Why so many people think the world is rigged
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Version 0 of 1. For the embattled species of American centrists, the Democratic presidential primary is an unwelcome case of deja vu. Again, the outsider with the passionate digital following is feasting on the disorganization of the party establishment. Once again, supposedly savvy observers are wondering when the bosses are going to unite behind a single candidate to defeat the would-be usurper. Once again, we’re seeing that there are no bosses, no gatekeepers. The differences between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders could fill a book. But when two such different candidates end up in such a similar situation, politically speaking, it makes sense to look for the overlap. You find it in a word that echoes through both men’s rhetoric: “rigged.” Candidate Trump spoke of rigged elections, rigged trade deals and rigged borders, and as president he has added rigged law enforcement, rigged intelligence services and rigged impeachment. Candidate Sanders hammers on the rigged economy, the rigged health-care system, the rigged oil and gas industry — and if he is denied the nomination after winning a plurality of the delegates, you can be sure it will be proof of a rigged party. Both candidates complain of rigged media. The reflex response of the centrists has been “tsk,” followed by “tsk.” A sad shake of our worldly heads at the regrettable resentments of young lefties who don’t understand the fruits of capitalism and their deplorable counterparts on the right, blind to the gifts of globalism. But for some reason, the insurgencies don’t find this condescension persuasive. And so, rather than doze through another wake-up call, the former establishment might try ’fessing up to their failings. I’d start with the repeated exaggeration of our own competence and expertise. American leaders shifted somewhere during the past two generations from pledging good-faith effort to promising specific results. Here’s Franklin D. Roosevelt during the campaign of 1932, outlining his New Deal: “This country needs, and unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” If it fails, admit it frankly and keep trying. It’s nearly inconceivable that an establishment figure today, or over the past half-century, would say such a thing. Instead, the elite of self-appointed experts offers weirdly detailed and specific agendas: This new tax will raise precisely X billion dollars; this health-care tweak will insure Y number of people; this climate plan will eliminate Z tons of carbon emissions by this particular date. Tens of millions of ordinary people have noticed, through examples large and small, that this is a bunch of bull hockey. The experts did not, in fact, know that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Democracy did not, in fact, flower in Afghanistan and Iraq. Big data has not made health care cheaper and more efficient, as the experts predicted, and the rising tide of wealth in America has not lifted the boats of every worker. A college education has not been a ticket to prosperity for those whose student loan debt persists long after they’ve graduated. So many promises, so many forecasts, have proved to be built on faulty assumptions — and yet they just keep coming. How rich of us to complain about the lack of specifics in the Sanders health plan, or the impracticality of Trump’s border wall. The establishment, not the insurgents, discredited expertise. Ordinary folks have also noticed that the establishment regularly over-delivers on promises that are never spoken, yet well-understood. A child-care subsidy for working parents would be a step down the road to communism, but subsidies for business are just business as usual. Miscalculate in starting a war and you’ll get rich on paid speeches and corporate boards, but miscalculate by skipping a few mortgage payments and you could be living on the street. It’s no wonder Sanders supporters cheer when he says we already have socialism in America — socialism for the rich and well-connected. Combine the feeling that experts cannot be trusted with the sense that insiders are gaming the system and what do you get? A lot of people who believe that something’s rigged. In very different ways, both outsider candidates have revolted against the government of so-called experts — the “best and brightest” who don’t even realize that the phrase is a lacerating put-down popularized by David Halberstam in a book about the “whiz kids” who blundered into the Vietnam War. Sanders and Trump each offer a version of FDR’s persistent experimentation. They promise to try something new. And while it’s hard to imagine either one frankly admitting failure, they each radiate the determination to keep on trying, again and again and again. Read more from David Von Drehle’s archive. Read more: Hugh Hewitt: Trump vs. Sanders is the main event. Everything else is an undercard. The Post’s View: What Bernie Sanders, Michael Bloomberg and Donald Trump have in common Jennifer Rubin: Bernie Sanders’s Trump-like campaign is a disaster for Democrats Robert J. Samuelson: Who’s afraid of Bernie Sanders? George F. Will: It’s looking like Democrats might have a chance to beat Trump after all |