Four accurate depictions of human struggle in the grim Hunger Games series

Not even the nation's young females are holding back from consuming entertainment that presents grim, violent possibilities for the world's future these days. Dystopian, young adult epics have been all the rage these days and "The Hunger Games" series by Suzanne Collins has unquestionably been the most successful.

I'll admit I read the entire trilogy, although I thought it really went downhill after book one. That said, after seeing the first movie I was pretty confident that the follow-up films were going to be much stronger than the book sequels because it's a story that translates better to film. Sure enough, it did.

Of course, they pulled in a remarkably strong team of film people and actors to put it together. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Woody Harrelson did awesome work in this series to say nothing of how the series hit the jackpot by casting Jennifer Lawrence in the lead role.

I finally saw Mockingjay part II the other night and wanted to give some thoughts on the series' themes.

Don't read if you want to avoid spoilers*

Theme 1: Elites on the inside, poor out to the burbs

For several decades in the US the phenomenon of "white flight" led to the inner city featuring decay while urban sprawl and suburbs began populated by most of the nation's wealthier citizens. However, through the process of gentrification you're now seeing wealthy white people reclaim cities and drive poorer black folk out to the suburbs through pricing.

"Our prices discriminate so we don't have to."

Ironically, many of the nation's most liberal cities are the worst offenders of this phenomenon with San Francisco, New York, and Austin some notable examples. Even Oakland is getting there as people who want to live in San Francisco but can't quite afford to get in are settling for Oakland and turning it into a hipster depot.

One of the central themes of the Hunger Games is how the ruling elites live in the city with its well maintained infrastructure and impressive architecture while the poor dregs of society are cast out to the suburbs and controlled with the brutal bread and circus "Hunger Games" process.

Collins was really on point here with her sense of where things are headed, you wonder if liberal white Americans are pausing to consider if their current policies are leading to a similar type of dystopian future in which the nation's minority groups are on the outside looking in. Obviously it'd be nice to avoid that kind of result.

Theme 2: The moral level is the strongest in war

The depictions of the politics of warfare in "Mockingjay" parts I and II" are really some of the best I've seen at the movies. It's a tad ironic, given that it's a young adult series with a female hero aimed largely at a young female audience. Clearly Collins also has a strong grasp of the emotional side of war, the power of rhetoric, the effectiveness of "soft power," and the supremacy of morals in a fight.

As William S. Lind put it in his grid for evaluating actions in war:

The moral level of war trumps the mental AND the physical.

A smaller group of people with more to fight for will generally beat the larger group with less motivation because war and struggle is difficult and doing what it takes to win requires serious dedication and emotional commitment.

Throughout the entire series the "Mockingjay" affects tremendous change by being an example and a hero to people that gives them the fight they need to overcome the resources of the capital and the brutality of President Snow.

Of course Catniss barely cares about all of that, she's just doing what's natural to her, which makes it all the more powerful and effective.

You see this in politics all the time, the people who can be charismatic naturally always demolish the people who have an affected, corporate feel to their rhetoric and appeals.

If you haven't seen Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) break down the differences in Trump and Clinton in persuasion this appearance on Bill Maher's program was surprisingly effective at communicating what's going on:

When I heard Adams was going on Maher's show I figured he'd be shouted down by Bill's typical snarky condescension but he wasn't. Maher must respect Adams, perhaps because he's a fellow atheist, but I digress.

Theme 3: Fairly traditional gender roles

It's hilarious that whenever women are responsible for creating excellent entertainment products they usually don't adhere to feminist-approved depictions of gender but generally draw their female characters pretty realistically and do the same for the men. Better emotional awareness, imo.

It's with liberal male authors that you see the most ridiculous female characters as they draw the most ridiculous portraits of what women really look like while intending to create "strong female characters" that generally just behave like men.

Catniss is entirely believable as a strong female character. She needs emotional support in her life, she is routinely bested in physical combat when she can't rely on shooting people from a distance (it's ridiculous in films when we're asked to believe that 5'6" 100 pound models could realistically take down a pack of 6'2" 240 pound male goons), and her motivations are purely feminine.

The reason that Catniss works is because her skill in the midst of dystopian horror is simply figuring out how to survive and stand tall. That's what real feminine strength looks like, not aping James Bond's detached approach to murder or emotional connection, or Bruce Wayne's explosive strength and ability to take a punch.

Theme 4: From revolution to revulsion

The one place where the movie series failed was in the depiction of President's Coin descent from ideologue purist to power-hungry totalitarian. They do a good job of setting that development up in the movie, but there's no character development for Coin that explains how and why she ended up succumbing to the temptations of power.

It's a shame, because everything else about the series was really artfully done and captures what real life characters and motivations look, and we've seen people go from ideologues to control-obsessed totalitarians all too many times in the course of human history.

However, Snow and Coin were both a little bit cartoonish in this regard. Snow is portrayed as the ultimate machiavellian but he's just a little too comfortable in his own shoes as a brutal dictator. In real life such people would be at much greater pains to justify themselves to everyone. I guess you could make the same complaint of most villains in film though.

Meanwhile Coin, she just flips a switch at some point off screen and becomes something similar. The movie focuses on developing how Catniss figures out that she needs to be stopped rather than ever showing a hint at what's happening in Coin's soul. It's a shame, because it makes the film's climax and twist less effective.

