Saturday, March 19, 2016

Antidisestablishmentarianism


This strange long word involves a 19th century revolution against and in defense of the established religious order in England. And this is similar to what is happening in the United States today ... evidenced by the political campaigns of Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

These three anti-establishment candidates are clearly embraced because they represent a populist revulsion against how both political parties have been governing. This revulsion is also evidenced by the fact that both parties combined only have a 12% approval rating in Congress ... and by the Occupy Wall Street, Tea Party, and Black Lives Matter movements.

And the establishment members of both parties are fighting back. The Democrats have pretty much neutered Bernie Sanders with super delegates to its convention and with the voting patterns of mostly Southern minorities. So, Hellery Clinton, the establishment Democrat candidate, appears to have prevailed.

On the Republican side, in a desperate twist, Ted Cruz has suddenly become the establishment candidate..And Donald Trump seems well on his way to upsetting the establishment bloc in his party. However this bloc has not given up ... and are posing a number of different tactics to deny Trump its nomination ... including a possibly contested convention and/or a changing of the convention rules.

Moreover  this revolution is not a trivial uprising. Both Trump and Sanders have been drawing enormous crowds at their political rallies ... and their primary campaigns have won many wide and surprising victories. But both political establishments clearly do not want to hear the voice of the people ... and, I predict, will suffer as a consequence.

The upcoming presidential election, if Trump is the eventual nominee of the Republicans, will be a clear contest between the establishment and the non-establishment ... ergo, antidisestablishmentarianism ... and many anti-establishment Bernie Sanders fans may indeed vote for Trump!

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