What To Make Of Scott Brown?

I was out of the country and returned to noise of Scott Brown, Scott Brown. I've caught a little up on the story and am trying to interpret the meaning of his election. I don't think it's about healthcare or a referendum of Obama or a conservative movement or the Republican resurgence or the Democrats ineptitude. All of these things might be contributing causes, but I think there is a larger mega-trend going on, a trend that became painfully clear last fall and it coalescing right now -

America no longer trusts our elite.

There is a natural resistance to elites in any society and certainly in American society with our pull ourselves up by our bootstraps conception of self. Normally this manifests itself as class resentment and/or questions of fair allocation to resources and opportunity, etc. But what's going on right now is something much different -

Americans - rightfully so - no longer believe our elites know what they're doing.

It's not that America objects to elites - we need our best and brightest to run complicated institutions and prefer to have smart, well-spoken, good tempered men and women exercising political power. We love our sports stars to be the best, we want to watch the number 1 movies and tv shows, we want our companies to be the most well run with the most profits, we want our army to kick ass, we want to be number 1. And we don't object to paying for all this. We know it is preferable to stupid, irrational fools running the show. But what's become painfully clear in the past two years is that our elites are an insular, self-protecting, irresponsible, and cowardly lot. No one gets fired for doing awful jobs. No one takes responsibility for their own mistakes. We have cultivated a cultural of elitism who only cares about preserving their own status and that of their friends and family and American - as a whole - is suffering and now angry.

In the political arena - Barack Obama was elected President because of an overwhelming dissatisfaction with the candidates in both parties. Year after year we see the same faces exercising political power across America because there are incredible institutional and financial benefits to incumbent candidates. It isn't about political parties...it is about incumbency. Incumbents win 90% of all elections. The only way we get rid of these people in any meaningful way, is by term limits or retirees or death. Politicians know this. It is why they talk in circles and take safe or no positions and cover their asses. They are fighting for their job and they, like a public school teacher in the union, know so long as they don't totally fuck up and run off with a mistress to Argentina or get caught sleeping with prostitutes or smoking crack, they'll probably get re-elected. Or wait, even if those things happen, they still have a 50/50 shot. Obama won the democratic primary because people were sick and tired of the Clintons and the Bushes and other representations of political dynasties - where these career politicians beg and assuage us with just enough promise to do a little, not rock the boat too much, and toss in a little dab of fear to get their 51 or 52% of the vote. The mess in Iraq and the financial crisis rocked our confidence in our political elites and made us long for something new.

Scott Brown is a continuation of this trend. He was not voted in because we're sick of Obama. We're sick of status quo and heads need to roll.

It is elsewhere, too.

Who trusts newspapers? The entire reason I have a blog and that blogging exists is because of the colossal failure of the newspaper industry to provide information - good, truthful, timely information - to it's customer base. They slacked, tried to get clever and make a ton of money with mergers and cost-cutting and synergies and all that crap and then: BOOM. 9/11 hit and everyone wanted answers and information and to know where the fuck Afghanistan was and all you could get from most of the newspapers around the country were AP reports and a Tom Friedman op-ed. So what happened? Blogs. And then what happened? Newspapers go bankrupt. Why? Because they didn't maintain their core competency. Because the elites running the newspaper industry got too caught up trying to be big-shots and weren't just content being sources of information to consumers. And then they protected themselves when the walls started crashing and blaming technology and the internet and doing everything except figure out how to get and report good information.

The financial industry. Supposedly the heartbeat of world capitalism. The puppeteers of capital flow, enriching us and the rest of the world via easy access to cash for trustworthy businesses. Turns out they were used car salesmen trying to pass on broken cars to the next fool. Everyone knew about the shadiness, no one stood up and did anything about it and they let it get to the absolute crisis point where the world financial system is about to crash and they call up their people in Washington with their hat in their hand begging for a bailout.

The intelligence industry. Can't figure out how to stop a group of 1000 or less Islamic Fanatics from attacking the United States over 10 times in the past 20 years. Our best defense against these guys seems to be their own stupidity.

I could go on. But the point is - no one is getting fired. Our CIA people are the same bozos that didn't pick up on 9/11 before it happened and can't stop a stupid 23 year Nigerian kid from almost blowing up a plane. The financial industry titans dare to reward their executive class with billions in bonuses after the taxpayers protected their nest eggs by propping up failed institutions. All around, all Americans see are their friends and families losing jobs because our overall economy is sick and predicated on debt. Meanwhile, the elites, who don't NEED the money, hang onto positions of power through networks of cronyism and favoritism and glad-handing and they can't run companies or the country.

When I worked at a litigation consulting company at age 24, a team of us could have built a tracking database system that would have caught the Nigerian terrorist trying to board a plane. There were so many opportunities to flag him. And if we failed, we would get fired and hired by a more competent consulting company. Yet, 10 years after 9/11 and who knows how many billion dollars spent on security, we don't have a simple system that can do the same?

I could go on, but I'm tired. But this is why people voted for Scott Brown.