My favorite depiction in modern entertainment of the human tendency to overthrow evil only to succumb to the same temptation and fall just as hard remains this scene from "The Office"

Truly the quest for power over other humans is just an attempt to wield something out of our control and often ultimately useless.

We have to learn from Catniss or Captain America and effect change in other people through virtuous example, not cynical attempts to exercise control directly. After all, that's how our Lord did it.

3 powerful themes from "Captain America: Civil War"

I think Captain America 3: Civil War may have been the strongest film yet in the Marvel universe. It's a tough call given how tremendously entertaining "the Avengers" was and how quirky and brilliant "Guardians of the Galaxy" turned out to be. Nevertheless, it was great and it got better on reflection.

I was clued in to two brilliant reviews of "Civil War," both by Devin Faraci who does good work over at Birthmoviesdeath.com. I recommend them both for the way they help you process and understand the movie and also because Faraci explains things in a way that make it easier to offer my own thoughts on the movie.

Don't read these or anything below if you are looking to avoid spoilers*

The first explains why Civil War is in fact a Captain America movie, continuing the tale of friendship and loyalty between Steve Rogers and his pal Bucky.

The second explains the importance of Spider-Man's role in capturing one of the main themes of the film: which is taking personal responsibility vs looking to pass it off.

I noticed three major themes that gave this blockbuster some real punch. As I noted with Guardians of the Galaxy, sometimes the blockbusters made for mass audiences have deeper and more powerful truths than the more artsy films nominated for Oscars.

Theme 1: Taking real responsibility

America today is filled to the brink with people who feel the weight of responsibility and are trying to pass it off through processes that aren't actually helpful or wise, much as Iron-Man did. I've got an everyday example that I think will drive this point home: The bureaucratic processes at your job.

Y'all know what I'm talking about. The way modern institutions work is as follows:

1. Something goes terribly wrong due to oversight or moral failure on the part of an employee.

2. The company promises to make sure this will never happen again.

3. The company institutes bureaucratic process and documentation to protect themselves in the future without actually decreasing the chances of future problems.

4. The new process overloads employees in paper work and leads someone to commit a different oversight or moral failure.

5. Company promises to make sure this will never happen again...

If you've worked for any heavily regulated business like the medical field or education you know what I'm talking about and even if you don't this style of problem solving is probably pervasive enough that you still know exactly what I'm talking about.

This is the sin of Iron Man in "Civil War" he's not looking to actually own the problem and own the solution, he's looking for bureaucratic solutions that can absolve him of guilt. Just like your HR department.

Theme 2: A system is only as good as the people involved

We could just as easily call this section "why ideology is useless." The Captain's concluding monologue included the line,

"My faith's in people, I guess. Individuals. And I'm happy to say that, for the most part, they haven't let me down. Which is why I can't let them down either."

The essence of Captain America's character in the Marvel films has always been about moral leadership. He was chosen for the serum because he had enough character to be trusted not to abuse the power. Defeating the Nazis (or Hydra I guess) couldn't just be about wielding power but had to be balanced with caution, and that caution centered around who was allowed to wield the power.

American political debate generally centers around policy prescriptions and the underlying ideologies. When a policy or government works or doesn't work then people on both sides will rush to explain why the opposing ideology was to blame or how their own ideology shouldn't take the fall for this particular failure.

It's all a smokescreen, ideology matters considerably less than who's wielding power and the character and motives of the people at the top.

Take a look at the wide variety of different political systems in place in the Bible and tell me when God affirms or disapproves of leadership because of their ideology. He doesn't, because he's much more concerned with what they're doing and why they're doing it.

Theme 3: Greater love hath no one than this...

The way Captain America challenges us to consider moral authority as the primary qualification for leadership and power is a very worthy message. Civil War does a great job pitting that qualification against the notion of trusting instead in bureaucracy or ideology.

The problem anyone will point to as a justification for siding with #TeamIronMan is that humans aren't worthy of that trust. That's why we have the law, bureaucratic oversight, and ideologies, so that humans can be guided to the proper course of action.

But as the Captain intuitively understands and demonstrates, these are are ultimately untrustworthy. Being relational beings, what humans need above all other things is an example...

"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being borne in the likeness of men. 

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every other name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."

We don't really have a choice but to respond to Christ-like self sacrifice and service. It's inherent to mankind to respond and trust ultimately in that example. The message of the Captain America series is ultimately that of the gospel, and almost certainly unintentionally so.

That's the power of Jesus' example, that "at his name every knee should bow," it's simply not possible to point to higher truth without pointing to him.

Everyone loves Iron Man, he's hilarious and he's flawed in a way that makes it easy to connect to him. Either you think you're like Iron Man or you wish you were, that's what makes him the perfect antagonist to have to respond to the Christ-like example of the Captain.

I know these are ultimately just silly superhero movies but they still represent our ideals and ourselves as we'd like to see them or they couldn't resonate. Rather than chasing some kind of grim, violent depiction of the world where we can feel safe to fail to aspire to any higher examples, Captain America instead points us to the cross.

That's why his weapon is actually a shield and that's why these Marvel films are some of the most enjoyable and powerful movies coming out these days.

Why Reagan's conservatism is dead

Across Europe we're seeing a major increase in the number of nationalist parties who are fighting for their nations to remain ethnically homogenous, outside of the EU, and free to govern themselves based on their own people's preferences.

