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The Real Crisis of the 2016 Election by Oliver DeMille

The Real Crisis of the 2016 Election by Oliver DeMille

September 10th, 2015 // 6:30 am @

“U.S. median income is $42,000 per year, while the European median income is $27,000. That’s close to the average difference in annual income between U.S. high school grads ($28,000) and college graduates ($45,000). And the current elite class wants America to become more like Europe. This explains much of what Washington is doing these days.”

 What Is Coming

real americanThere is a serious crisis coming. Most people just hope it won’t come. Their subconscious minds tell them: “If we hope hard enough, and avoid thinking about it, maybe it won’t happen.”

Sadly, it isn’t quite that simple. The crisis is coming.

What’s the Crisis? Imagine this: It’s the summer of 2017, and we have another career politician in the White House. On the day of the 2016 election, or even earlier, we learned that none of the anti-Establishment candidates were going to win. Instead, the media informed us that the American electorate was putting another regular politician into office.

And since inauguration day, that president has followed a path similar to earlier presidents, from Bush I and Clinton, to Bush II and Obama: the national debt is still skyrocketing, our foreign policy is a disaster, the government is growing, increased regulations attack our prosperity every month, and the Supreme Court is legislating additional policies that hurt the nation.

On top of all this, the mandates of Obamacare are really kicking in now, increasing many small business costs by 30% or more annually—and as a result, those businesses that survive are laying off large numbers of employees. Your family health insurance premiums are up many thousands of dollars a year. The economy is still struggling, with less than a 2% growth rate, and good-paying jobs are increasingly scarce. At least one or two of your close friends or family members have lost their jobs.

In other words, it’s clear that the 2016 election has changed almost nothing. Terrorist attacks are increasing in both Europe and a few targeted attacks in the United States—as Iran uses its new $100 billion dollars to fund such violence. ISIS is still spreading, and China continues to increase its naval presence around the Pacific Rim. Moreover, Putin is becoming increasingly aggressive, not just in Eastern Europe but also in Syria, the North Pole, and the Pacific.

If the new president is a Democrat, there is a strong push to increase taxes and federalize even more state-level programs. If, contrast, if the president is a Republican… well, exactly the same thing is happening.

If we vote for the same kind of candidate we’ve voted for since 1988 (a career politician), we’re going to get the same thing we’ve experienced since…you know…1988. Meaning that career politicians are going to give us the same thing that career politicians have always given us:

Increased government. Very little positive change. A continual slide toward bigger government, higher debts, and decreased individual prosperity and freedoms.

Coming Paths

This is the crisis ahead: More of the same. Except that it’s continually a bit worse, year after year, election cycle after election cycle.

“The definition of insanity,” you remind yourself, “is to keep doing the same thing while expecting different results.” In business, the prime directive is that to actually change an organization, you have to significantly change the leadership. If career politicians keep running the White House, little is going to change. This is true.

It’s frustrating. We don’t want to believe it, because we hope things will be different this time. But each election proves that it’s the reality. Career politicians do what career politicians do. Over and over.

Specifically: whatever career politicians say as candidates, once they’re elected they do what they’ve done before. Count on it. The following presidential candidates are not going to bring much change to Washington:

  • Joe Biden
  • Hillary Clinton
  • Jeb Bush
  • Chris Christie (to his credit, Christie is openly promising to do what career politicians do: just more of the status quo)
  • Marco Rubio
  • Scott Walker
  • John Kasich (actually, at least Kasich has balanced two major budgets—the federal budget during the 1990s, and Ohio’s budget while serving as governor; thus, he’ll likely do this again—even if he doesn’t do much else, this is a pretty good thing)

But does anyone actually believe that if Jeb Bush is elected president we’ll reverse the national debt, repeal Obamacare, or seriously send education decisions and funding back to the states, where it belongs? No way.

The above candidates are part of the system; and reaching the pinnacle of the system they’ve spent their lives supporting won’t incentivize them to drastically change things. Whatever your political views, it’s clear that those who’ve made their lives in the system aren’t likely to alter it in any significant way. Period.

The following are a lot more likely to really change things:

  • Bernie Sanders
  • Carly Fiorina
  • Rand Paul
  • Donald Trump
  • Ted Cruz
  • Ben Carson

Say what you want about them, but they aren’t part of the typical Washington Establishment.

If elected, would one of them actually change things?

Maybe. Maybe not. But there is at least a chance.

In contrast, with the first list above, there’s no reasonable, rational expectation of real change.

Part II: What Will the Crisis Look and Feel Like for Americans?

