The Establishment, made up of the economic elite, were so full of themselves, so narcissistic, so self-referential, that they began to drink their own cool-aid. They saw themselves as the ultimate wisdom-keepers, invulnerable to outside threats. After all, hadn't they used the Democratic Party, the supposed party of the people, to derail a popular uprising of democratic voices who were a challenge to the right of the economic elite to continue to lead this nation.
From their cool-aid blurred vision the Establishment could not see how else humanity could progress but by following the tenets of the new economic faith in free-markets. Why, look at their success"more wealth and glamor than any other group in the history of the world.
Meanwhile, outside the walls of the court, the people were suffering. They could see that the new economic religion, for all the elaborate propaganda, was not working for them. Instead, it was draining their lives from them.
The corporations, the mighty machines of the economic aristocracy, roamed the nation, and the world, devouring life and resources and turning them into wealth to sustain the aristocracy and their elaborate court.
That court contained whole segments of government, the fawning media, pollsters, talking heads and pundits, corporations, the health industry, the energy industry and segments of the military and the security services. They were also served by minions who were regularly fed the cool-aid and promised later rewards.
And there were rules, accepted as conventional wisdom, that prescribed how things were to be done, working within the Establishment to make gradual change, so as not to jar the delicate workings of the Establishment too much.
Bernie Sanders showed that those rules were not necessarily the only way to have a voice. He showed that he could demand media attention and could raise adequate funds outside of the coterie of big-money donors.
Although the Establishment successfully thwarted that movement, the spell was broken. The rules were not actually necessary for success. And most importantly, the populace had stopped drinking the cool-aid and were seeing through the elaborate illusion of the ruling elite.
Now enters consummate businessman, Donald Trump. He sees an opportunity. The opportunity to ride that outsider anger and frustration, not necessarily to replace the ruling aristocracy, from which he, himself, arose, as a somewhat embarrassing rogue wheeler-dealer, but to become king of the hill. He would ultimately outsmart the entire economic elite to show those smarty-pants that he could win in the end.
And he did.
He blew up all their rules. He slashed and burned and took no prisoners. While they all stood in shock and dismay at this rude and narcissistic bombast, it began to work to call up the disgruntled and frustrated outsiders. He did not care where they came from or what they believed or wanted, he just wanted their support and would say whatever he needed to say to get it.
He stripped away the illusions and showed how naked and vulnerable the court of the economic aristocracy really was. He turned their disdain and mockery into a weapon.
The establishment made the same deadly mistakes of the arrogant"they did not take their opponent seriously. They underestimated their enemy. They gave him no respect. In fact they were in an orgy of ridicule and Trump-bashing while he was gaining strength.
They ridiculed not only Trump, but also those who supported him. They did not realize that their protective illusions were no longer there and that their emptiness was now visible. The emperor had no clothes.
Many of the ordinary citizens saw the disrespect and understood what it felt like to be blithely brushed-off as insignificant and began to move to Trump's camp. Many others felt they had no candidate they could vote for in good conscience.
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