Some of these groups are fairly liberal in how they'd like their elected leaders to govern the state, others are somewhat "conservative" in the American/Reaganite sense, all of them are nationalistic.

Normally US politics are about a decade or so behind the rest of Europe and American conservatism has basically been a gradual retreat on the various progressive issues of the West. The US govt has become increasingly expansive in scope with only occasional, half-hearted checks such as Chief Justice affirming Obamacare while setting limitations on the interpretation of the Commerce Clause.

That kind of, "okay we'll let this one slide, but please don't do something like this again," move has defined GOP conservatism for years and years now.

Intermixed in this fighting withdrawal has been the rise of "neo-conservatism" in which the Republican party abandoned their classical, "just war doctrine", defensive views on foreign policy in favor of aggressive interventionism across the globe and the establishment of a "Pax Americana" in which the US led the way in establishing order in the world...or trying to, at least.

Along with these global interests came a policy that's been described as "invade the world, invite the world" as the US turned the spigot on immigration in the 1960s and have allowed the nation to be flooded with immigrants from all over the planet.

Since that time, the US has seen about 60 million legal immigrants enter the nation along with an untold number of illegal immigrants perhaps as great as 10-20 million.

The US was seriously impacted by the introduction of millions of Irish and northern-European immigrants in the 1800's but the impact has been nothing like the introduction of people from all across the world over the last 50 years.

There have been two results from these policies that have killed Reaganite conservatism in America.

Result 1: "Pax Americana" has been expensive and not particularly effective

Thanks to the rise of Islamic terrorism and the tremendous failures of either US foreign or domestic policy to curtail it, Americans don't currently feel terribly safe. Regime changes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria have destabilized the Middle East and turned once reasonably stable states into cesspools where increasingly radical groups such as ISIS have been able to flourish.

Meanwhile the plan at home has been to continue to allow immigration from these unstable regions while increasing surveillance. This has led to less freedom (and convenience) for Americans yet has totally failed to eliminate the possibilities of domestic terrorism.

The cost of these policies has been astronomical. Currently the US has a military budget of $596 billion dollars, which is more than the next seven countries combined. I'd say that's an expensive bill for the taxpayer but since the US is approaching $20 trillion it's really the future taxpayer that's on the hook.

Reagan ultimately succeeded in helping Americans feel safer from the threat of Soviet nuclear weapons, but that's not been the case in the battle against Islamic radicalism. Nor is there any coherent strategic proposal on the table that would achieve that result.

Result 2: Raising Western children is becoming increasingly expensive

This is really the biggest problem facing all of Western Civilization and the number one reason that the rise of nationalism was inevitable.

Currently 1/3 of millennials say they don't even intend to have children, typically citing the high cost and responsibility of doing so. The US birth rate is at around 2.0, or replacement level (two parents need to combine to create two children or else the population will decrease), but reaching the replacement level has only been achieved thanks to higher birth rates from immigrant populations. Particularly the more family-oriented Mexicans who are due to become the majority in multiple US States within our lifetimes.

Now here's the element of this issue that people don't like to talk about.

Replacing middle-class Americans with European ancestry with poorer Mexican immigrants really changes the nation in a major way. What's more, it actually decreases the likelihood of white Americans having more children.

One of the effects of mass immigration has been the creation of multiple neighborhoods across the country that are segregated by ethnicity as "white flight" leads whites to establish new neighborhoods where they can be less concerned with violent crime or under-performing schools.

That's not a popular thing to say but it's transparently obvious in every part of the US. White Americans move into as lily-white a neighborhood as they can afford. The stated reasoning is generally a concern about crime or schools, yet the ethnic segregation that results is particularly stark.

As the populations of latinos rises, the costs of that segregation become more expensive and housing prices in the desirable areas goes up. So raising a family in a "crime-free area with good schools" becomes increasingly expensive.

At the same time, the increase in immigration has a profound impact on the supply and demand curve for the price of labor. If you have a greater supply of labor, the price goes down, and the increase of available labor in the US has seen real wages drop or stagnate.

It's hard to get the top paying jobs in the US anymore without a college degree, or often even a post-grad degree. The US govt has sought to make these increasingly available by offering debt to anyone and everyone who wants to pursue college without any kind of discrimination (except understandably against those who can afford college without debt).

The result is that we've seen a massive increase in the number of schools operating AND and a tremendous increase in the cost of education (if you artificially increase the demand for education, the price goes up), both paired with stagnating or decreasing wages for average Americans.

So if you want to be a part of the American middle-class, living in the choice neighborhoods, you have to potentially be ready to take on tens of thousands in debt for your education followed by taking on hundreds of thousands in debt to buy the necessary real estate. Very expensive.

I'll point out now that Trump (and Sanders) have been dominating at the polls amongst the white Americans who are either on the outside looking in that can't afford all these increasing costs or who have children who are on the outside looking in that can't afford all these increasing costs.

Trump blames out of control immigration, Sanders blames selfish billionaires who make policy to benefit themselves, both are actually correct.

That's the real reason why there's all this "anti-establishment" anger right now. Ceding ground in the culture wars is bad enough for everyday GOP voters but when they can see the promise of the American dream slipping away while you do nothing? Now you're really in trouble. Same story for young white liberals who want to live the good life in progressive paradises like San Francisco but can't afford the costs, Clinton ain't earning their trust.

