Magical Thinking
We&#x27;ve entered an era where there is a not-so-quiet battle occurring within the system. This doesn&#x27;t so much show through in &quot;Trump&quot; as in the criticisms of Trump, Brexit, the Australian push for a plebiscite on same-sex marriage, etc.<p>Let&#x27;s leave aside for the moment the question of whether any of the policies or people is right or wrong.<p>It has recently become commonplace for elected officials to get away with arguing that they have a moral imperative not to listen, and not to give a greater opportunity for people to voice their views. Each of these topics is frequently decried not just as wrong but as &quot;populism&quot;. The Australian plebiscite is opposed because a public debate might be harmful. A remarkable feature of Clinton&#x27;s &quot;deplorables&quot; comment was that the focus just ended up on the number (is it really 20% of Americans that are deplorable?) not the inversion of the electoral relationship -- that the politician was casting her judgment on the electorate, rather than the electorate casting their unrestrained judgment on the politician. If you listen to Obama&#x27;s speech at the University of Queensland before the Brisbane G20, though the audience applauded loudly when he talked about progressive measures, when he mentioned standing up for democracy in the region there was <i>almost silence</i> from the audience.<p>We have reached a point where we would rather our governments disengage from the public than risk them hearing our opponents. We&#x27;re not sure about standing up for democracy because, y&#x27;know, my neighbour might not agree with me on something that dammit they should be required to.<p>And that is even though the two sides of politics are closer in policy than they used to be. Back in the 80s, it was nationalisation versus privatisation; unilateral disarmament vs mutually-assured-destruction. Now it&#x27;s mostly about the tone of the debate, and rhetoric about emotive symbolic policies that aren&#x27;t realistic (do you seriously think a wall would actually get built? or have any effect if it was?)<p>And the trouble is, while here we are telling them to stop listening to those ignorant dissenters on one set of issues, somehow we mysteriously think they will listen to us when we dissent on other issues -- economics, trade, etc.<p>We&#x27;re building a system where we cannot influence economic policy because we&#x27;re too busy telling the government &quot;whatever you do, don&#x27;t listen to people&quot;.