Beyond the question of whether or not real change will come after the 2016 election, a deeper question is this: “If it doesn’t come, what will happen?”

In other words, “Where is our current national trajectory taking us?” First of all, if real change does come, it could take a number of different directions. That’s what change does. Genuine change is almost impossible to predict, because a significant change causes so many additional, cascading, changes.

If anyone on the first list above becomes our next president, I believe we have less than a 1% chance of changing course in a serious way that really shifts our national direction. Even if someone on the second list is elected, I’m convinced we’ll have less than a 40% chance of such a course correction (and 0% if it’s Bernie Sanders).

And let’s be clear: a course correction is desperately needed. If it doesn’t come, where are we headed?

Answer: In the early 1960s, many in the Euro-American elite class adopted the idea that the U.S. was beginning to outpace the nations of Western Europe—economically, technologically, and militarily. Moreover, they calculated that such a divide would be bad for business (specifically the business of the elites, which includes both the economic endeavors of the 1% and also their political influence).

To combat this growing divide, the elites began using their institutional, fiscal, and monetary influence to make the United States more like Europe. They began in earnest by dropping the gold standard in 1971, and providing an influx of elite money into higher education donations and endowments, and simultaneously with increased investment in and ownership of major media outlets.

Influenced by these funds and those who provided them, education began spreading the idea that America should be more like Europe, and the graduates of these programs increasingly dominated the campus scene through the seventies and eighties. By 1987, Allan Bloom decried what amounted to the Europeanized politicization of higher education in his bestselling book The Closing of the American Mind.

Choosing a Dream

Media increasingly reinforced this same message—“America should be more like Europe”—in stories and reports, from the major national newspapers to the Big 3 television networks. Nearly all cable channels and Establishment-supported Internet news outlets followed suit.

Among Establishment policy makers, Samuel Huntington’s writings on “Civilizations” and Francis Fukayama’s “End of History” essays pointed U.S. financial-, domestic-, and foreign-policy institutions (and bureaucracies) in the same direction.

Where does this leave us today? The “American Dream” includes the ideal that each household should achieve home ownership, financial independence (at least by the time of retirement), cars, savings, education for the kids, and a better lifestyle for each additional generation. In contrast, a middle class family in Europe typically lives in an apartment, has fewer children than American families, owns (on average) less than one car, and expects decreasing financial opportunities for coming generations.

To put this in financial terms, the U.S. median income is $42,000 per year, while the Western European median annual income is $27,000.

While it may not appear so at first, these numbers are drastically different—especially if you are applying for a home or vehicle loan, trying to start a business, deciding how many children to have, or funding a child’s college education. Indeed, an American family of three making the European median income of $27,000 a year typically lives in an apartment and has approximately $4,050 a year or less in disposable income. The U.S. median income of $42,000 upgrades the family to a home and $12,180 in annual disposable income.

That’s roughly the same as the average difference in annual median income between U.S. high school grads ($28,000) and college graduates ($45,000). That’s right: the direction of U.S. median income is headed toward less than the average wages of high school grads.

This comparison is not overstated. This is where we’re headed. Of course, the affluent classes won’t suffer this same fate, but a lot more Americans will become part of the struggling class. Just like in Europe.

Who we vote for matters.

If we want real change, we need to vote for something different.


Category : Aristocracy &Blog &Business &Citizenship &Community &Constitution &Culture &Current Events &Economics &Education &Foreign Affairs &Generations &Government &History &Independents &Leadership &Liberty &Politics

6 Comments → “The Real Crisis of the 2016 Election by Oliver DeMille”


  1. Tom McCourt

    8 years ago

    Here is what I think and sent to:

    Dear Republican National Committee,
    Once again I take keyboard in hand to respond to your Census for Congressional District Utah #03. For this coming election, I think I can pretty well sum up the feelings of many of us out here in the weeds of rural Utah. Screw you!

