Recent events have underlined how little success the U.S. and global establishment has in its efforts to mold public opinion and vilify its critics. The left-leaning powers-that-be exercise unprecedented control over the sprawling edifice of the mainstream media, whose professional ethics are, each day, degraded just a little more in service of the overriding mission of trashing conservative and populist causes and leaders. What's more, the Left has come to dominate social media. It shamelessly uses search algorithms, demonetizing, and other tricks to ensure that only approved narratives are propagated and dissident voices are stifled. When digital sleight-of-hand doesn't suffice, blunt censorship abetted and even administered by government agencies is used to silence critics of the status quo more permanently – and no apologies are given for the consequences to free speech and pluralism.
You would think, given the sophistication and thoroughness of these efforts to amplify establishment narratives and to castigate alternative viewpoints as “far-right”, “racist”, “anti-democratic”, and “extreme”, that the public would long since have been bullied and cajoled into acquiescence to the agenda of the establishment, which, in this country, is often called the Deep State. The evidence, though, is that the grip that the powers-that-be have on public opinion is loosening, and the forces of opposition are either ascendant or threatening to ascend in short order.
Take the stunning electoral victories of Geert Wilders, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant nationalist, in the Netherlands, and Javier Milei, irascible libertarian and unapologetic free marketeer, in Argentina, which came despite the absolute scorn that the political establishment and the legacy media have poured on both men. Wilders' shocking win came in a country that is often held up as a model of progressive “respectability,” meaning Euro-socialism, DEI run amok, cradle-to-grave social welfare programs, and a sneering contempt for traditional religion (but not for Islam, needless to say). Milei, meanwhile, rode popular angst about Argentina's (latest) financial collapse, featuring 140% inflation, to a landslide victory over an establishment socialist opponent. In both places, pollsters were confounded by the strength of the conservative/populist backlash against establishment misrule.
In the United States, all available evidence indicates that a similar comeuppance for the powers that be is looming. Eight years of establishment scorn directed at Donald J. Trump has left him, while somewhat bruised and battered and not precisely beloved by a majority of Americans, politically as strong as ever and in an excellent position to force Joe Biden into unwanted early (or late, depending on your point of view) retirement in January 2025. Despite, or perhaps because of, the 91 felony charges that a rogues' gallery of leftist prosecutors have leveled against him, Trump's favorability ratings have remained steady. His performance in head-to-head polls versus Biden indicates a high likelihood of winning the national popular vote and, thus, a very high likelihood of winning a crushing victory in the electoral college. Meanwhile, the establishment and the media talk in ever more strident terms about the absolutely fatal consequences for “democracy” if – heaven forbid! – the voters should choose Trump, or anyone but Biden, as the country's next president. That message is not getting through. Trump only grows stronger, while Biden's appeal and credibility continue to wither.
Of course, the establishment isn't stupid. It can see the warning signs. In Holland and Argentina, there's increasing talk of finding ways to co-opt Wilders and Milei or, alternatively, to pen them politically and render them impotent.
In the U.S., where the renaissance of Trumpism is only tentative, there's much interest on the Left in persuading Joe Biden to step aside and find a more acceptable and younger face for the establishment to hide behind. It remains to be seen whether this gambit will work, although so far Biden himself shows zero inclination to make discretion the better part of valor.
That naturally leads intelligent observers of the establishment's potential death throes to wonder: what new and innovative (not to mention desperate and ruthless) stratagems might these masters of the universe concoct to forestall their own decline and fall? I have long believed that the Democrats and the Deep State would do virtually anything to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president again. As the skies darken for these entitled elitists, I strongly suspect that they are increasingly thinking along the same lines...
Dr. Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com. He appears on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480/106.9.