re: #110 Florida Panhandler

Power rushes into a vacuum. Take away the power of the 20th Century style bureaucracy and something will fill the void. It turns out in the 21st Century that de-facto Mafia Dons rush in to fill the roles once held by mostly elite-university educated officials.
An overall goal of populists is to exploit people’s ignorance and try and make them even dumber.

The domino theory was flawed. It wasn’t Communism that was the danger. It is Populism that is currently on the march worldwide and is the domino effect in action. Hugo Chavez was a populist as well as Iran’s Ahmadinejad. Both are gone but heralded the new normal- advertised champions of the poor and working class at war with the intellectuals and ended up leaving an economy in tatters. Now it is here in the USA and spreading across Europe.

My RW brother rails against unelected bureaucrats. The GOP want naked partisans who have no loyalty but to the party running everything — and to game the system so that they have a permanent hold on power in this nation. 2020 will be our last chance to correct this.