On August 25, the Republican National Committee picked Houston for its 2028 presidential convention. See this story. It is unprecedented in U.S. history for any party to choose a host city for a presidential convention that early. The party says it did so because the best venues are often reserved years in advance. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
When they have it that will be a week of the whitest people in Houston in such a long time.
Actually, non Whites are increasingly Republican. By 2028, it may be no longer true that Republicans are on average whiter than Democrats. If it is still true, it will most likely be ever decreasingly so. Bidenomics has especially screwed poor and “working class” people more than anyone, and woke BS eventually gets to be too much even for some of its supposed beneficiaries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch
WHY NOT MUNICH, GERMANY ???
HOW MANY NAMES ON THE TRUMP PURGE LIST ???
5 YEARS TO PURGE NON-WHITES FROM HARRIS COUNTY [HOUSTON] ???
LOCAL WHITES GETTING DARKER DUE TO LATITUDE / SUN EXPOSURE ???
The AZ contributions, while as usual very far removed from reality, are entertaining in their level of silliness.
WFKW point is solid. Trump led increasing numbers of blue collar Whites into the GOP first, and increasing numbers of the elite out. Subsequently, more blue collar nonwhites are following their lead into the GOP. If those trends continue, which all signs indicate they will, the DemoRats won’t be able to keep cheating their way into winning many elections.
The elite and poverty classes alone don’t come close to a plausible majority absent significant representation among blue collar and petit bourgeoisie (taken together broadly, middle class). If they can’t bamboozle enough in the middle to vote for them based on divisive identity politics, which is becoming harder and harder for them as wokism and perpetually failed leftist economic idiocy spirals ever further from reality, they’re cooked. Not enough people will believe their alleged vote results for them to hold up.
Aren’t the Republicans being a bit optimistic in assuming their party will still exist in 2028?
If too many non-whites join the Republican party, then many of the whites currently attracted to the Republican party will go elsewhere. The entire reason many of them joined the Republican party in the 1964 – 1995 period was because the Democratic party was becoming too colorful.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/fox-news-draws-whopping-12-205635003.html
13 MILLION FOR GOPS 8 SO-CALLED DEBATE
ABOUT 150 MILLION VOTERS IN 2020
HOW MANY SAW T IN/OUT OF GA JAIL ???
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/bidenomics-fail-food-stamp-bonanza-sends-grocery-bills-soaring-15-study-finds
AZ’S HERO BIDEN.
You are being far too optimistic yourself. Where is it that you think they’ll go? The libertarians? Constitution party? Yeah, right. They could start a new one, but that’s not the point. With a few oddball exceptions, they’re going to be voting for the major party they hate and fear the least.
They’re voting for the Republican Party now because of the rainbow freak show socialist death cult cum trustafarian slam poet drum circle that’s the DimORat leadership and base. That fact is not about to change. Whites alone won’t make a winning coalition anymore, so they’ll take the least bad coalition partners they can get, from their perspective.
Besides, enough people of other races have joined the American middle class to both see themselves and to be seen by most others as being on the other side of the divide you incorrectly perceive as being fundamentally racial in nature. See for illustration:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f3PJF0YE-x4
For a different example, see the county breakdown of your 2020 presidential vote. South Texas and South Florida, two heavily Hispanic areas, were prominently more Republican than expected, a trend which continued in 2022.
What you suggest is as realistic as thinking that a lot of anti-Catholic conservatives will move on from the GOP because a lot of Catholics have now become Republican. Is even the KKK anti-Catholic anymore? It’s probably been a while since there’s been a No Irish Need Apply sign anywhere in the US outside of a museum or history book.
That was at Jim, AZ and NM having posted in the meanwhile since I refreshed my phone screen. As for how many saw Trump in and out of the Atlanta jail, the better question is what they thought of it. Most people saw a transparent miscarriage of justice, with a former President and leading candidate to replace your current senile puppet in chief being targeted by an out of control partisan prosecutor in a transparent dictatorial fashion. Even the ones who have been duped into thinking Trump actually did anything wrong mostly care a lot more about the gaping, gnawing, and growing failure that is Bidenomics.
That may not be the case for the limousine liberals and champagne commies who don’t have to worry about the numbers that cross the screen when they swipe their plastic or hit the buy now button, and who don’t have to worry about the conditions of public acommodations or schools since they can afford to pay their way out of any direct contact with those for themselves and their families. But it is for the vast majority of the population.
