Paleoconservatives William S. Lind and William S. Piper want to believe that the progressive Establishment is failing politically, intellectually, and economically — if not theatrically:
Politically, the Establishment — which includes most members of both parties and almost all office-holders — cannot come to grips with America’s decline. It can act only within a narrow range, limited by controlling interests at court that feed off the country’s decay. Its range of action is too narrow to conceive and implement policies that might reverse decline.
Intellectually, the Establishment has been reduced to parroting the shibboleths of political correctness. Anyone with a contrary idea is not incorrect for this or that reason; he is a “thisist” or a “thatist.” When the only remaining intellectual prop of a ruling caste is name-calling, it is bankrupt.
Economically, the Establishment stands for globalism, which averages the once prosperous economies of the West with those of the rest of the world. They come up, but we go down. And as the middle class in Western countries finds itself impoverished, its wrath is turning against those who stole its bread.
Only theatrically does the Establishment appear yet unchallengeable. At most junctures in history, this would not have counted for much. Today, when many people’s lives revolve around being entertained, it counts for a great deal. By offering entertainment that appeals to the worst elements in human nature, the Establishment has given itself a lock on popular culture. To be viable, a competitor would have to raise the level of public taste, a task the education Establishment guarantees will prove impossible.
(Hat tip to Samuel Lenser.)
I find it strange that those on the Right seem to believe they are on the verge of a breakthrough, just about to roll-back four decades of rampant Liberalism.
Presumably this state of mind is some part of the national delusional state of political correctness.
So long as the Right keep on walking backwards year on year, the Left will be happy that the Right imagine that their decisive triumph is around the next corner.
I suppose we’ve been on the cusp of Revolution forever, too. That hasn’t happened either, but, as you note, we have slowly but surely moved left — and any rightward “reactions” have only strengthened the State, by fixing glaring flaws.