The new conservatism

The rallying cry of the #NeverTrump movement has been that Trump isn't a true conservative and he can't be trusted to protect Reagan's movement. This is totally true in the sense that Trump isn't a conservative in the Reaganite sense and he absolutely cannot be trusted to protect the conservative movement's agenda as it has existed since the 70s and 80s.

The problem for conservative pundits and establishment figures is that most Americans don't care about that.

Cutting taxes for the wealthy, resisting massive government expansion, and continuing to wage expensive wars abroad don't do anything whatsoever to deal with the issues preventing most Americans from realizing the lives they want.

You can see this evidenced in online images like this one:

The main problem facing Western civilization is the increased cost of raising Western children, and raising children is the God-given, natural impulse of most all humans.

The solution from both parties, Republican and Democrat, has been essentially to replace Western peoples with immigrants (who, incidentally will work for lower wages and enrich their donors) and then rely on education to teach them to become productive citizens in a Western society.

The dubious effectiveness of America's public schools effectively imparting over a thousand years' worth of values and genetics aside, the result has been increased costs and anxiety for traditional Western Americans.

To further exasperate this issue, Democrats have taken to playing identity politics and rallying various minority groups to their banner by painting white males as this evil, hoarding group that is looking to prevent the minorities from grabbing their own fair share of the American pie.

Liberal Democrats have never been too great at foreseeing the consequences of their policies and now we are seeing the inevitable result. The rise of nationalism.

Trump's "doomsday" electoral strategy is to rally white Americans who feel that the policies of both liberals and conservatives are now actively working against their interests. New conservatism won't be about limited government vs expansive government, but about conserving the interests of traditional Westerners and non-Westerners who got in on the America project early and are now losing just as much.

You take a look at Trump's propositions (or some of Bernie Sanders') and you see that play out:

1. A more defensive foreign policy focused on protecting Americans and saving money.

2. Much tighter controls on immigration.

3. Protectionist trade policy intended to boost the kinds of American businesses that produce middle-class jobs.

4. Increase in the minimum wage.

5. Increased taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

There are several more policies that will likely grow in popularity and get greater mention in the future but new conservatism is going to Trump Reagan conservatism (sorry for the pun).

One of those movements has failed for years to protect the most innate interests of Westerners and the other is promising to put America first. It's a no contest struggle. The days of limited government, or nominal resistance to the expansion of government, are done. Over. The GOP isn't going to be able to trot out a Reaganite-conservative in 2020 and win diddly squat in an election. Ain't gonna happen.

My personal hope is that all of this can go down without a further increase in ethnic tension that leads to violence. In a coming column I'll talk about how America's large evangelical population can try to work to mitigate the risks of this national transition.

Evaluating Clinton's strategy vs Trump's strategy

I happen to share my last name with the greatest military theoretician in US history, Col. John Boyd. As it happens, I don't seem to have any actual relation to the man whatsoever, but I do like his theories.

One of his many useful contributions was a definition of strategy, Boyd said "the Strategic Game is one of Interaction and Isolation." What he meant by this was that the key to effective strategy is to attach yourself to as many power sources as possible while detaching your opponent from the same.

Like with his other numerous theories, this applies to much more than just pure warfare theory and comes up a great deal in competitive events like elections. The winner of the contest between Clinton and Trump will be determined by which candidate is able to attach themselves to independent power sources while isolating their opponent.

Here's how they each intend to do it:

The Clinton plan

Hillary's strategy is not terribly different from that of the various establishment figures that went down in flames trying to stop Trump in the GOP primary, although she'll have some major advantages they didn't have.

Her messaging seems to be primarily about casting herself as the safe, dependable option for America as opposed to the "risky" or "dangerous" option that is Donald Trump. She's got years and years of experience both in the executive branch as a very involved first lady and the Secretary of State to go along with several years in the US Senate.

She's hoping to rebuild the Obama coalition in November while relying on the Democrat establishment, and Wall Street support. She's also looking to either absorb the #NeverTrump movement, help demoralize it so that it's voter base doesn't show up in November, or neutralize it via a third party candidacy by someone like Mitt Romney or whomever Bill Kristol can cajole into filling that role.

The positives

It seems very likely that she'll have a great deal of establishment support from both sides and also succeed in keeping Trump from attaching himself to establishment centers of electoral power and influence. There were tons of Republicans who voted against Trump in the primary, myself included, and he was successfully cast for many people as a con-man who couldn't be trusted to enact traditionally conservative solutions for the country.

Initially, Democrats were also thrilled with Trump's nomination for the chance it offers to rebuild the Obama coalition and drive turnout from unmarried women, black, and hispanic voters. I'm not sure how badly Clinton will end up smashing Trump amongst these demographics but some polling indicates she'll do very well here.

Since both Republicans and Democrats, eager to avoid being attached to evil white males or non-globalist movements, have tended to frame electoral success as being dependent on doing okay in those demographics this has led many people to go ahead and declare victory for Clinton.

The problems

There are a few major problems with this plan. The first is that attaching herself to many of the established powers is a questionable move when there's so much resentment across the country from both parties against those established powers. Hillary may struggle to rebuild the Obama coalition with Sanders stealing away her white voters with his attacks, particularly millennials who helped Obama set turnout records in 2008 and 2012 and aren't excited about a "stay the course" option.

The conservative punditry and GOP establishment meanwhile seem to have lost control over most of their voting base and Trump ended up trampling his opposition. He's got the GOP electorate largely unified behind him now, over the protestations of the #NeverTrump movement, and it's not clear if he can actually be detached from enough of those power centers to actually hurt him.