More watched Trump and Tucker Carlson than the irrelevant lesser Republicans undercard debate. 80% of Americans are reportedly unhappy with Bidenomics, and that’s probably an undercount, given the general leftist tilt of the polls and the fact that those most unhappy are most likely to not even take the question. Hispanics, incidentally, are even more unhappy with Bidenomics than Anglos.
That will be far more salient to election outcomes than the endless fake news/deep state legal and illegal harassment ploys against President Trump; even for those who think he actually did anything wrong, it’s much less relevant to their lives than the price of groceries or woke tranny tyranny being pushed at their kids with their tax money in government schools.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/far-fewer-people-debate-trump-163411579.html
T SHOW V GOP 8 SHOW
HOW MANY ACCIDENTAL VIEWS OF EITHER / BOTH SHOWS ???
MAGIC 2 SECONDS ???
WHO HAS NOT SEEN T MUG SHOT ???
FOLKS IN SUBS AT BOTTOM OF OCEANS ???
The LP picked the Washington Hilton in DC in 2019 for 2024.
AZ characteristically missed the point. His fake news tries to minimize the Trump audience. So what? Trump supporters already know what he stands for. Trump haters think they do too. Those in the middle or undecided mostly don’t care.
The Republican undercard debate is lucky to have drawn even as much audience as it did, given that the election is over a year away and most people correctly inferred ahead of time that no one on that stage has a serious chance of being elected president next year and that the show would also fail to be entertaining. So why watch?
Sure, you all saw Trump’s mugshot. We even saw it here on the other side of the planet. So what? For everyone who loves President Trump, it is a symbol of him standing up to an unjust system. Everyone who hates him thinks it’s justice being served, but those people were never going to vote for him anyway. For people who neither love or hate Trump, seeing it is an occasion to shrug, and seeing it over and over is a reason to flip to a non news/politics program.
In other words, the mugshot changes nothing. It’s an occasion for both the Trump and Biden campaigns to raise money and for those who get paid to bloviate about such things to bloviate some more. For the unfortunate Republicans running to lose to Trump in the primaries, it was an occasion to figure out how to try to use it to be noticed in any way. For everyone else, it is a meaningless distraction from Bidenomics hiking the price of goods and services by $9,000 a year for the average household with no corresponding increase in pay, their tax money flushed down a bottomless pit in Ukraine, and the fact that their kid’s school might “reassign” his or her “gender” without asking or telling them.
For idiots like AZ who think the mugshot will help Beijing Biden and the sinking ship of dummy rats in elections next year, please keep thinking that. Please keep rebroadcasting it endlessly for the next 15 months, and please have every other dim rat apparatchik DA with dreams of moving up cook up another bogus Trump indictment and get their very own Trump mugshot and 15 minutes of bloviator analisis.
All Trump has to do is ask if people feel better off than they did four years ago, fill stadiums around the country with cheering supporters and overflow crowds in the parking lot, and let the bumbling derp state/fake news axis of evil keep helping him with the turnout.
The sinister left can roll out Beijing Biden to tout Bidenomics and Trump mugshots for Weekend at Bernie’s III, hide him in the basement again and wreck the economy even more with another round of shutdowns, or see if they can fool enough people with phony election returns without starting a revolution one more time. I won’t wish them good luck, but they will need it.
AZ is right! If I wasn’t in a submarine at the bottom of the ocean right now, I’d be switching my vote to Biden right now, and joining the millions of people proudly displaying Biden bumper stickers, flags, yard signs, etc.
If only tiny d and the seven dwarves on Lazy Fox hadn’t literally put me to sleep, maybe I’d remember one of their names and join countless millions of other Republicans in voting for him in the primaries. Chris Ramanamarati, maybe? Tim Burgum? I really can’t remember.
Like all other former Trump voters, I know that a mugshot means he has been found guilty, and must really be guilty too. There’s no way we can keep voting for a guy like that. If only I hadn’t been here in a submarine, I’d have seen the mugshot and seen the light by now.
Now all I have to do is hope Beijing Biden doesn’t start WWIII because of Donetsk and Lugansk. I’m hoping I’ll still have a home and a wife and kids when my deployment ends. The wife might have to get a second job working nights at the strip club to make ends meet. My oldest daughter, who used to be my son, might have to go work there too after high school. Heck, I might have to get my gender reassigned too and we can all pull double shifts. Otherwise I don’t know how we can keep paying the bills. At least we can all proudly say we didn’t vote for a guy with a mugshot. The big guy who sniffs hair and falls at the sight of stairs is way better!
