“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” This quote by Groucho Marx and its belief is probably shared by lots of people. Political ideology and pragmatism or realism seldom go together. Voting during general or presidential elections is often aimed at selecting the least worst candidate.
People like Michael Bloomberg (Dem) and Donald Trump (Rep) share the behaviour of cuckoo nesting in politics: “The common cuckoo is an obligate brood parasite; it lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. At the appropriate moment, the hen cuckoo flies down to the host’s nest, pushes one egg out of the nest, lays an egg and flies off.”
Both Bloomberg and Trump have shown “flexible” political positions over the years: Democratic, Independent, and Republican. Opportunism is probably their common denominator. In 2016, Trump showed Bloomberg that money can buy the US presidency. Unlike Trump, Bloomberg is a (true) billionaire who doesn’t need to hide his tax returns from public scrutiny.
What would be the impact when the 2020 US presidential election would become a match between businessmen Bloomberg and Trump? Would that moment be the final decoupling between the belief systems Money and Politics? Why bother being a lifelong politician if you can buy yourself a ticket into formal Power?
Businessman Trump is still actively engaged in eroding the separation of powers in the United States Constitution between the executive branch (ie, President and his Administration), the legislative branch (ie, US Congress), and the judicial branch (eg, Supreme Court). It’s fair to say that political appointees to the judicial branch have been happening for decades.
Would businessman Bloomberg be a different President than businessman Trump? Both lack political ideology and are driven by pragmatism (eg, bipartisan deals, deregulation, quid pro quo). Unlike Trump, Bloomberg would probably believe in an American copy of the Chinese hybrid version of foreign globalism and domestic nationalism.
More and more, I am thinking and feeling – and almost believing – that the CEO business model will replace the political model of parliamentary democracy and separation of powers. Big Tech may facilitate citizen voting on executive or CEO proposals. The judicial branch may be largely replaced by Artificial Intelligent robotics, like in China (eg, WGS-2018, ZDnet-2020). Exit Politics.
“In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” A quote from the 1949 screenplay The Third Man by Graham Greene (1904-1991), an English novelist.
Cuckoo (2019) by Rising Appalachia
artists, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2
Note: all markings (bold, italic, underlining) by LO unless stated otherwise.
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