The Trump plan

I recently nicknamed the Trump electoral strategy "the doomsday scenario" in which he does the unthinkable and embraces the GOP's possibilities as the traditional white people party while stealing even some liberal white voters away from the Democrats.

That's his plan, to attach himself to those voters fairly directly through his tremendous ability to get his message out via Twitter, manipulating the media, or from grassroots conservatives who are fed up with the establishment wing of the GOP. Across most of the country talk radio has been very good to Donald.

So again that's: Increase the GOP share of the male vote, the white vote, and convince more to vote who felt they had no dog in previous races. When you remember that generally only half the country tends to vote even in presidential elections you can start to see how this could be an effective strategy.

His offensive strategy to disconnect Clinton from sources of power is also interesting and fairly unique. First, he intends to break up the Obama coalition by swiping some of the Bernie Sanders supporters and other working class whites that have been slowly leaking from the Democrats over the last several elections.

His "America first" message and willingness to be flexible in areas where conservatives normally wouldn't budge such as tax increases on the rich, raising the minimum wage, or adopting a defensive foreign policy rather than an interventionist one will likely prove to have more pull with some of these voters than most Democratic (or conservative) pundits will care to admit.

Trump also plans to break up the Obama coalition by demoralizing Clinton-sympathetic millennials with unabashed character attacks on Bill Clinton for his past and on Hillary for "enabling" Bill's interactions with women. Like with Bernie voters, he doesn't need them all to switch sides but if he can steal some or convince others to not even show up to the polls then he'll have done major damage.

Finally, Trump hopes to blunt Clinton's "I'm the safe candidate" appeal to educated, suburban voters (who do tend to turnout in every election) by lambasting her record approving of the Iraq war as a senator and spearheading the Libya regime change as secretary of state. He'll also accuse her of being weak and ineffective during the Benghazi crises and in general look to bully her and make her appear to be anything but a safe bet in a time of national crises.

The positives

There's a strong case to be made that doubling down on being the white people party was always the easiest path to victory for the GOP, particularly in 2016 before another four years of widespread immigration. Convincing more white voters to show up and go with the GOP is an easier path than convincing hispanics, unmarried women, or black voters that Republicans have more to offer them.

Trump's plan also matches the nativist surge that is taking place across Western Civilization in response to widespread immigration and stokes the anti-establishment fires that are close to burning down the Republican party and are starting to lick at the Democratic establishment as well.

The problems

Trump's biggest problem is being taken seriously with middle-class suburbanites that are often swing votes in a given election. He's got a case to make as the safer option than Clinton and a much more coherent message to sell (Make America Great Again vs It's Hillary's turn!) but many of these voters seem him as unstable, clownish, or generally unserious.

Even though his stated foreign policy is a more defensive posture for the US, the fact that the president has broad powers to enact foreign policy and access to the nuclear codes mean that he'll have to convince voters that when he's in charge of their security he'll actually go about it in a serious, rigorous fashion.

If he can't do that he'll get trounced.

Another problem is if his easy-to-caricature villainous nature and style allows Clinton to do what her own charisma could not do and rebuild the Obama coalition with "gotta stop Trump" fervor.

My own guess is that Trump will win over enough voters to believe he's a serious candidate for the rest of his plan to be successful in enacting the doomsday scenario and preventing Clinton from attaching herself to enough positions and demographics to win.

Her plan is frankly based on several faulty assumptions that I don't think will hold up in the new era of American politics.

At the end of the day, executing a campaign strategy is always about charisma. Go back to the last several US elections and you'll see the more charismatic candidate win contest after contest after contest. Trump is a very charismatic candidate with years of experience in media while Clinton is perhaps the least charismatic candidate I've ever seen run for POTUS.

Trump's strategy is solid and his ability to execute it is stronger than Clinton's, thus he'll probably win.

4 observations on Trump's general election strategy

I've noticed a few themes in the last few weeks of the election that I thought might make for some interesting notes. I hope to review "Civil War" whenever I finally see it, even though it's doubtful that film matches the "grim violence" of the other entertainment series I've been talking about recently.

There were some "shocking" polls that came out recently which had Trump and Clinton virtually tied in Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. This led to a good deal of widespread panic and attempts by the explainers at 538 to calm down the establishment and convince them that this doesn't necessarily mean that Trump will actually be successful in November.

Of course I went on the record here a couple of weeks ago and wrote that I think Trump will win the general election. Here's some thoughts on why I think we're seeing that play out:

1. Trump understands the game

One of his main strengths that he uses to his advantage over the other politicians is that he embraces the fact that this is all theatre and gamesmanship. Politicians are always trying to stick each other with labels that will sting, Trump has taken that to a new level with his hilarious nicknames like "Crooked Hillary," "Goofy Elizabeth Warren," and "Lyin Ted."

Cruz's biggest problem is that he is a lawyer who thinks like a lawyer and is always trying to use different tricks and strategies to win votes that he knows he can't win through pure charisma. He set himself up to ride the "Tea Party" movement and be the "Trust-Ted" candidate for conservatives by taking a dozen principled stands in the Senate to gain attention and trust from conservatives. However, because he's not charismatic and transparently lawyerly, "Lyin Ted" stuck to him really well because he always gives off the impression that he's trying to pull tricks on people.