The American mentality loves the underdog. Thank you Democrats for making Trump one. They dug their own grave. Thank goodness.
Wind Farms is right! I saw the mugshot and instantly sent the Biden campaign some money. The mugshot is what will get President Biden another legitimately elected term. Good career advice too! I’m taking the whole family to go around to the club’s around town and audition this weekend.
The mugshot unites the left and right and makes everybody happy. It brings much needed joy to people of widely different political stripes in this dark time of Bidenomics, mandatory sexual reassignment surgery, imminent lockdowns, raging kitchen fires, and wind farms killing whales. It even gives the brave semen in subs at the bottom of the sea something to look forward to. Trump is a uniter, not a divider. Fairweather supporters like Wind and Corvette can do whatever they want, but I’m sticking with Trump!
“Trump led increasing numbers of blue collar Whites into the GOP first, and increasing numbers of the elite out.”
Populists have a weird definition of “elite.” Me, I define “elite” as someone who expects you to believe their claims just because of who they are (i.e., they don’t back them with evidence or sources like honest scientists, educators, or journalists).
Focusing on his actions (instead of what he said or Tweeted), Trump was really just as favorable to big business as a more conventional Republican or Democrat (whom most populists view as elite). After all, his main policy achievement during his 4 years in office was a corporate tax cut.
https://www.investopedia.com/taxes/trumps-tax-reform-plan-explained/
I’m hardly a populist, given that I think approximately 99.9% of the electorate should be disenfranchised for a variety of reasons. I am not anyone of consequence, and don’t expect anyone to believe anything I claim because of who I am. I encourage you to do your own research regarding my claim regarding which groups have increasingly supported the GOP since Trump descended the Trump Tower escalator in 2015 and which ones less.
I’ve done enough to feel confident in my conclusions and not pressed to show my work, but by all means, please do prove me incorrect; unlike some people here, notably AZ, I actually love to have my errors corrected.
You can focus on whatever you want, including an oversimplified analysis of Trump tax cut impacts on the economy. I disagree that it was his main accomplishment (four years of peace, precovid prosperity, not making the overreaction to covid even worse than it was, and building the wall were some of my favorites).
Your definition of elite is quite unconventional, as it would apparently include homeless schizophrenics among the elite, but exclude elite academics, fake news establishment media gatekeepers, phony fact checkers, fink tanks, etc with their mounds of foot noted studies containing circular references to politicized studies.
You give the game away, however, in jumping to the erroneouas conclusion that I’m a populist. That actually just reinforces the point you attempt to dispute. But, as I said, please feel free to disprove it using any analysis of actual voting behaviors from whatever sources you want. I’m looking forward to you sharing your findings.
Pig Farmer just convinced me to vote for Trump again. Gosh, I’m fickle! Please wish my family luck on the job search and keep my in-laws in Lahaina in your prayers.
Thanks, Corvette. Good luck on the job search, and my thoughts and prayers go out to your inlaws. If the job search isn’t fruitful, let me know if you would like to sell me a kid or two. You wouldn’t believe the price of pig slop these days.
You two can stick with Trump if you want. I’m going to back Biden from here to China. All the sub bottoms here at the bottom of the ocean in a sub with me will too, as soon as we see that mugshot.
HOW MANY RED CHINESE MAKING TRUMP MUG SHOT STUFF ???
WILL EVERY 2024 TRUMP GOP DELEGATE BE REQUIRED TO HAVE A TRUMP MUG SHOT T- SHIRT AND HAT ???
WILL THE OLDE GOP BE RE-NAMED THE TRUMP AMERICAN REVOLT PARTY — TARP ???
APOLOGIES TO REAL TARPS – COVERING STORM BROKEN BUILDINGS.
WILL THAT AIR-HEAD PILLOW GUY BE MAKING TRUMP MUGSHOT PILLOWS / SHEETS / ETC ???
DISCOUNT FOR TROLL MORONS ???
—
ANY TRUMP MUGSHOTS AS SHOOTING RANGE TARGETS ???
WILL THE TRUMP MUGSHOT BE LASER PROJECTED ON THE MOON NOW TO WHENEVER ???
WILL IT REPLACE ALL 4 PREZS IN SD PREZ MONUMENT ???
