A little nitpickery (disambiguation?) of my own, larded and marbled in:
The MAGAs aren't the wealthy, they are envious of the wealthy. DJT included.
Yes, MAGAs are not wealthy except relatively as we all are... but I
think there is a skew there... the truly wealthy backing MAGA are in
fact using them all as useful-idiots (aka tools?) I think SCrOTUS too,
but just because they are also being "used" doesn't mean they aren't
users. Some corollary to "the best mark is a con man"?
The only way I can see it sustaining is if we take selfishness as a core human trait in
the same way we take reason/rationality as a core human trait. Both are false as crisp
categories. But there's enough of either (and their inverses - self-sacrificing and
embodied cognition, respectively) to wax and wane. Assessing whether or not, say, an
oligarchy can maintain in the face of such a diverse and distributed system requires us
to define relatively objective measures of selfishness (or "corruption" - but
I'd argue defining that well is fraught).
I thing something caricatureable as "greed and fear" are deeply adaptive
in the hominid (primate, mammalian, vertebrate, animal, life) recursive
stack of complex adaptive system of adaptive complex systems (...) the
"caricature" of these comes from our culture and is enhanced by various
divisions (left/right, wealthy/impoverished, us/them) because in fact,
the *other side* is driven by Greed and Fear while we of course are
merely 'looking out for the best interests of us and ours".
Not really disagreeing with anyone here, just seeking some
disambiguation/refinement...
- Steve
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