“How dare the people govern their own destiny! Their “betters” in the political party should be managing them better!”
Amen Bro!
Jonah and his DC peers are starting realize that we don’t need nor want them anymore!
Jonah is saying the horse started to leave the barn when the telephone was invented and party bosses could begin plotting long before the conventions. The eclipse of parties and strong political bosses accelerated with the telephone, television and internet. We’ve all instinctively known this, but he lays out a cogent analysis of what happened.
Say what you will about political bosses selecting the candidates, it did weed out the flakes and crazy and led to better, more sober statesmen getting nominated at all levels. We didn’t have insane socialists and communists making inroads into our politics. We didn’t have such inflamed passions where you can’t even dine in a restaurant or watch an awards show or football game without the crazies accosting or assaulting you.
That genie isn’t going back into the bottle, either. Unless there is somebody strong enough to put a leash on the crazies, we now have the “new norm” in front of us and it isn’t pretty. It may well lead to civil war and the complete failure of the Republic.
I honestly never would have expected modern communications technologies to have led to that. We all thought they would lead to more civic engagement and more sober discussion of policies, not to unhinged crazy hordes and mobs organizing themselves.
The other thing that amuses about JG here. In his world Hillary Clinton was the perfect candidate. A corrupt career politician carefully pushed through the nomination process by party possess who carefully protected her from the “crazy” candidates.