[PaulHoule]

To be fair, the "New Deal" regime was perceived to be failing circa 1970.

For instance, the New Deal left racism intact in the South, there was the Vietnam war, the "Spirit of '68", high inflation, a huge expansion of regulations leading to more problems (for instance the 1974 model year of automobiles were awful because they had to satisfy stricter emission standards without a perfected catalytic converter, etc.) There was the cult boom and the strange fact that "The Greening of America" sold millions of copies.

In 1979 Merril Lynch was a penny stock, in many ways capitalism seemed to be on the ropes. If you don't believe me look at "Legitimation Crisis" by Habermas.

One contemporary diagnosis of the condition was that there was "too much democracy" and if you look at what happened, all of a sudden the door got slammed on people like Ralph Nader and the range of what you could ask Washington for diminished over the 1980s, with the 1990s sealing the deal -- at that point the lobbying system became almost entirely focuses around tax breaks for special interests with an occasional scam like "Medicare Advantage".

For instance in the 1980s you still saw environmental legislation being passed, but once Clinton got in the Republicans ran fanatical resistance until getting solid control of the House and since then there has been gridlock.

People like the Koch brothers threw unlimited money at promoting right wing ideas, Fox News has a 24 hours hate whenever there is a democrat in the White House, etc.

This has led to a new condition of ungovernability which is as much a riot of the rich (who funded 17 losers to run for the Republican party because Conservatism makes them feel warm and fuzzy) as a riot of the middle class.

"Boaty McBoatface" sealed the deal for Brexit because it symbolizes what "democracy" is about these days. They ask your opinion, because they want to look legitimate, but they don't honor it.

[orf]

> "Boaty McBoatface" sealed the deal for Brexit because it symbolizes what "democracy" is about these days.

What does that even mean? I hope you don't honestly think that that poll had any effect on the brexit situation?

I tend to side with the bookies over listening to polls, and the bookies odds are on staying[1]. Apart from recent football mishaps they seem to be on the ball, they saw Khan coming a mile off for example.

1. http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/eu-refe...

[emodendroket]

I guess what he means is that more substantive issues work the same way as the boat naming thing -- they ask for your vote but then if they don't like the result they'll toss it.

[humanrebar]

Good point. I'll be controveraial and point out that there are parallels to Prop 8 in California here. And the immigration legislation in Arizona that was overturned.

Tell me that doesn't feed into the Trump candidacy.

[emodendroket]

Well, IMO the biggest thing is the economy -- people feel like they were sold a bill of goods with the experts coming in and telling them that free trade would be great and make them more prosperous and now they live in towns that are shadows of their past selves and suffer under- and unemployment.

[humanrebar]

The parts of the economy that Trump supporters see are absolutely affected by immigration policy.

[emodendroket]

Well, that's true, but it'd be less of a hot-button issue if so many factories weren't shuttered.

Anyway, your point about judicial review is well taken -- whether you're the type of person to get riled up about Prop 8 or about Citizens United it's basically anti-democratic.

[PaulHoule]

It's not the poll, it is the reaction to the poll. It's the outright insult to the people who participated it and the attitude on the part of management it betrays.

[emodendroket]

Is that different from what I said?

[iofj]

A lot of people in Europe don't believe in democracy and that "important" decisions shouldn't be left to the people. That people are stupid, and will never vote to advance things. So other methods must be found.

This comes from a series of disappointments: that the formation itself of the EU in the first place was rejected democratically, that the establishment of a mostly pro-forma EU parliament was rejected, that a lot of projects were rejected, that the outlawing of free plastic bags at supermarkets (for the environment) was rejected ... the list goes on. These democratic decisions were overridden and many see them as great accomplishments. They certainly make life easier, but one might criticize that they only make the life of the rich easier : people who get more advantage from being mobile in Europe and don't get destroyed by the mobility of cheap labour (e.g. from Poland). Without this antidemocratic behavior there would never have been a Euro, or open borders.

I personally just can't bring myself to believe that the people who have advanced things have anything but their own best interests at heart ... And there are other major criticism of these "accomplishments" of the antidemocratic measures. Frankly the EU state can rightfully be called undemocratic and it is true that, to put things mildly, it is pro-business and anti-working class. I would agree with the assessment that people who think that placing an undemocratic super-state above the country governments in Europe is going to help them are deluding themselves, to put it mildly. I feel like this state could very easily either fall apart, or worse, turn into tyranny. Technically it already is tyranny, but it is not felt like that by those part of the upper middle class (ie. "skilled labour"). It is most definitely felt by manufacturing workers, or tradesmen, shopkeepers or shop assistants and the like. Since more and more people are feeling the unpleasant side of Europe, this seems likely to get worse over time.

[josho]

To offer a different perspective, we also had the cold war during this period. This was an era where the US was successfully outspending USSR militarily. I would argue, as others have, that if we hadn't dedicated significant resources to our military then those resources could have been applied to society and possibly avoided the crisis of democracy.

Or to put it simply the hawks in power manufactured our own crisis to stop us from focusing on domestic and social improvements.