Richard Rorty
When Donald Trump was first elected, well-read people with good memories dug out a prediction by the philosopher Richard Rorty from 1998 that seemed shockingly accurate:
“[M]embers of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers — themselves desperately afraid of being downsized — are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.
At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for — someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots.”
Richard Rorty, Achieving Our Country, 1998
‘Wow’, everyone thought after the election and it was quoted and forwarded all over the place. But there was a second part to that quote which was quickly forgotten. After nine months of Trump Presidency we can see that part is also clearly coming true: Read the rest of this entry »
