We keep hearing about “Hillary’s Firewall”. It’s the black vote in SC. It’s Nevada. It’s SuperTuesday. It’s the Superdelegates.
The Personal vs Systemic Critique
These situations are the personification of politics and ignore the systemic issues so exposed and raw in 2016. The personification of politics is a foil of public angst.
“Hillary is Corrupt” is not the point. It isn’t even that important in the grand scheme of things.
What is important is that she could become so obtuse to those outside her bubble that she didn’t think it would be a problem. Or she displayed massive hubris thinking she was above small niggling issues like her family becoming extremely wealthy by taking millions of dollars from political institutions… but these are well known features of the political game. This is what happens when marketing and market ideology take over the political system.
That’s all she’s guilty of. Playing the game, being awesome at it, doing what she can to do more of it while not realizing how it looked. The problem is that her behavior was so naked that it allows the system itself to be critiqued. The Hillary’s, the Jeb!s, or even the Trumps are not the problem — it’s the system that is the problem.
Friendly public policy is auctioned off to the highest bidder. Corporations blatantly sponsor or poach elected officials to do their bidding. Marketing plans and focus groups to develop message and policy to close the sale. Politics has become a creature of the market
Our electoral and political system has turned into political markets. Going after specific products and sales practices is not the solution, you have to address the market.
Personal Focus is Key
Focusing on Hillary or Trump misses that systemic point, entirely, and that’s precisely why we’re so completely focused on Hillary and Trump at this stage of the game. Hillary’s experience and trust issues vs Trump’s anti-charisma and ignorant hateful followers. It ought to provide hours of exciting personal foibles and human frailty, but the political system will remain out of bounds.
Hillary will take the heat for the system because she’s human and frail and whatnot, and better that Hillary fall than to regulate and stymie political markets.
But it has to be Hillary for the system to remain outside the personal focus. Bernie will be battling an Oligarch on TV for 9 months. 9 months of gut punch democratic socialism vs Trump’s knuckle dragging 1st person representation of our current crony capitalism fiasco.
Hillary is the Firewall
Hillary’s electoral firewall is a manufactured flexible detail that is used to hide the fact that Hillary is the Firewall for Big Corporate & the Oligarchs™.
She is their last refuge — the last line of defense. The Establishment hopes of maintaining a steady ship of state are all riding on Hillary. She’s the only one offering tweaks to the current system.
Jeb!, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich? Gone.
Trump? Who the hell knows what he’s going to do, he’s a silver-spoon goon. Bernie is an anathema to the Establishment — he threatens the whole gig. Trump vs Bernie would be a disaster for capitalism’s reputation in the eyes of the American People.
Hillary is the Firewall of our current political system. She is the last hope of the Establishment for business as usual.
