The Intelligentsia and The Others

So… we have had sometime to digest the election and watch the reaction of the body politic.

It has not been good. From “Safe Spaces”, Safety Pins, and calls for assassination, the nation is fractured.

There has been endless analysis as to why Trump won… or more appropriately from the media’s perspective… why Clinton lost.

What has not been talked about much, and needs to be, is the philosophical divide that exists in two separate spheres. Not economic spheres… geographical ones.

The intelligentsia exists in two parts of this continent.  The west coast and the east coast.  There is a variety of reasons for this collectivization on the coast lines, but the base rationale are jobs.  That and a relatively mild climate.  When people live in close proximity to one another there is a natural primed environment for regulations.  The collective, and the efficiency of the collective becomes the chief concern.  With little concern about the supply lines of food or water attention can be shifted to more pressing problems like transgendered bathrooms, and protecting the rights of the aggrieved class.

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This “victim industrial complex” has an architecture, and employs millions.  There is an economic interest in maintaining, and even growing the structures that regulate the body politic and seek to limit individual expression.

Those that live amongst the collective are consumerists first and foremost, taking on ever expanding debt to satisfy their “needs” for the latest technology, or leveraging money to secure the education necessary to participate in the structures of collectivism.

This pool of intelligentsia is also the waters that the government drinks from.  “Educated” people on the coasts seek regulatory jobs, because…. well… they pay well.  Extremely well.

Since they are the brain trust of the nation they promulgate laws, that often times seek to reign in the freedom of the second group of citizens… the “others.”

The Others, live in what is pejoratively described as “flyover” country.  People who work in small towns and relish their own identity as well as their independence.  Well… to be fair, some of the intelligentsia have invaded and colonized portions of the “others” territory.  Taxed to the point of insanity, some of the intelligentsia have taken up shop in places like Las Vegas and Colorado.

The Others, took this election and finally said enough is enough.  While the cocktail party circuit can talk about the need for universal health care, and are perfectly willing to increase the costs to employers and individuals to achieve it, the steel worker in Pennsylvania asks, but what about my job that has been out sourced to China?

While the Intelligentsia talks in their breakout groups about ensuring that a particular culture be singled out for special extra-Constitutional protection, the Others worry about a fundamental degradation in our international standing, and by extension our own safety.

Donald Trump was not an ideal candidate.  His debate performances were frankly tepid at best, and he does have a knack of essentially stream of consciences speaking.  Often, taking notes on his speeches becomes an exercise in futility.  His written polices are far more coherent, but apart from the occasional policy interview with some of his surrogates the gravamen of his policies are largely ignored by the media.  Instead they focus on hyperbole.

Hillary Clinton was not an ideal candidate.  There never seemed to be a realistic justification of her narrative other than 1) She was a woman, (a fundamentally sexist statement) and 2) Donald Trump did not possess the “temperament” to be President.  Like Teddy Roosevelt, or Ronald Reagan, or even dare I say Bill Clinton did?

She was also despised… probably accurately… as a criminal.  This point is not fleshed out enough among the devastated intelligentsia.  How could you support a candidate that had so much corrupt baggage attached to them?  It is one thing to have a gestalt dislike of Donald Trump…. the answer to that is not Hillary Clinton.

When you look at the electoral map you see a sea of red, with two thin blue lines on the edges you see the angst of the others taking out their pitch forks.

Many months ago, I was doing a private CCW with a money manager for high net worth individuals.  He is a conservative fellow and we started talking a little presidential politics during one of our breaks.  He was completely convinced that Trump would loose.  Not by any analysis that he had performed, but by the conference calls he had participated in.  The financial structure of our country had organized itself around the inevitability of a Clinton Presidency.  He was despondent, but had to acknowledge the validity of the scholarship.

This same certainty existed Massachusetts in 1776, it existed in East Germany in 1987, and even Moscow in 1991.  Structures demand longevity for them to be structures, and a belief that a single event, or a single election can topple those structures creates uncertainty.

Structures also are breeding grounds for mold and rot.  Sometimes they can be cleaned, but there are times when they need to be brought down and rebuilt.  The intelligentsia would acknowledge the mold, but were not prepared to abandon the whole house… the “others” decided it was time to do it for them.