Last night’s Super Tuesday primary victories for former U.S. president Donald J. Trump and incumbent president Joseph R. Biden were no surprise. So boring were the returns that I was in bed by 8:30 pm. For us mortals, the electorate, the worn-out questions are, “Which of these candidates best represents me?” and “Which of these candidates can provide the best goodie bag?”
Personally, my answer to both questions is, “None”, in part because it raises the question, “If I am behind in life is it because you, Ms. Politician, have been restricting my access to resources in the first place?” If that is the case, I should permanently eliminate your control of the spigot and focus on procuring my needs on my own. As I asked a colleague last week during the taping of a show I regularly contribute to, “What does the government and the Congress provide you that you are not out there providing for yourself?” I do believe that once people understand that the answer is “nothing”, then they would get less emotional about who is elected to national office.
The irony is that political actors are required to construct a narrative and messaging that keeps the electorate believing that the government and the legislature are best at providing that goodie bag. This messaging is especially necessary because the purpose of the three nation-state powers: the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative powers is to keep the Electorate focused on the clouds that surround Mount Olympus, keeping the Electorate’s eyes focused on the phony battle on the ground versus the real battle in the sky.
The fringe elements of the Electorate look at politics, especially this presidential election, as some battle between good and evil. We have been here before. The battle between Sleepy Joe and Agent Orange is nothing new. For those of us old heads who were around in 1980, the scare amongst Democratic Party voters was that Ronald Reagan was the anti-Christ. I can’t tell you how many times I heard that reference while a freshman at Florida A&M University. Reagan was going to not only takeaway Pell grants (which he did) but was also going to eat your first born.
Today those freshmen back in 1980 are now living in nice homes, with good paying jobs, and posting vacation pics on Instagram while passing down the verbal legacy of fear to their children and grandchildren, this time messaging that the Orange Dude from Queens is out to drag you out of the attic while calling you the “N” word.
The real battle is behind the clouds as the Titans and Olympians argue how best to draw more yield out of the distracted Mortals. Should we offer more social services at a lower cost to government in return for higher marginal taxes with those tax revenues flowing to us? Should we offer the guise of tax cutting and encourage more taxable transactions with the end result being more tax revenues flowing to us?
The true trader, not these mouthpieces talking their book on YouTube as asset managers, sits in what I term the anarchist state of being and wants the three powers of the nation-state applied such that the electorate stays focused on the fight among political parties bidding for a two-year contract to manage the electorate and the resource managers extract the most yield from the electorate.
For those of us wishing to sit in the anarchist state of being, there is a lot of work to do. I won’t say that I wish that I had come to this realization earlier. That would only create a depressed environment of what ifs. Rather, I just tell myself that I am moving from one portal into another and that the time it took is just a lower facet of my imagination.
Don’t roll around with the Mortals more than is necessary …
Alton Drew
6 March 2024
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Alton Drew 