During the period leading up to the American Civil War there were a stretch of irrelevant non-entities occupying the White House. Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Filmore, Pierce, Buchanan; each vied with the last and was topped by the next in their nothingness. This went beyond error or incompetence. It was a sign that the electorate, the Electoral College – back then there was much less of a whitewash to make it seem this was a popular decision – was rapidly losing confidence in the entire enterprise. What difference does it make who holds office in an organization that has splintered and eroded to the point that so many of the powerful begin to look beyond its institutions? In the 1840's and '50's they looked to business or to a new fantasy of national glory embodied in a potential confederacy for the way forward. Even Lincoln was expected to be a non-entity. In many ways he was seen at the time as the culminating last straw, the mother of all non-entities. How this all worked out later, with the war and its aftermath, is open to debate; or at least it should be. The point I'm trying to make is that whenever a system is disintegrating it will find itself led by people who are seen as ever more irrelevant and useless. They don't bring the system down through error, their placement is already a function of a wider collapse.
And now they govern…
And now they govern…
And now they govern…
During the period leading up to the American Civil War there were a stretch of irrelevant non-entities occupying the White House. Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Filmore, Pierce, Buchanan; each vied with the last and was topped by the next in their nothingness. This went beyond error or incompetence. It was a sign that the electorate, the Electoral College – back then there was much less of a whitewash to make it seem this was a popular decision – was rapidly losing confidence in the entire enterprise. What difference does it make who holds office in an organization that has splintered and eroded to the point that so many of the powerful begin to look beyond its institutions? In the 1840's and '50's they looked to business or to a new fantasy of national glory embodied in a potential confederacy for the way forward. Even Lincoln was expected to be a non-entity. In many ways he was seen at the time as the culminating last straw, the mother of all non-entities. How this all worked out later, with the war and its aftermath, is open to debate; or at least it should be. The point I'm trying to make is that whenever a system is disintegrating it will find itself led by people who are seen as ever more irrelevant and useless. They don't bring the system down through error, their placement is already a function of a wider collapse.