The Establishment Group Monkey Dance
23rd July 2018
I am, sometimes, stymied at the establishment’s obdurate opposition to President Trump. Hey, the dude wasn’t my first choice for the Republican nominee, either. But Trump won the nomination, won the general election, and kept a no-kidding corrupt, scofflaw, sac of pulsating sociopathy and her machine out of the White House. So, I’m happy.
The reaction of the establishment, though, has been a little disconcerting. Logic, rational thought, and critical thinking have been thrown out the window. Not only have I been dismayed at the reaction to Trump’s election by people I’ve never met, but I read and thought highly of, for analysis and principle-based opinion, but by people that I know. People that took a different path than me and pursued Ph.D.s, wrote books, became experts in their fields. Many of these people have unyielding, uncompromising opposition to Trump, whatever he may do or say.
Then, re-reading a favorite book, I stumbled over — not the answer, but a partial answer. I was seeing a Group Monkey Dance.
People who have spent their lives preparing to prosper in a particular environment don’t take kindly to people to appear not to have ‘paid their dues’ in a similar fashion, no matter how much the two may be alike in belief and objectives. I doubt that there is any significant way in which George Will’s vision of a preferred America differ from Donald Trump’s, but Will will be damned if he lets his Up From Princeton struggle be queue-jumped by some hick from an Outer Borough.