    In 1994 I began a voter registration rally here to try to help Newt Gingrich accomplish his “contract with America.” I made complete fool of myself because once my friends and I helped him accomplish his objective to get more Republicans in the house and senate, nothing happened. Bill Clinton went on his merry way and dumped another massive national park on us and implemented crippling environmental regulations that cost me and thousands of my co-workers our jobs and livelihoods.
    I didn’t think anyone could field a more Viagra-needy candidate than Bob Dole in 1996. But as of the last two elections you are still offering weak, subservient, milquetoast candidates backed by the Republican elite: John McCain, the closet Democrat, and Mitt Romney, the grinning wimp. Both got their asses kicked because neither would stand and fight. Both were so steeped in politically correct politico-babble and bullshit they looked like fools. Everyone knows what needs to be done. None of your champions has the guts, heart, or spine to even say it, let alone do it. Sarah Palin is a better man than any of them.
    And today the Republican cartel offers Jeb The Beloved, destined to be the third puppet potentate of the Bush dynasty. I’ll vote for Hillary first. At least I can believe she really means what she says, so it won’t be a surprise.
    Our constitution is being destroyed. Obama should have been impeached and removed from office during his first administration. I know it and you know it. Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran does nothing but set the stage for the destruction of Israel and a third world war. Obama’s domestic policies, his refusal to enforce federal law, his refusal to even obey federal law, sets the stage for a possible race war if not a full-out civil war. Why are only a handful of Republican senators speaking out about this? Why doesn’t the Republican leadership support them?
    And there’s still the question of open borders and impending economic collapse. Republicans helped with those, too. George Bush Number Two could have closed the border and got the debt under control. Why didn’t he do it?
    My heart bleeds for my grandchildren and the horrors they might face because Republicans continue to join with Democrats in presiding over the ruin of our great nation. God help us all.
    So, as you can see, I’m a little angry. Hopefully this little tirade will give you some idea of what we think about you out here in flyover country. But then of course, I know none of you will read this because there isn’t a check in the envelope, and that’s all you really wanted. Had you ever listened to our concerns, honored your promises, and taken any of our advice you pretended to ask for, things would surely be different.

    Have a nice day. P.S. what happened to de-funding Obamacare?

    Tom McCourt
    Price, Utah


  2. Ammon Nelson

    8 years ago

    I hesitate to add this, but the change which some of the non-career politicians would bring, based on what I can determine of their character from their comments and lifestyle choices and results – there is one very popular candidate in particular that I predict would make a change similar to Emperor Palpatine in the Star Wars Universe.


  3. Terry Moore

    8 years ago

    I agree we need to vote properly and that we need to be much more educated and informed in our coming votes. But voting isn’t our only vehicle for change. I think we can also start turning around the trends you’ve shown above, and make more of an impact with efforts such as a Convention of States, jury nullification, and the exercise of common law.

    To me, the problem is education. And not just public schools, private schools, and home schooling. We have a dearth of knowledge out in the general public that is VERY hard to overcome on how to use our votes, our Article V rights, our rights as jurists, and our right to use common law instead of statute law. We’ve just never learned and it takes a LOT of motivation and time to overcome this dearth of knowledge. I’m lucky, I took to heart your principle of “You, not them” and have thrown myself into several causes I feel may produce change.

    I see some of the problems. I want to be a part of the solution. Leadership, like the mythical McGyver, takes what it has and turns it into what is needed to accomplish its purpose, good or bad. I want to encourage you, and everyone, to continue learning, and stepping up, wherever you can locally. When I can lead, I do. And when that leader comes along who has the values I have, I will follow him.

    I just hope, no, I pray, the moment has not passed when we cannot reign in the darker sides of our government. I want to exercise the powers the Constitution has left us to control our government and reign in tyranny. Thanks!


  4. David Nelson

    8 years ago

    For those of us who are Christ Followers, we know God does make all things work according to his plan. It may not matter who is elected if God want’s to let us wander around for not believing in him. We see so much direction change away from God to evil. People are becoming illiterate by choice and don’t realize how this makes them easier to control as they are influenced by stupidity to do the wrong thing causing themselves pain. Then they blame someone other than themselves.
    I agree, we need to decide today which place we want to be; getting broker or getting out of debt and do the actions required to accomplish either goal.


  5. beth

    8 years ago

    Lets choose a candidate that will try to make America great again following the ideals set forth in our constitution and Bill of Rights. Let’s choose a candidate who is enthusiastic about changes to be made, someone with gumption and scruples to stand by his word and those of our forefathers who setup this country. Let’s choose someone who is passionate about the qualities of good that helped to make our country Great. Where is honesty, integrity and uprightness? Can we not choose a true American willing to lead and guide using the precepts set up by our former states men and women? Where is such a person? Where is the person who can work with the Senate and House of Representatives to bring about laws that will protect and favor the American people? Where is the person with adequate manners in speaking and talking about people and for the people to represent us around the world? Where is the fair-minded person that will balance our budget while building our economy and creating more jobs for our current population and those yet to rise? Who can we trust to guide this country effectively?


  6. Easton Kelsey

    8 years ago

    Ben Carson’s got my support thus far. He sums himself up in three words: compassion & common sense. Tocqueville called it virtue & wisdom which are the foundational characteristics of a free society.


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