WILL IT REPLACE BIG BROTHER IN ALL 1984 BOOKS ???
HOW MUCH IS ROBERT L PETERS AKA DEMENTIA JOE PAYING AZ TO SPREAD FAKE NEWS
I THINK AZ JUST MADE A NOT VERY SUBTLE ASSASSINATION THREAT. ALERT SECRET SERVICE. IF I WAS BEIJING BIDEN I WOULD PAY HIM TO STOP POSTING. HE MAKES THE FAKE NEWS LOOK EVEN MORE FAKE THAN IT ALREADY IS.
Yes, most people define elites differently than me, but I still find mine a useful one despite its drawbacks. Most others define elite by power and/or wealth (which would, of course, include all politicians, including Trump). How do you define it?
My definition of populist is perhaps a bit more typical.
Liberal: economically & socially liberal.
Conservative: economically & socially conservative
Libertarian: economically conservative & socially liberal
Populist: economically liberal & socially conservative.
More details here:
https://perfectlygoodink.com/2021/04/22/how-i-define-conservativism-and-liberalism/
Trump was certainly socially conservative (appointed judges who overturned Roe v. Wade) but also clearly economically liberal (economy moved away from decentralized market decisions to centrally planned government decisions via tariffs and industrial policy). Thus, I characterize him as populist, but I also realize that many Trump supporters do not base their decisions based on their policy preferences or ideology, as he himself does not seem to stress his policy positions.
MaxZim V Zaslon: “I think approximately 99.9% of the electorate should be disenfranchised for a variety of reasons.”
That would move our country towards authoritarianism and away from representative democracy. Me, I see the purpose of elections being to provide incentives for the leader to act in the best interest of the citizens, something that rarely happens in places like Russia or China, and happens far more often in multi-party countries like New Zealand, Sweden, and Taiwan (where political discussions focus more on policy) than in two-party countries like the U.S. or the U.K. (where political discussions focus more on the personalities of politicians).
Much like in economic markets, political markets do better when people have more choices. Pick almost any metric you’d like for the well-being of a country (e.g., liberty), and I bet you’ll find the top of the list dominated by multi-party countries. For example, here is the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom:
https://www.heritage.org/index/
Hmm, my comment seems to be stuck in moderation, perhaps because it had 2 links instead of 1. Let me try to repost, and apologies if it ends up double-posting…
Yes, most people define elites differently than me, but I still find mine a useful one despite its drawbacks. Most others define elite by power and/or wealth (which would, of course, include all politicians, including Trump). How do you define it?
My definition of populist is perhaps a bit more typical.
Liberal: economically & socially liberal.
Conservative: economically & socially conservative
Libertarian: economically conservative & socially liberal
Populist: economically liberal & socially conservative.
Trump was certainly socially conservative (appointed judges who overturned Roe v. Wade) but also clearly economically liberal (economy moved away from decentralized market decisions to centrally planned government decisions via tariffs and industrial policy). Thus, I characterize him as populist, but I also realize that many Trump supporters do not base their decisions based on their policy preferences or ideology, as he himself does not seem to stress his policy positions.
MaxZim V Zaslon: “I think approximately 99.9% of the electorate should be disenfranchised for a variety of reasons.”
That would move our country towards authoritarianism and away from representative democracy. Me, I see the purpose of elections being to provide incentives for the leader to act in the best interest of the citizens, something that rarely happens in places like Russia or China, and happens far more often in multi-party countries like New Zealand, Sweden, and Taiwan (where political discussions focus more on policy) than in two-party countries like the U.S. or the U.K. (where political discussions focus more on the personalities of politicians).
Much like in economic markets, political markets do better when people have more choices. Pick almost any metric you’d like for the well-being of a country (e.g., liberty), and I bet you’ll find the top of the list dominated by multi-party countries. For example, here is the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom:
https://www.heritage.org/index/
Ah, cool! Looks like my theory was correct. Regarding my definition of populism, you can find more details here (this was the 2nd link that I’d cut out when reposting):
https://perfectlygoodink.com/2021/04/22/how-i-define-conservativism-and-liberalism/
And as I think about my definition of elites, I think I would just need to tweak it to be, “someone who expects you to believe their claims just because of who they are, and also has been able to get a significant number of people to believe them.” That addresses the schizophrenic homeless counterexample.
