27 October

I'm not sure my interest in institutions always makes sense to others. Here's a simple example of what I mean. The people in the US who will vote for Trump no matter what he does are drawn heavily from the people who watch FOX News. FOX is an institution, set up by conservatives, to promote their worldview 24/7. Because of it, Republican politicians have a lot less work to do to persuade people, they privatised and outsourced that work. It's genius, people watching it don't even think they're watching politicians at work. The network can trash politicians all day long, and then their political colleagues simply run on a platform of 'down with elites', and win in landslides. What do opposing sides do? They protest, mostly. Ineffectual, low impact, short-term. The only institutions that already exist they could draw upon are unions. But they don't like those, because they're not pure enough, they seem a bit rough. Purity is death. FOX is street-fighter rough.