Demos, These are interesting times. The last great test of the constitution came during the Nixon Administration; the Clinton impeachment was silliness run amok. We’ll see how the system responds. I remain the eternal, skeptical optimist (if that makes any sense at all).

There’s something seriously fishy going on here… and I don’t mean the normal stuff we’ve been bitching about as malfeasance or an erosion of our fundamental principles. I mean the kind of open corruption that means that no one even cares if it’s obvious any more.

What I find astonishing here is the belief that fears—and peculiarly amorphous fears at that—are now used to justify literally anything. Pork, meddling in people’s end of life decisions, rolling back privacy rights, ignoring checks and balances. All of it reeks of corruption as the sold underlying constant.

That’s important, because globally what we’re seeing indicates the one thing that will inevitably do you in is the population’s perception that your administration is corrupt.

The answer here (for the opposition) is to focus on corruption encouraged by incompetence. And propose the remedies with firm, clear policy prescriptions.

Demo, thanks very much for the post. I’ve been having some difficulty getting anything written, and it’s in part because of what I think happens to many people when they’re confronted with the administration’s nonstop malevolence, cupidity and incompetence: it’s just fucking exhausting.

Well, I fear you are correct. I’m in the process of writing a piece right now about the swelling revolt against corruption. The one constant I see is a universal) and very localized) concern over corruption. From the elections in Spain, Canada, Hamas’ recent victory, the elections that the administration opposes in South America on ideological grounds rather than with regard to democracy, all point to a universal disgust over corruption of the body politic.

If I’m right, then the hope for the removal of this trend lies not in their incompetence, or their lying or their misleading statements or even the poor effects of their policies, but in their cronyism. The lowest ratings for the administration came when Brown was highly visible in the midst of catastrophe and so obviously a crony. It’s not the incompetence we protest—it’s the corruption, whether to good effect or bad, so just as the mantra for the Clinton campaign was “It’s the economy stupid” the upcoming motto ought to be “It’s the corruption stupid.”

Follow the money.