final piece of bread from their tables and that would placate people bereft of not only their future but, more importantly, their dignity.

We’re three and a half years from the Brexit vote and Nigel Farage is still fighting the establishment in the U.K. who are dead set against it. This week he stood down 317 candidates to stave off a Remainer-heavy hung parliament and the Tories responded by trying to buy off even more of his candidates.

The big scandal wasn’t that the Tories tried to buy off Farage, they’ve been trying to do that for years and it hasn’t worked. Now, they are brazenly trying to buy off the people around him to deny the Brexit Party any seats in Westminster to pave the way for the ultimate Brexit betrayal.

This goes far beyond putting party before country. This is all about protecting the political establishment from all threats domestic, but not foreign since they’re all committed neoliberal globalist scumbags.

Farage knows this and that’s why he went public with this information. The jury is still out whether the voters will respond to this and reward Farage’s people with seats in Westminster to finally change the dynamic in the heart of the old imperial capital of Europe.

Because it’s a lot easier to bribe a dozen or so candidates than it is to bribe the hundreds of thousands they could represent. This is the fundamental reason why representative governments don’t work.

It’s why they are just as bad as top-down unelected oligarchies regardless of the type — secular, religious, technocratic, communist, democratic.

It’s reached a boiling point in Iran where protests have broken out again like in 2009, and just like in France, over a hike in fuel prices. Governments can have all the extra territorial ambitions they want but at some point they have to provide the basic services the people expect of them.

Just wait until the cost of living here in the U.S. rises to the point where government handouts here can’t cover the costs of the basics. We haven’t quite reached that point nationally, and we won’t in the next couple of years as capital flees into the U.S. in a massive safe-haven trade, but we will.

Because while that safe-haven trade is occurring our government masters won’t get the hint about how much we don’t like them. They will keep the gravy train running on-time just often enough to maintain the illusion of control until things get so expensive here the people revolt.

In Chile, the protesters there are fed up with the fake, corporatist privatization and rampant corruption of the country’s basic infrastructure. Again, a real revolt over a This is a revolt against false liberation of nationalized businesses. It’s the same thing we see all over the West.

It will spark a push in Chile back towards the Left and socialist nationalizations which will give rise to adolescent criticisms of capitalism from the likes of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders.

And the sad part is, they’ll be right. It’s what they’ve been doing with health care in the U.S. for decades, purposefully destroying the marketplace for health care while allowing the worst excesses of the private portion of it to thrive in a captured market of regulatory nightmares and obscene wealth extraction.

These systems become so cocked up that even reasonable people scream for a nationalized solution to make things better, at least in the short run.

Why do you think the big tech firms are acting like openly evil overlords? Because they’re stupid? No. It’s because the longer-term goal is complete centralized regulation of speech in the public forum.

And the only way to get there and have it be sustainable is if the people scream for it themselves. Conservatives are being gaslit into pushing for oversight into Facebook and Google because they are being treated with such obvious bias.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that while we’re still falling for a lot of these false dichotomies, these Hobson’s choices, at the electoral level we are fundamentally aware of who the enemies to civil society are.

And that’s why The Davos Crowd is getting nervous. That’s why they are bribing Brexit Party members to stand down. It’s why they are ramping up the Project Fear on the economic costs of Brexit, Climate Change, Private Health Care and decrying tax cuts as tyrannical.

While at the same time they continue to try and buy us off with cheap money, rising stock markets and easier credit terms to buy depreciating junk like new cars which cost more than many have equity in their homes.

But we’re not for sale anymore.

If we were we wouldn’t keep voting for these populist reformers from the left, right and center. We wouldn’t be descending into the kind of toxic political discourse that is only interested in scoring points against the other side to validate our own anger and dispossession.

We would be looking for solutions. But we’re not ready for that yet. We may not be for sale anymore but we’re not ready to take on the responsibility of fixing what’s broken.

It’s why we keep hearing stories about Millennials making peace with living like rats in cages for $800 a month rather than building enough wealth to *gasp* find a mate and *gasp* start a family.

But they know, deep down, this isn’t sustainable. It’s inhuman. But curling up in a rat’s nest and calling it home is better than taking to the streets, for now. And their depression will turn to nihilism, if it hasn’t already, and eventually will explode in the ugliest ways.

People are capable of selling themselves on the virtues of a terrible life only for so long, of putting up with suffering because there’s still a small comparative advantage to going along versus striking out.

There is little to no direct cost for voting against the system that is bankrupting you financially, emotionally and spiritually. That’s why we see things like Trump, Brexit, Catalonia and Italy.