"Goofy Elizabeth Warren" is a nasty way to undercut how seriously that woman obviously takes herself as some kind of champion of every fringe group in the country. "Crooked Hillary" triggers everyone to always remember how shady Clinton and all of her dealings always are.

You also see Trumps' gamesmanship in the way he'll pivot on issues and avoid giving clear policy details. Every American who's followed more than one election knows that the candidates ALWAYS give precise policy details that NEVER actually match what they'll do in office. What's more, most voters don't give a rip about precise details unless a candidate is caught lying about them. Like when George Bush promised not to raise taxes, or Obama promised we'd get to keep our doctors.

There's little upside or point in giving out precise details, so Trump focuses on big principles he intends to follow when enacting policy and he'll pivot or move around as needed. All politicians do this, but Trump does it transparently. His persona is built on being able to be transparent about flip-flopping or playing the game so he gets away with it.

You can expect Clinton to waste a good deal of time and money trying to hammer Trump on various flip flops only to see it totally fail to have any impact.

2. Trump is forming an "alt-center"

This came from Steve Sailer (or one of his commenters) to describe the position Trump is staking out. Essentially the "alt" part is to push a nationalist agenda as opposed to a globalist one. As a whole, Trump embraces some socialist-style policies and has approved of a single-payer healthcare system in the past and is now pivoting to welcome a potential rise in the minimum wage and higher taxes on the richest Americans.

For those reasons, he's not exactly a right-winger even though some of his positions have recently only been found on the far right wing (like on immigration).

What Trump is actually pushing for is modern national-socialism. This political philosophy is most famous for guiding Hitler's 3rd reich, but you could also use it to describe Finland or some of the other Scandinavian nations that American liberals are so enamored with.

The idea is to have some socialist policies but only with the intention of benefitting the nation that makes up the state. Trump's message seems totally twisted and incoherent to people who are used to "conservative Republican" and "liberal democrat' existing as the only two options but his "Americans first" message is actually totally consistent in wanting to push policies that are intended to help Americans rather than any other nation. Some of those policies will end up being fairly liberal.

3. Trump plans to win by stealing Bernie's supporters from the Democratic party

A few weeks ago Trump was making it a point to note that he thought Bernie Sanders was the better candidate than "Crooked Hillary" and setting up Hillary's seemingly inevitable victory to be tainted with the charge that she stole the election from Sanders.

After some of Sanders' recent victories Trump has turned on him some and given him the moniker "Crazy Bernie" because as shocking as this may sound to many of you, Trump would vastly prefer to run against Clinton than Sanders.

Sanders has some supporters that Trump intends to rally to his cause as he builds a majority coalition that can win the presidency and re-define the Republican party. There are fewer voters there that will suit his vision for an "alternative" party (which is why he's starting in the GOP) but he wants them all the same.

So Trump unveils the "Crazy Bernie" with the intention of helping rebuild the narrative that he can't really win or be president and helping Hillary close the deal. After Clinton wins Trump will cozy back up to Sanders' supporters and say "Hey, I also intend to stop America from engaging in more wars, I'll get after these rich people that are supporting Crooked Hillary, and I'll raise the minimum wage. Here's the difference though, I can actually do it."

It's a powerful ploy, should be interesting to see how it plays out. It only needs to work for a share of the Bernie vote, not all of it.

4. The Doomsday scenario and a new electoral map

Check out these 2012 election demographics numbers:

Democrats saw those numbers and declared permanent victory, Republicans saw those numbers and said "we've got to get Hispanics in the party!" What shared assumptions do they have? That assumption is that A) Neither party should be the "white party" and B) America will continue to trek along with globalist policies, open borders, and be an increasingly multi-cultural empire rather than a majority white nation.

However, there's a much easier path to victory for the GOP from looking at those numbers. If a candidate could increase the GOP share of the white vote and increase the share of the male vote while encouraging more American males to vote...well that could set the party up for a lot of victories as well. Especially if the party desisted in turning the US into a multi-cultural state rather than a majority white/Western one. And wouldn't that be a much easier path to take? Of course neither side of the establishment wants to take that path, which is why they never mention it as even existing as a possibility.

Part of Trump's appeal can be understood from the that he's willing to win or lose with America's favorite villain, the white male. Republicans have been running and hiding from being associated with white males for the last few decades, terrified of being called "sexist" or "racist" and losing their chances of running the multi-cultural empire they were helping to build.

Trump is running as the champion of white males, that should have been obvious from Bobby Knight's endorsement and Trump's subsequent landslide victory in the Indiana primary. That's why his support has been so determined and dogged.

With the support of fresh white males plucked from the Bernie Sanders' votes, the old electoral map has to be redrawn because we are now talking about totally new voter coalitions. The Reagan coalition is dead.

As an Alt-Center candidate Trump has a good chance of doing what establishment Republicans have wanted to do for a long time and dominate the "rust belt" and some of the more lily-white states across the midwest and northeast while still maintaining the south and midwest which are full of ABC (anyone but Hillary) voters.

This is the liberal "doomsday" scenario, in which white Americans led by white males coalesce to form a party that is looking to promote their own interests and subsequently destroy a liberal establishment candidate. The fact that this party will probably push some fairly liberal agendas probably won't be as much of a talking point.

You can expect the media and many people to become increasingly panicked and shocked as the Trump campaign continues to over perform against expectations. Hopefully I've helped bring some clarity on what is actually happening.

