Populism Fast and Slow
josephheath.substack.com"Elites have basically rigged all of society so that, increasingly, one must deploy the cognitive skills possessed by elites to successfully navigate the social world."
Makes me think of the incomprehensible bills I get from my property insurance company which often sends me things that look like bills that say THIS IS NOT A BILL; in all the confusion we got a termination notice WHERE 40% OF THE AREA IS A BOLD LARGE CAPS LARGE TYPE EXPLANATION OF HOW REDLINING IS ILLEGAL AND I CAN WRITE TO SOME STATE AGENCY IF I THINK I AM BEING REDLINED AND I WANT TO WRITE THEM AND SAY MY CIVIL RIGHTS ARE BEING VIOLATED WHEN I GET SENT BILLS THAT ARE NOT BILLS AND KEEP PAYING MY BILLS AND GETTING MORE BILLS.
If I was running for office my platform would be (1) respect DNT or go to jail and (2) if you send somebody a bill that says THIS IS NOT A BILL, do not pass GO, go directly to jail.
Something that I might observe though is that - all sides seem to do this in their own way. Sure, one can talk about woke and the way that has an elite flair to it, but the example the author gives are things like addiction to social media, the banking system, the rental market, AI, blue collar automation, all things that I think the right is adding jet fuel too.
And part of this is maybe fast and slow thinking but Like, there’s a compartamentalized part of my brain that might be happy if MAGA actually seemed to do the things it described, but it’s allying with the forces that to me that exacerbate all the problems populists describe as problematic.
I can’t help but observe (again fast and slow thinking) that Christopher Rufo’s attack on Cracker Barrel may actually bring down Cracker Barrel faster, because the company now has less options to pivot for viability. But fast thinking just says: “we beat woke!”
Are the working class or whoever voted for Trump winning? It feels like the perception of winning. Emotionally sure, but practically is the populous more empowered or whatever they’re looking for? There goes my slow thinking again.
Like WTF? Is this populism?
https://newrepublic.com/post/202135/donald-trump-cattle-ranc...
This is when populism and narcissistic personality disorder crash in a head on collision.
Isn’t this the elite economic “theory” thinking the author decries:
“The Cattle Ranchers, who I love, don’t understand that the only reason they are doing so well, for the first time in decades, is because I put Tariffs on cattle coming into the United States, including a 50% Tariff on Brazil,” Trump wrote.