Why Both the Democrats and the GOP Are Totally Doomed Beyond Hope
Trying to Appeal to the "Average Joe" Translates to Pursuing Amoral Stupidity. And Both Parties are Truly Bought and Paid for by Ultra-Wealthy Corporatist, Selfish Jerks.
For many years now, one of my favorite writers has been the humorist and novelist Frank Fleming. Two of his first novels were published through Liberty Island, and he’s also self-published a number of titles and started a delightful Substack,
, which I highly recommend. His most recent installment grabbed my eye and tickled my funny bone, as is so often the case:
Most of Frank’s tips are his characteristic satirical wit - such as his encouragement to Republicans to “make Trump president of the moon,” “just steal the election,” and “try a different industry than politics,” such as making snack cakes.
But a number of his other tips represent common sense conservative prescriptions which might actually work: “better candidate quality” and “Give Trump a job to keep him busy.” Frank suggests Trump should be put in charge of filling the water cooler in the Republican break room.
Indeed, if the Republican Party could move on from the worship of Cheeto Jesus and start nominating some competent, sane, moderate politicians again, then perhaps the party could be “fixed.” I put that term in quotes because it would still be a shitty party, bought and paid for by ultra-wealthy motherfuckers, but at least they might be able to start winning elections again.
There’s just one problem: Republicans don’t want that. They want to continue riding the Trump train off a cliff.
Let’s take a look at the most recent feelings of Republicans regarding Trump, and of course this is after the man welcomed three antisemites to dine with him at Mar-a-Lago. This is from December 14, and it represents the lowest approval rating from Republicans which Trump has received since March of 2016 (emphases added):
As former President Donald Trump seeks to return to the Oval Office, 31 percent of registered voters have a favorable opinion of him, while 59 percent have an unfavorable opinion of him, the lowest favorability rating he's received among registered voters since July 2015, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University national poll released today.
Among Republican voters, 70 percent have a favorable opinion of Trump, while 20 percent have an unfavorable opinion of him. This is the lowest favorability rating among Republican voters in a Quinnipiac University poll since March 2016.
Among independent voters, 25 percent have a favorable opinion of Trump, while 62 percent have an unfavorable opinion of him. This is his lowest favorability rating among independent voters since Quinnipiac University first asked this question of registered voters in May 2015.
Seven in 10 registered voters (70 percent) say they would not like to see Donald Trump as the 2024 Republican nominee for president, while 25 percent say they would like to see him as the nominee. Among Republican voters, 56 percent say they would like to see Trump as the 2024 Republican nominee for president, while 38 percent say they would not like to see him as the nominee.
Let’s let these numbers sink in for a moment. Nearly 3/4ths of the Republican Party still likes Donald J. Trump — a whopping 70%. And of that cadre of true believers, a mere 14% possess enough brain cells to realize that, even if they like Trump, it's pretty apparent that the general public and independent voters do not, and that he is therefore likely to lose the presidential election again. 59% of registered voters don’t like him, 62% of independents dislike him, and, most decisively, 70% of registered voters don’t want to see him as the GOP’s nominee.
This general situation has been fairly obvious for some time now. Most people with even the shakiest of moral compasses can see, plain as day, that Trump is an amoral narcissist who has poisoned America's culture and degraded our political process. They’re sick of him and his clown show. Yet the vast majority of Republicans are still in love with the bastard: they want him to continue leading their party and steering the path of “the Right” and the so-called “conservative movement.”
The GOP remains Trump’s party, as it has been since he gained the nomination. Those like Frank, myself, my business partner Mike Kilgore, and other sincere libertarian-conservatives in the Reagan tradition are now the minority in the party, if we’re even still in it at all. (Literally moments after Trump officially got the nomination, I changed my voter registration on my phone from Republican to Independent.)
But the GOP’s tragic continuing addiction to Trumpolatry isn’t what I really want to address today. Instead, it’s Frank’s other serious suggestion for how to fix the GOP, which - while sounding reasonable enough - I’m sorry to say won’t actually fix anything:
Try to better connect with the average man. One of the problems with politicians like the Republican leadership is they’re all weirdo sociopaths who spend trillions like it’s nothing and thus are far removed from the concerns of the average man. If Republicans could think more like the average Joe, that could give them an election advantage. I don’t know how you get there, though; maybe there’s an article in the New Yorker about how the common man thinks. Or, at the least, you could try streaming some of the shows they watch. Does anyone have any idea what NCIS is?
As I explained in this previous essay, I’ve developed into a George Carlin-style cynic about human beings, and the American public especially:
The so-called “average man” or “average Joe” sucks. Most human beings are just selfish assholes who stopped maturing around high school, if they even made it that far. America’s popular culture reflects this sad truth. The reason you can’t find much to watch on TV, even though there’s seemingly an infinite number of platforms for content nowadays, is that the “average” person just wants to watch stupid crap.
Most people barely read anymore. A study from July this year found:
More than half of adults (51.57%) haven’t read a full book in over a year
22.01% of adults haven’t read a book in over 3 years and 10.83% haven’t read a book in more than 10 years
The 1-book rule – Finishing one book is all it takes to start a reading habit
28.76% of people never finish a book they start reading, but those that finish one book are 29.02x more likely to read at least one more
Fewer young people are reading and read less than half the number of books of older generations
Behold, “the average man:” a fucking dumbass who can’t read one full book a year.