How Daredevil serves as safe escapism for white Americans

Marvel has cleverly found a way to do some content aimed at a strictly adult audience with the kind of grim violence that my generation loves. Their venue for doing so combines two things that have proven to be a hit: Frank Miller takes on superheroes and binge-inducing Netflix original series.

Their most successful bit so far has been the "Daredevil" series, which borrows heavily from Frank Miller's take on the character. Like with his influence on "the Dark Knight," Miller brings a darker tone to Daredevil and Netflix continued that theme in a major way.

The essence of Daredevil's character is the way he represents Irish-Catholic immigrants who came to the US and fought to carve out a place in the rough and tumble streets of New York. Sure he's blind and has some super hearing powers and ninja fighting skills, but his character is defined by the way he doggedly clings to his Catholic ethics and his ability to take both a mental and emotional pounding and still overcome.

His opponents in the Netflix series are very, very interesting particularly in light of current concerns about violence in the inner city, immigration, and fears about the existence of terrorist cells across the country. Daredevil is a rather obvious stand-in for traditional Americans' struggle to deal with these concerns without losing their soul in the process.

What's more, the Daredevil villains are politically correct stand-ins for the kinds of people and crime that actually scare Americans.

Politically correct inner-city violence and immigration

I had to notice with no small amusement a paradox that has come up in my generation in our social media conversations. I noticed in Daredevil season one that there would be Facebook posts all over my timeline about the righteous cause of the #BlackLivesMatter movement juxtaposed with the same people extolling the awesomeness of Daredevil season one.

The irony is to see people lambast police officers for using levels of violence to try and control thugs that makes our stomachs churn and then see the same people binge-watching a show where a white American beats criminals within an inch of their lives in an effort to do the same.

With season 2 of Daredevil I'd see tons of posts or tweets from people furious with Donald Trump's charges that "Mexico is sending criminals and rapists" or his proposed moratorium on Muslim immigration. Those same people would then excitedly binge-watch Daredevil's efforts to stop the rampant crime caused by particular ethnicities of immigrants within Hell's Kitchen.

Part of the way in which Daredevil gets away with this is that they avoid, other than a few brief scenes with a particular arms dealer, any depictions of black criminality or white-on-black violence. The thugs Daredevil fights are always white and the non-immigrant thugs are bikers.

And the immigrants that Daredevil is dealing with? Irish mafia, Russian mafia, and Japanese mafia/ninja supervillains.

The result of all this is that Daredevil is able to play to modern anxieties about inner-city violence and immigrant-initiated crime without actually referencing the ethnic groups people are actually worried about and diving into the controversy.

If I mention a concern for rising black violence in urban or suburban settings I can be called a racist, but if I move to a richer, all-white community and escape to Hell's kitchen in my Netflix binges I'm safe. If I voice concerns about how the risks of introducing large numbers of Muslims or poor Mexican migrants into the country I'm a racist but when I'm watching Daredevil beat up other Irish-Americans in my flat in gentrified downtown I'm safe.

If they can get Matt Murdock to wrestle with cognitive dissonance in season 3 that would just take the cake.

Season 2: A half-good follow up

In my estimation they made three mistakes in season two of the show...

*Don't read any further unless you are prepared to hear spoilers*

Mistake 1: They went overboard on the grim violence

The best parts of season two were the parts that featured Frank Castle, "the punisher." His character was PERFECT for testing Daredevil's commitment to "thou shalt not kill" and the way that he conflicts love interest Karen Page makes for some good drama that wasn't really properly exploited by the writers.

The episodes that featured Punisher were gripping and intense, but there were times when it was just overboard. One major example is when they showed the head of the Irish mafia murdering another man by slowly stabbing a fork through his eye and into his brain at a wake.

It was also interesting when he's later torturing Punisher with power tools, you get close to the point where you aren't sure if you want to watch anymore, and then they threaten to start torturing his dog...

At that point I was basically going

but mercifully Punisher relents and we don't see them exhibit animal cruelty. It's funny that as humans we are capable of watching cruelty towards other humans (to a point) but when it's turned on animals that's just too much. Especially animals like dogs, our best friends.

After my brother finished this season he texted me saying, "I think I'm going to take a break from watching people die for a few weeks."

The Punisher takes as much punishment as he doles out and the show seems to dance on the lines of what they can get away with in terms of violence without turning off their audience.

More modern shows ought to take a page out of John Wayne's "the Searchers," a story that includes tremendously grim violence and cruelty but doesn't have to depict any of it graphically in order to convey the emotions and drama of the moment.

You can accomplish so much more with what might be described as the cinematic version of "show don't tell" in which you use the actors' responses to convey the weightiness of a moment rather than just depicting it. They at least got this partially right when Karen Page steps out into the diner and sees the aftermath of Frank's brutal murder of a few dudes.

I love much of the violence in the show, especially the single-shot scenes in each season's episode three, but they need to use some other tactics.

Mistake 2: Nobu and the hand

The most gripping action sequence of season one would either be when Daredevil fights his way through a pack of Russian mafia thugs to rescue a boy from child trafficking or his epic encounter with Nobu where he's sliced up to the point where he nearly dies.

It was revealed in this moment that Nobu isn't just a Yakuza boss but is actually a legit ninja and his Shoge hook became a really sinister image.