Regarding academics, I think elites should only include those that are skating by on their reputation while excluding those that follow the scientific method. After all, there are plenty of the former who turn to a career of writing op eds or posting YouTube videos that are filled with claims and devoid of supporting evidence and data. Indeed, I know of at least one who, much like many populists do, rail against “elites” without ever defining the term.
Mr. Ling, you appear to be eager to discuss issues far afield from the original statement you took issue with. If you’ll recall, you disagreed with my statement that since Mr. Trump began running for President as a Republican, more blue collar or “working class” voters in your country have been leaning more Republican, with a corresponding exit of more well off voters, especially those identifying with elite institutions (legacy media gatekeepers, “think tanks,” longstanding establishment “conservative” policy organizations and publications, etc) in influencing their opinions – neocons, country club Republicans and the like.
If you’d like to dispute that contention, by all means, please post whatever you consider evidence, regardless of source. That’s not what you are doing, however. You first went to a normative argument, apparently arguing that economically well off voters should have been the ones favoring Mr. Trump, a point that was at best tangential to mine. I was discussing actual observed demographic voting trends, not your notions of what they perhaps should have been. If you’d like to dispute my point, please make your evidence relevant to trends in how people actually vote, as measured by election results, demographic survey data, regional result trends compared with demographic factors prevalent in certain areas, and that sort of thing. Whatever you are discussing is orthogonal to that question, and tangentially even further removed in your follow-up comment.
I mentioned my opposition to egalitarian voting only dispel any confusion you may have had that I’m a populist. I’m also not an authoritarian, and my views are not in any way solely focused on your country. In fact, I think the ideal size for a country is about 100k people, not hundreds of millions, the latter being grotesquely outscale. I don’t think government should have anything at all to do with any matter besides protecting citizens from foreign attack and crime (with minor crimes addressed in less formal ways) and resolving only the most intractable disputes. I think laws should be simple, easily understood and memorized by the normal adult or teen, and very rarely ever changed. I have a host of other beliefs which are somewhat afield from the range of views you seem to think form the space within which beliefs range. However, those are all quite beside the point that you disputed.
Again, please provide whatever evidence you wish to disprove it, if you wish to do so. You could also concede that point was correct, or leave it up to anyone who cares to do so to investigate themselves. I’ll repeat that I have investigated it sufficiently to feel confident in making the statement, but am open to being proven wrong. I have more interesting things to do than doing that research again in order to convince you or anyone else. I don’t expect anyone to believe me because of who I am, as I am not anyone of any particular authority, and encourage anyone interested to investigate for themselves.
Excellent. I see that I am at least off the hook of any suspicion of elitism, given that the number of people I’ve been able to convince of my views is to my knowledge very small. So, I’m not an elitist, populist, authoritarian, etc. I may or may not fit into any of your categories. That just leaves my original statement. Hopefully I’ve now provided sufficient context for it. Please proceed accordingly.
I’m mostly interested in seeing how you define “elite” to better understand your initial claim that I quoted. Populists tend to try and gather support by fear-mongering against “elites” without defining it — even though they themselves tend to be elites by most definitions of it that I have run across.
https://www.populismstudies.org/Vocabulary/the-elite/
“I’m also not an authoritarian, and my views are not in any way solely focused on your country.”
If 99.9% of the electorate in a country were to be disenfranchised, what incentive would that country’s leaders have to acting in electorate’s best interest?
Defined in first paragraph of 10:24 comment. My statement was not for or against elites, it was an observation that relatively higher income zip codes have trended more Demo rat leaning in the last 8 years or so than previously.
Elite can be defined in a variety of ways relative to context. Globally, an egalitarian voting model might have about 6 billion voters (everyone over age 18). I’d estimate the real elite whose interests this model serves to number around 6 thousand worldwide, with the rest manipulated by a variety of methods into voting for perceived self interest which in fact is not, because the system is too complex and confusing by design. My plan would be formally more elitist, reserving voting for perhaps on the order of 6 million globally, but my theory is that it would in net effect serve the interest of billions better than giving those billions the illusion of control.
In terms of your specific question, in a country of 100k the electorate would number perhaps on the order of 100, with those elected being perhaps 10 out of those 100 on an annual basis. The elections and elected positions would be a minor sideline to real positions of leadership, which would be in business, religion, athletics, academics, entertainment, charity, and various other fields outside of government. I expect them to have overlapping membership, however. Please note all numbers above are only to illustrate order of magnitude, not anything like exact.
Thanks, that’s a pretty good definition, and your claim does seem likely to be true.