(Editor's Note: Really?! 22.01% of adults didn't even crack a spine during the pandemic years, when they were locked inside? That's legitimately terrifying. -SS)
So given this, is it any surprise that 70% of Republicans - presumably a bunch of “average” men - continue to idolize Donald J. Trump?
We have a huge culture problem in America, and the ineffectiveness of both our dominant political parties is merely a downstream effect of that.
But there are two other fatal flaws in our political system related to this core problem, and they're worth emphasizing:
The bigger the group of people, the more terrible it becomes. Human awfulness grows exponentially as the mob increases in size: more people stop thinking for themselves and following the charismatic cult leaders instead.
American politics is really just a rich man’s game, and most wealthy people are largely terrible too. Few great fortunes are build without great cruelty. The two dominant political parties, and, crucially, the ideological think tanks and activist groups shaping them, are funded and dominated by obscenely wealthy selfish people who are primarily concerned with perpetuating their own wealth and power, rather than with trying to do anything serious to help “the average man.”
Now that I’ve come to accept that most individual people are self-interested and amoral - what I mean when I use the somewhat subjective term “terrible” - so much more makes sense. Like why I felt so oppressed going to a big high school. Like why big churches and big organized religious groups are so plagued with problems, ugly sex scandals, and general corruption. Why big cities are so infested with crime and dysfunction. It’s so simple: the bigger the group of people, the more oppressively it will operate against the individual, and the less efficiently and honestly it is is likely to function at all. This applies to the two big political parties too.
The principle here can be found in what is known as “the law of group polarization,” a paper published by Cass R. Sunstein in 1999 whose abstract can be read here:
In a striking empirical regularity, deliberation tends to move groups, and the individuals who compose them, toward a more extreme point in the direction indicated by their own predeliberation judgments. For example, people who are opposed to the minimum wage are likely, after talking to each other, to be still more opposed; people who tend to support gun control are likely, after discussion, to support gun control with considerable enthusiasm; people who believe that global warming is a serious problem are likely, after discussion, to insist on severe measures to prevent global warming. This general phenomenon -- group polarization -- has many implications for economic, political, and legal institutions. It helps to explain extremism, "radicalization," cultural shifts, and the behavior of political parties and religious organizations; it is closely connected to current concerns about the consequences of the Internet; it also helps account for feuds, ethnic antagonism, and tribalism. Group polarization bears on the conduct of government institutions, including juries, legislatures, courts, and regulatory commissions. There are interesting relationships between group polarization and social cascades, both informational and reputational. Normative implications are discussed, with special attention to political and legal institutions.
This concept is one of the reasons why I love living out in the desert so much, on a secluded 25-acre property accessible only by a dirt road. Cities, neighborhoods, and apartment complexes are generally terrible in all kinds of ways. This is a huge country with lots of open space - we don’t need to live so close together.
Finally, the real reason why both the Democrats and Republicans are doomed as political parties: they’re both really just tools of the ultra-wealthy to promote and secure their business interests. This is encapsulated in the hilarious George Carlin routine I’ve embedded at the top of this post. And it’s not based on any sort of Marxist theories or anti-1% leftist ideology. I remain largely libertarian - people certainly have a right in this country to try and make as much money as they can, as fast as they can.
The problem is that most of the people who want to dedicate their lives to that are usually assholes. And if they're successful in their efforts, actually acquiring the wealth just makes them worse. I write this out of my personal, professional experience. Over the years that I spent working at conservative publications and think tanks, and then living in a wealthy neighborhood in Burbank, California amongst millionaires, one thing became quite clear: most wealthy people are not to be trusted at all. They’re out for themselves and they simply don’t give a fuck about the “average Joe.” There are, of course, some morally decent wealthy people out there trying to help people and make the world a better place, but they sure seem to be a distinct minority.
Jesus warned about this repeatedly:
Matthew 6:24
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Luke 18:25
For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
St. Paul also got in on the action:
1 Timothy 6:10
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
One of my famous verses of wisdom further warns:
Ecclesiastes 5:10
He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.
So, to summarize my cynicism and my choice to abandon partisan politics and Left-Right ideological warmongering in favor of Zionist advocacy and antisemitism awareness:
“The average Joe” or “the general public” is primarily dominated by terrible people.
Gathering people into large groups just makes them more extreme in their terribleness.
Empowering people with large piles of wealth just makes them even worse, and gives them the ability to buy politicians and subvert political parties to support their self-interests.
It’s time to move beyond politics, my friends. The game has long been one of insider dealing and corruption - this history reaches back for centuries - but now we can simply see it more clearly, with the abundance of media and data at everyone’s fingertips. I’ll conclude with my beloved Ecclesiastes again:
Ecclesiastes 4:1-8
Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun:
I saw the tears of the oppressed—
and they have no comforter;
power was on the side of their oppressors—
and they have no comforter.
2 And I declared that the dead,
who had already died,
are happier than the living,
who are still alive.
3 But better than both
is the one who has never been born,
who has not seen the evil
that is done under the sun.4 And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
5 Fools fold their hands
and ruin themselves.
6 Better one handful with tranquillity
than two handfuls with toil
and chasing after the wind.7 Again I saw something meaningless under the sun:
8 There was a man all alone;
he had neither son nor brother.
There was no end to his toil,
yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.
“For whom am I toiling,” he asked,
“and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?”
This too is meaningless—
a miserable business!