Thanks to Eric Worrall and his piece: “Green Incoherence: Reaching Out to the Deplorables” and everyone who commented in WUWT for triggering me to write this.
Ever since Margaret Thatcher rebranded the west as “democracy”, we in the west have been fed one of the biggest political lies by the political elites: that democracy is being given a once every 4/5 year choice between which members of the elite will lord it over us.
Or as I often put it in my alternative ending to Animal farm (in which the Pigs take over and become the new self-enriching elite akin to communist takeover of soviet Russia):
And the pigs gathered all the animals of animal farm and said: “we have made mistakes, from now on Animal farm will be a democracy and you animals will be free to chose whichever pig you like to run the farm”.
The point, is that in an elected system, with a “mainstream media”, basically the same people are always in charge: those that the press barons (PC BBC) endorse. And in that system we had the notorious Sun headline: “it was the Sun wot won it” after the Sun stopped Neil Kinnock getting into power.
In the old system with a mainstream media and elections, the system was stitched up. The press decided who would get into power and even on which policies the election would be fought. The only real differences allowed to be discussed with the pretty trivial differences between the journalist (who were all fairly alike in many views). So we had what amounted to a combat between the “left curling tail pigs” and the “right curling tail pigs”. The same basic political animals, overwhelmingly from the same Oxbridge type background, many on both sides from public school, from very similar courses. In other words totally completely different from those “deplorables” who won the Trump election.
Democracy doesn’t mean elected
And that is why Thatcher, in the era of press dominance, redefined the meaning of “democracy” to mean elected, a term which for obvious reasons was enthusiastically taken up by the press – for they were the king makers in any election.
However, that is not the meaning of democracy.
It actually means “people-power”, indeed, the Greek word “demos”, probably meant something akin to “Yokel”, and the term is thought to have originally been a term of abuse equivalent to “government by deplorables” (Deplorocracy?).
But it was not an elected dictatorship! In actual fact, the Greeks consider elections to be anti-democratic for very much the same reason they are still undemocratic: elections could be bought by powerful groups. (I’ll give potted history at end)
So, what was this “deplorable” form of government they called democracy? (Or earlier Isonomia – meaning equality before the law). It was very simple: they selected groups of people at random to form committees, and they ran the government.
At this point – most (US)”liberals” get incensed at the idea of having a system of government where the “deplorables” have total charge without them or their ilk being involved let alone in control. So, usually, they start along the lines of “Greeks were sexist and racist and xenophobic” – attacks which are now so common they usually signal a very good idea that they hate.
UK Upper house (Allot)
Thus many moons ago, I campaigned to change the form of appointment panel to the upper house to one of a citizen’s jury. In other words, almost exactly the same system as now, except those doing the selection would be “deplorables” (not the establishment elite, and not party leaders as occurs now and would occur for any elected system).
The Internet
When I originally formulated the alternative ending to animal farm (probably during the Allot campaign), it was clear to me that elections were stitched up by the mainstream media to such an extent there was never any chance of a party that they did not like getting into power. And it would be all the worse in any upper chamber.
However, now the internet has turned the MSM into the OMSM (once mainstream media), we are seeing a string of successes against the media: Brexit, Trump, even the (appalling) SNP in Scotland. These were all elected against the “mainstream” media coverage.
So, I genuinely have not considered what impact this will have on the validity of elections. For a largescale election like Trump – the increased power of 1-2-1 communications in deciding the winner must surely vastly increase the “deplorocratic” legitimacy. However, what effect would it have on elections to an upper house? Would the reduced public interest in a reduced power house – enable special interests to dominate the public discussion and manipulate public opinion?
Or, is the best form of democracy still the citizen’s jury – those “deplorables” who sit for just a year and run a ministry (like education) and who unlike all the “elite” who go to elite schools, have a real interest in real effective education for the masses.
Why was Greek Education so good?
The reason Greeks had one of the best education systems in the then world, and why they were the tutors to the Romans (so most Romans spoke Greek) was this: if you have a political system where any dumb ass can be selected at random from the populace and put in a position of power – everyone from the rich to the poor wants that person to have a decent education.
Therefore, one of the hallmarks of democracy is that everyone has a good education. And one of the indicators showing that a country, even if claiming to be democratic, is not, is a disparity of education standards and an inability for those from some backgrounds to get the best education (and get into power).
So, if you have a government where a majority of the cabinet come from one school – in no sense of the word can it be described as democratic. If however, you have a education system, where almost any school could produce the next leader of the country (i.e. be educated enough to make them viable as leader) – then irrespective of the mechanisms of choosing leadership, that is democracy.
Who are the Deplorables?
They are in fact, everyone who has been let down by the present political elite. Those who cannot gain power for whatever reason and who have been ostracised from power.
Conclusion the future is “Deplorocracy”.
The term “deplorables” is almost the same as “demos” in democracy meaning “yokel-power” and no doubt it is very much the same “political elite” who hate modern deplorocracy as hated democracy.
In its original form, democracy meant “jury-government”. That literally meant ordinary people in power. Today deplorocracy means “internet-government” perhaps not literally in the sense that decisions were made by an assembly of ordinary people in the Greek government, but in a sense that the forum for debate is now the internet and it is the internet, the “deplorables” that are now more and more in control.
**Potted history of “democracy”
Democracy started as a term in Greece meaning “people power” and was used to refer to the system of government which was run by juries. Juries ran the ministries, and juries ran the law courts. They acted as both jury and judge and sentences were decided after the guilty verdict by asking both defence and prosecution to suggest a sentence. For example in the trial of Socrates (tried for being a pane in the arse) the prosecution asked for death or exile, he suggested being sentenced with a reward (but changed to small fine).
After Greece fell, first to Alexander and then Rome, democracy was replaced with the “republican” model in which there was a body of the plebs (deplorables) one of the Senators (political elite) and a kind aka emperor. Then Rome fell and democracy fell out of use as a term.
But in the 1600s, we start to see the Greek and Roman classics being reprinted and reread and the term “democracy” comes back into use. At first it purely meant the political system in Greece (ordinary people power), which was often contrasted with the Republican system in Rome – which was seen to represent the system in Britain (Commons, Lords and King). What people seem to mean by “democracy” was the Greek assemblies and jury law courts. And note: Juries are arguably the key political institution that created US independence – because a system of courts that had US juries, would not convict people in the US based on British law. So, the emphasis had moved from jury-run government to juries and assemblies.
So democracy gets used in the US, to refer to those who wanted a “democratic” system of government (meaning everyone=free males shares power) as opposed to those who wanted a more “republican” system (meaning there is a hierarchy of the established political elite).
Over the next few centuries, the meaning of “democracy” more and more comes to mean “power to the ordinary people” and in so doing it gets totally divorced from its Greek origins which were “jury-government” & “jury law”.
Thus by the time of the Marx and Communism, “democracy” as in “democratic government” means a government of the people – which is why we get governments such as the “DDR” (D=German Democratic Republic). Which is fun, because now rather Democracy and Republicanism being two opposing political idea – they are seen as being essentially two aspects of the same “Communist” system.
The next big step, was when Thatcher and Reagan, began to equate “democracy” with “elected”. And we then saw a massive campaign against the communist states to claim that they were “undemocratic” because they did not have elections. To be blunt, this was pure political propaganda intended to destroy the legitimacy of the communist idea of “democracy” (supposedly meaning ordinary people running the government – but by that stage they were just another political elite).
Of course, whereas democracy actually means “ordinary people in power” – what we got with elections was “a choice between left and right curling pigs tails” of the political elite and so e.g. we regularly see cabinets stuffed full of school chums from Eton and Oxbridge.