“My plan would be formally more elitist, reserving voting for perhaps on the order of 6 million globally, but my theory is that it would in net effect serve the interest of billions better than giving those billions the illusion of control.”
I agree with the goal. Indeed, for this reason, I’m a long-time support of public campaign financing such Clean Money Clean Elections, the Brennan Center’s Small Donor Public Financing, and Democracy Dollars. I think a multi-party system would also go towards this goal. With a two-party system, it’s fairly easy and inexpensive for corporate interests to capture both parties (and also the media companies that support both). This becomes much more difficult in a multi-party system, both because there are many more parties they’d have to capture and also because the parties tend to have more coherent platforms, making it easy to spot the corporatist ones.
I’m curious about your plan but very confused as to how it would achieve your goals. Who gets to decide who gets the vote and who does not? What incentives would there be for those who can vote to act in the best interest of those who cannot vote? Also curious what country you are from?
So you’re a communist. Got it.
How do you define communist/socialist? Me, I define socialist as an economic system where the government decides how to allocate resources (in contrast to capitalism, which decentralizes decision-making via free markets). Communist is an economic system where there is no private ownership of anything and everything is shared.
Note that there’s nothing about public campaign financing or multi-party systems that would move an economy away from market-based decision-making towards a centrally-planned economy (in contrast to some of Trump’s policies like tariffs and industrial policy — this is why I characterize him as populist instead of conservative).
MaxZim, I see that you spelled out more details here:
https://ballot-access.org/2023/08/28/idaho-top-four-initiative-petition-started-saturday-august-19/#comment-1172397
“My proposed criteria for voter/officeholders would include male property owning head of household whose father’s father and his father’s father all owned property in the same area of roughly give or take 100k people. They would have to be of the majority racial and religious group in their area, members in good standing of a church which is recognized as legitimate by the area’s council of churches, married with at least two natural born biological children including at least one male heir, never divorced or remarried, owning sufficient numbers of guns in good working order and stock of ammunition, showing continued proficiency in their use, with military/militia/law enforcement/civil defense training and experience and continued eligibility for such service, and so on. They could not have criminal convictions, unpaid judgements, a history of mental insanity, drugs, etc. They would have to be independently wealthy, own a profitable business, or be gainfully employed, and willing and able to pay a substantial poll tax.
If elected, they would be limited to enforcing the laws, with the laws being very simple and extremely difficult to change, basically covering serious mala in se crimes, with more minor matters resolved less formally.”
Not seeing any incentives in place for those with the vote to act in the best interests of those without the vote. It seems to create a new elite where wealthy males have all the power. With no court system to interpret the laws, all the power would rest in how government officials in law enforcement chose to interpret laws. What would stop them for choosing to enforce laws only in the cases where it helps this wealthy elite and ignoring any other infractions as “minor”?
Also, assuming you yourself are married with at least two biological kids, have you mentioned this plan to your wife? Very curious as to what her reaction was.
For the interest of other readers only :
As explained in past conversations, the more informal resolution methods are actually better, with only the most serious crimes and the most intractable disputes requiring peacekeepers to intervene. I think the incentives laid out in past conversations would make peacekeepers actually having to punish crime rare, with just the threat of it being enough to prevent all but the severely criminally insane from committing such crimes at all.
All power would not lie in government anything. Most power would be outside of government. That would also mean that peacekeepers would find their many other business, family, church, and social roles of various kinds much more important than their roles as peacekeepers, which would itself be the greatest check on any abuse of power.
As noted elsewhere, my wife is fully on board with men and women having different roles and areas of specialization. She’s just as happy to follow my lead in politics as I am to follow hers in home decor and what’s for dinner (unless we eat out, in which case I order for both of us). She agrees with me that we’d be better off as a whole of women didn’t vote, but since the other women do, she also votes, and seeks my advice as to how to vote. In my ideal case, neither of us would vote, as I’m no longer fit for battlefield military service. In the real world, we practice defensive voting.
It’s in the interest of business and civic leaders to have a broad range of available skilled workers, consumers with money to spend on goods and services, good public safety for commerce to be unimpeded, etc. It’s Marxist fantasy that the type of civic leaders I describe are only interested in their narrow class interest. On the other hand, the globalist one in a million elites are too insulated from the regular person to even care. The difference in scale is the key.
Illustration:
https://web.mnstate.edu/alm/humor/ThePlan.htm