Analyze This: 2004 Video of Donald Trump and Jesse Ventura

Chris Slater

Journalist. I have an unhealthy obsession with The Simpsons and professional wrestling. I like to read biographies in my spare time.

Related Post Roulette

5 Responses

  1. Jaybird says:

    There is a magnificent amount of tension between “the legitimacy of government comes from the consent of the governed” and “holy cow, the hoi polloi don’t even know that ‘hoi’ is Greek for ‘the’!”

    If we could have a people worthy of legitimate government, *THEN* we’d have something.

    Until then, we’re stuck between looking longingly at a good government that governs well without the consent of the idiots it governs and looking deploringly at the idiots and wondering why in the hell they don’t trust their betters.Report

    • Aaron David in reply to Jaybird says:

      To recap, then: Britain first turned to the electorate to decide on its future in the European Union by means of a nationwide referendum…and ignored the result. Then its Parliament made it technically impossible to actually deliver on that mandate, by reducing the present government to the status of a lame duck. And to cap it all, it has now even shut the door to an election: which is about the only thing left that can possibly resolve the entire Brexit impasse to begin with.

      That is from MaltaToday (?!) and is an editorial well worth reading, especially for those with both an interest in the EU situation and democracy in general. But it does boil down the essential ingredients, in that what the people want might not jib with what the… ruling class, for lack of a better term, want.

      https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/comment/blogs/97392/how_did_we_all_become_so_terrified_of_democracy_anyway#.XYqWt397mUmReport

      • Marchmaine in reply to Aaron David says:

        That’s a pithy pretty precis.

        The evolution from EEC to EU more closely resembles the evolution of China’s Single party to Govt/Techno-Managed Neo-Liberalism, but in reverse. We’ll all converge eventually.

        Sometimes I cast my eyes abroad and wonder whether the Marchmaines should move along… then I realize, there’s no where to go.Report

    • James K in reply to Jaybird says:

      Policy issues can broadly be decomposed into questions of values and questions of facts. Democracy at its best is playing close attention to the people on the questions of values while leaving questions of fact up to the experts.

      The tricky part is actually getting the democracy to work that way.Report

  2. Ventura is an interesting case looking back on it through the current lens of Trump’s 2016 win. Jesse won a three-way race barely, and mostly ran and governed as a reformist centrist before his administration quickly fell apart with his personal issues. Since then he is now on the payroll as on-camera talent for Russia’s English propaganda arm RT. That’s a long journey from Navy SEAL, to wrestler, to governor, to shill, but an interesting one.Report