But eventually voting isn’t enough, especially when it’s obvious that if voting changed anything they would have outlawed it years ago… only they pretty much have.

Over and over we’re being told we voted wrong, that our betters will fix our mistakes for us. But it’s not working anymore. And as the inherent inconsistencies of these institutions take center stage over the next few years, we’ll see even more uprisings around the world.

Let’s hope it stays peaceful. That enough people like Farage and his ilk simply say, “No. I’m not for sale.” And the voters, cynical as they are, believe them.

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12 Comments
Solutions Are Obvious
Solutions Are Obvious
November 17, 2019 6:15 pm

When Ron Paul left Congress what remained was and is 100% bought and paid for.

Ron was absolutely useless because he was outnumbered. What he did was say things that people were thinking but didn’t realize others were also concerned about. Ron lit a fuse, apparently a long fuse.

Sooner or late this BS representative gov’t is going to disappear simply because their greed is endless and will lead to the US Dollar’s collapse.

Donkey
Donkey
  Solutions Are Obvious
November 17, 2019 9:41 pm

SAO, you said the word.

AC
AC
November 17, 2019 6:37 pm

I’m expecting the GOPe to pretend to be populists, as Candidate Trump clones, pretty soon – before stabbing the electorate in the back again, as soon as possible. They’ll run with this scam until enough people realize that, no, they are all still the same useless treasonous liars they were last week and are still serving the same hostile parasite class they have always served.

Then they will switch to some new line of bullshit to get elected, and keep the knives coming – at least until they get lined up and shot by someone.

Anonymous
Anonymous
  AC
November 17, 2019 6:58 pm

at least until they get lined up and shot by someone.

I should live so long.

Nabi
Nabi
  Anonymous
November 17, 2019 8:35 pm

Even better.

yahsure
yahsure
  AC
November 17, 2019 8:41 pm

They live in an alternate universe compared to the average person who is just trying to make it. Just wait for the rise in food prices. the Democrats are tossing gas on the fire.

KaD
KaD
November 17, 2019 7:24 pm

A system of positive rights gives to people advantages based upon qualification and thus imposes duties upon others to give them those advantages.

A system of negative rights gives people the right to be left alone in their present states and imposes duties upon others not to injure them in anyway by diminishing their present states.

The only debate worth having is this one: What kind of jurisprudence system is the country to have? Is it one based on positive rights or one on negative rights? https://truedollarjournal.blogspot.com/2019/07/democrats-republicans-political-talk-in.html

Nabi
Nabi
  KaD
November 17, 2019 8:38 pm

You don’t seem to understand the legal community and how it (in search of profit and power) screws everything up.

Nabi
Nabi
November 17, 2019 8:33 pm

Well, don’t bet your sorry butt on ‘the people’. But, Good Luck!

Phil
Phil
November 18, 2019 4:58 am

It’s probably a good thing that those lackeys in the MSM refuse to show footage of all of the protests happening around the entire planet.
Us Dirt People might start getting some ideas…

Not Sure
Not Sure
November 18, 2019 9:36 am

It’s the best explanation so far. Why the world economy is tanking while the US economy is supposedly in its best shape in 50 or so years. We are kept fat dumb and happy to maintain the current status quo until they are ready to pull the plug.

And the plug will be pulled, as the current direction is unsustainable. The only question being is when; and the answer will be when the highest percentage of the population will be begging for government to step in and save us from the tech, medical and banker monopolies that are currently running things.

This will advance as the older generation recedes and hands of the the running of America to the rats who live in cubicles and have lost the meaning of private property. It’s a sobering view and one that seems to fit the current clown world we are living in.

Anonymous
Anonymous
November 18, 2019 12:00 pm

Our economic system has been bastardized into “Crony Capitalism” not free market capitalism !
This is thanks to the federal reserve felonious gang and of course the circle jerk of Wall Street to K-Street to Capitol Street all conspiring with that military industrial complex . The invisible hands that hold the nations economy by the balls for the benefit of the few at a devastating cost to the many !
The “THEY” involved here will never relinquish any power leaving only two choices left for average Americans . 1) continue to suffer under the heavy handed tactics of government minions or 2) fight back every single place you can , challenge and derail every government action to extract wealth from you that you can.
Any confrontation that goes physical with government minions you as a private citizen victim of government largess will lose big time
Until enough have suffered the indignities of asset forfeiture without due process or through the confiscatory tax system resistance is futile !
Why do you think there is a mad rush from all political sides to disarm the public . It sure as hell has nothing to do with your safety or security or your bill of rights !
Remember the “THEY” leading the charge allegedly for you do not give a fuck about you your family , nothing ! Their only basic concern is what “ THEY” can take from you for their benefit !