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On the Sterilized Façade of Political Elitism

Originally published on Medium.com, March 7th, 2018.

By Johnny RingoPublished 3 years ago 7 min read
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From 1993 to 2001, Bill Clinton was the President of the United States. As a young boy growing up in 1990s America, I don’t remember much about Clinton’s presidency, save US forces dropping bombs on Kosovo, gas prices were under a dollar a gallon in my area, the Columbine shooting, and of course, the Monica Lewinsky affair. That affair marred the legacy of former President Clinton above anything else, and was the first time I remember a Congress calling for the President to be impeached.

Following Clinton was the presidency of George W. Bush, a president who was mired in controversy from the beginning, thanks to claims that his brother, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, rigged the Florida ballots in order to ensure that George would win the election over his opponent Al Gore. Worse than Clinton, Bush started a war without the expressed declaration of Congress, but was instead justified by the incredibly controversial USAFREEDOM act, which began a still ongoing, long and costly war, complete with warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, justified under the vaguely worded Section 702 of the FISA act.

The presidency of Donald J. Trump was incredibly controversial, perhaps the most so in American history, before he even took office. Between demeaning comments about women, racist comments about Native Americans, mocking a disabled reporter, his father having ties to the KKK, and repeated attacks on his political opponents both within his party and without, Trump is always talked about. Trump has been lionized, worshipped, maligned, demonized, mocked, and talked about across the world of politics as the ultimate in self-indulgent, self-made, and self-important political figures; a perceived crème de la crème of political elites.

Regardless of how one perceives President Donald Trump, the one thing that cannot be denied is that this man has smashed the concept of political elitism. Not through populism by electing an everyman, but by being an elite figure so polarizing, so loved and hated, so boisterous and crude, yet a man demanding ultimate respect. Donald Trump may yet prove to be beneficial to populist movements simply by shattering that myth of the political elite as supremely educated bourgeois figures, with ever calculated mannerisms and speeches, ever presenting an air of a sterilized, measured, focus-group-tested respectability.

Because of Donald Trump, the carefully crafted image of the politician as an exquisitely superior, trained and educated Ivy League Ubermensch in every sense of the word, has been shattered. A certain exasperated cynicism pervades the people of the United States, where we often expect our government to be corrupt, our leaders to do nothing that will make our lives easier, and yet we all are expected to play the parts of the adoring political sycophant, worshipping the candidate that one of two entrenched mega-parties chooses for us as the second coming of Christ, and their opponent as the antichrist. Every one of us is aware on some level that political theater is gilded and hollow, and about 2/3 of voting eligible people in the US refuse to take part in that theater.

On some dark level, the ascendance of Donald Trump might be viewed from a cynical lens as the punch line to a centuries old joke. The idea that so-called political elites are such due to wealth, not some innate power that only they can access. For all of its theater, its cloak-and-dagger political chess, its endlessly self-serving pomp and circumstance, on some level, Donald Trump has shattered all of that. The fool who doesn’t know that he’s a fool, the jester that is the herald to a joke that most of us are ready to laugh at. That joke is the notion that those who rule us are smarter, better, more qualified to rule over us, and that we as the everyman must shut up and take what is given to us.

Donald Trump has completely obliterated what it means to be a respectable politician, to the point that it begs the question, why have we played patsy to political elites for so long? Why have we played slaves, both willing and unwilling, why have we lived and died so that our so-called masters under the guise of “politician” can marionette us on strings while they eat grapes and laugh at our deaths? American conservatives shotgunned cans of Bud Light when they passed health insurance cuts that guaranteed, absolutely guaranteed, the deaths of thousands from lack of coverage, or the ability to afford it. The choice of beverage a cruel joke, a middle finger to the very working class who consume the product because it is cheap enough for many working Americans to afford.

I am neither liberal nor conservative, neither libertarian nor centrist, I am simply a working class American socialist. I, like half of this country, am impoverished. The smug, self-important malaise of Donald Trump is the crack in the gilded calf that we have been told to worship. It is the gold spray painted papier-mâché mask, splitting to reveal the rot underneath that our political elites have worn for centuries, as they continue to tell us the mask is made of 24 karat gold. What we were told was an air of respectability in our political elite rulers has been revealed as outright hatred and malice for the American worker. What we were told was culture, class, and sophistication within the DNC and RNC has been shown to be nothing but wealth, privilege and lies. Our politicians do not represent us, they have never cared to, and they never will. More than anything, they want us all to die so that they can celebrate their own importance as they purchase themselves ever more extravagant mansions, yachts, and sports cars.

While we struggle to feed our children and keep the roof over our heads, Donald Trump has shown the world that what we were fed about our political elites is a lie. He exposes their cruelty, their vanity, their ignorance, and their inhumanity by embodying all of it. A true Untermensch of bourgeoisie wealth, power, and prestige, Donald Trump has shown us how little he and they really have, because he has shown it all to be an empty, hollow lie. There are no political elites, and we can run our country without Wall Street, without Ivy League schools and private finishing schools.

The root word of politics comes from the Greek “Polis”, meaning that which relates to a city and its people. We are the people. We don’t need “elites” with tailored suits and gilded eating utensils to tell us what our country needs. We know what it needs because we live it, day in and day out. We see the poverty, the lack of services, and more than anything we know the struggle of trying to get by, and the pain that struggle and survival bring. Regardless of politics, 99% of us know what hardship is. All it has done is made us stronger for it, and angrier. They are no more qualified to run our country than we are. They simply have the wealth to buy themselves into power.

Maybe it is time for that wealth not to matter anymore. If we are going to save our democracy, maybe it’s time we educate ourselves, run for offices in our communities, and make the changes we need. They came from wealth, we came from struggle. They stagnate while we work to make ourselves stronger every day. We learn and grow while they bark orders. Leadership is not about power or glory. Leadership is being at the head of the workforce, pulling that weight alongside our brothers and sisters. Leadership is not about authority, leadership is about hard work, and equality. Those born with a silver spoon in their mouths have never had to work. They don’t know what it feels like.

Our political elites would be crushed to death by the strain of hard labor, the work that we do every day. We know what strength is. So maybe we need to take our government back, take our polis back. Vote them out, and we run our own candidates. Who better to handle the Department of Education than teachers, or Labor than laborers, who better to run the Health Department than our own doctors and nurses, or the House Science Committee than actual scientists and engineers? We, by our chosen professions, by what we have had to do in order to feed ourselves and our kids, we know how we need our country to operate. They operate it to impoverish us, and enrich their bank accounts. They rule us because we let them, so it’s time to stop letting them.

WRITTEN BY

Johnny Ringo

Disabled, bisexual American socialist and political activist. Student of politics, aspiring journalist, and academic. Bachelor’s of Science in Criminal Justice.

politics
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About the Creator

Johnny Ringo

Disabled, bisexual American socialist and political activist. Student of politics, aspiring journalist, and academic. Bachelor’s of Science in Criminal Justice.

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