Thursday, June 5, 2008

The Politicians' True Constituency

Just to complete the thought of the earlier post on politics and politicians (The Sovereign, the Elite, and the Machinery of Manipulation), ask yourself this question: what is a politician's true constituency? Ostensibly, in a representative democracy a politician represents those who voted for him or her; therefore, his constituency is his voters. But recall the discussion of the machinery of manipulation. There is a machine that exercises such influence over the voters and how they vote that this concept of constituency becomes baseless. For if those voters in turn are in the hands of a powerful machine, then the politician's constituency is no longer the voters per se but those who control the voters -- thus, the machine. This machine, which is manned by what we call "the elite," is what politicians tailor their remarks, speeches, positions, strategy to -- not to the voters. For the voters can be won over by the powers, and the politicians have therefore learned that it is the powers, the elite, that must be appeased. Which explains the maddening behavior of so-called conservatives once they get to Washington (or wherever the capital might be). As I said in the above-mentioned post, politicians are there to represent government to you, not to represent you to the government. And the manipulation machine ensures their continued obedience to Central Planning.

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