The Postmodern Delusion of the Late Establishment Period

On Tuesday, the lumbering forces of the Establishment gather in Wisconsin, the official birthplace of the Republican Party, in order to try to preserve their reign over the American people.

Their goal is very straightforward. They have to stop Donald Trump by beating him there, and if possible, doing it in such as way as to deny him any delegates from the state. Anything short of that will be a disastrous loss. This is their only hope to keep him from amassing enough delegates to overwhelm the convention on the first ballot. After they stop him in Wisconsin, they must stop him as well in a few other critical states (notably Indiana on May 3). If they can do that, they they have a chance to beat him, and if they have a chance to beat him, in their mind, they will beat him.

What is perhaps most amazing about this situation is how short term the thinking of the Establishment has become.

Just as how the Establishment was originally a term applied to a tiny clique of people guided by just one person, but has now become expanded to include many thousands of people acting spontaneously in a marvelous example of group-think, so has the planning window of the Establishment collapsed. It has gone from a time frame that spanned generations into the future into one that now looks ahead to its very survival over the next few months. Arguably the two phenomena are closely related.

The system is fighting for its life right now, so they will do anything to keep alive, no matter if it is part of a long-term plan or not. Yes, there is still a long-term plan for achieving certain goals,  but now none of that matters, at least until after the election (which they are certain will end in way they want). For the time being it is "say anything, do anything." They will even embrace a candidate they despise, and have no intention of allowing into the presidency, in the name of short term expedience. In the old days, this scenario would have been unimaginable. It never would have gotten so far, or even close to it.

It is truly that dire for them. Anything short of complete power means they would feel powerless. This is because they have no solid rational basis for their power, even in their own minds, other than the fact that they currently hold it. If they lose it, it will be lost for good. There is no putting together the egg shells again. They would have to fight for power and influence again on the same terms as everyone else, and simply put, they don't know how to do that. The genius that allowed that to happen originally is long gone. They have long since sunk into a degeneracy of inertia, of believing that by pronouncing "truth", they make it happen in reality (what I call the Postmodern Delusion).

Of course what they would like us to believe is that the dire state of their predicament is also the dire state of our situation. That is, they would like very much for everyone to believe that if they go down, then we all go down.