Addressing the Problem of Democracy

Z is for Zeitgeist: Brexit is insular but not wholly British. You hardly have to try and see parallels, across the Channel or the Atlantic. Better thinkers than me have addressed this crisis, the arrogance of neoliberal elites in constructing a politics designed to sideline and work around democracy while leaving democracy formally intact. Democracy becomes a potential weapon, a trigger you can vote to pull. But weapons don’t fire themselves, and the genius of Farage and Johnson and Gove (and Trump, potentially) is to get people to focus on the target, not on the one holding the gun.

  Tom Ewing "An A to Z of Brexit"

I don't think this arrogance belongs solely to the neoliberal elites, but to political elites from both ends of the spectrum. And definitely not Trump "potentially" - that potential is more than filled. Otherwise, I'm in agreement with Ewing, and he's put his finger very precisely on the situation.  The goal of those elites is to work around democracy (an inconvenience) and focus the masses on "the other" in their midst, away from the political elites who are actually the source of the masses' financial and political woes.  And they're doing a bang-up job of it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.