Well they doubled down big time on Nobu and his hook in season two, basically bringing him back from the dead and repeatedly showing scenes where he'd pull out the weapon and you're supposed to feel the dread of having to watch Daredevil get carved up again.

However, it felt like a massive stretch to me to believe that Nobu has super powers or that he'd really been the mastermind of a massive, underground ninja organization this whole time. None of the episodes centering around the Hand or Elektra did much for me, although I always enjoy Stick.

When Scott Glenn tells me that there's this major war going on for the world between a group of ninjas who's leader has been moonlighting as a Yakuza boss and who's evil plot centers around that organization successfully digging a major hole in New York for some reason and weaponizing a 5'7" girl...I can almost take it all seriously.

I understand that the Hand plays a big role in the comics I just don't think this was executed all that well. Nobu is kinda wooden and he doesn't seem that threatening to Daredevil now that he has body armor and a baton.

Mistake 3: Elektra isn't convincing

When it's revealed that converting Elektra is the ultimate aim of Nobu and the Hand I'm not sure what to make of that. It seems clear enough that Daredevil could track her and dispatch her even if she went rogue and it's not clear why the Hand sees her as this unstoppable weapon. Is she really that much more useful than immortal Nobu?

I guess perhaps she'd be their best bet for a world-leader killing assasin or something, I don't know, it's not explained.

When she slits the throat of a boy in front of Daredevil and asks him "This is who I am? Can you accept me?" I had to roll my eyes. Just a bit too much, imo. The scene where Matt and Elektra plan to run away to London if they survive their upcoming battle with scores of Hand ninjas produced in me a similar reaction.

You're asked to accept that she wins over Daredevils heart in part because he's fighting so hard for her soul and in part because he feels free to be who he really is (a costumed vigilante) when he's with her whereas everyone else in his life is either at arm's length or threatening to force him to give up his identity.

I thought the show's conclusion worked for a few reasons. One reason was that I was happy to see Elektra die, even though I know they'll just bring her back later. Maybe next time it'll be better written.

Another reason was that I loved how the show wrapped up by exploring Murdock's emotional toughness in the face of losing Elektra and losing Foggy yet still being willing to risk emotional attachment again by revealing his true identity to Karen Page. They'd already explored his physical toughness so diving into his emotional strength was a good move.

Everyone knew that Daredevil would overcome the ninja hordes because Punisher would show up and gun a bunch of them down but it was still slightly satisfying to watch it unfold.

The pandering soliloquy to New Yorkers offered by Karen Page when it's finally time to write her feature article on vigilante justice was the worst part of either season. It's just not really set up by the show's themes this season. After watching Daredevil prove victorious over the Hand and seeing him basically just accept the Punisher's presence despite their philosophical differences I'm not thinking "man the people of New York are so tough and awesome for surviving all of this." Maybe they could have got there, but didn't feel like it really landed.

Feels like the show is pandering to the audience as survivors but I think an ode to the kind of hero Murdock is phrased in universals would have been better. Of course Deborah Ann Woll tends to overact quite a bit in this show so it may have been doomed regardless.

Presumably season three will return to the Kingpin as the major villain and he'll no doubt build some kind of powerful coalition of politically correct opponents to threaten Daredevil's urban setting. Although much of season two misfired for me it still produced some amazing moments and I'll be ready to escape back to Hell's Kitchen for some safe depictions of Daredevil's battle for justice whenever season three is released.

How Batman v Superman could have been a good movie

Batman v Superman was so poor, so badly executed, that Ben Affleck was apparently humiliated by the reviews and is likely to be put in charge of saving the entire franchise. A few weeks ago I drafted a long, wordy review of this film in which I wrestled through all of the film's missteps before finally stumbling upon some deeper truths the movie had possessed but failed to clearly convey.

In short, I could sum up why this movie didn't work with a few pithy sentences such as: "It tries to do a million things and doesn't do any of them well," or "it would have been better if it'd actually been about Batman v Superman."

Director Zach Snyder tried to tell a grim, violent story and engage with deeper truths along the way because that's a popular way to do things these days. The problem is that I'm not sure he himself fully understood the deep themes of the movie and he was also done in by his attempt to have a climactic ending that also set up DC's "Justice League" series.

On a minor note, I also wonder if Snyder has become overly concerned that his reputation is for making cool, slow-motion action sequences rather than deeper, grittier films like he'd prefer. He tried to make Batman v Superman a deeper, grittier film and it lacked the well-choreographed, slow-motion action sequences that would have given the 151 minute trek a better payoff.

*I'm going to give some spoilers on what happens in this movie so don't read on if you aren't okay with that*

What Snyder seemed to at least dimly understand about Superman is that he works best as a metaphor for God. What's more, both Batman and Lex Luthor are equipped with "how does man relate to God" motivations that drive the movie and could have done so effectively.

So here's a brief sketch of how this looks in the movie:

Superman is like Jesus. His character has always been like Jesus. He comes to earth and accepts the role of a humble and unimpressive servant while putting his powers to use at all times to try and protect the planet's inhabitants. He has to wrestle with how to best protect the people around him and in this movie has to struggle with a tendency to show favoritism for Israel Lois Lane. Admittedly the metaphor breaks down here a bit as there's no greater purpose to be accomplished for the world by specifically protecting Lois Lane, as good a reporter as she may be. He just likes her.

Batman is represents man and his frustrated relationship with God. He has real authority issues, seems to be increasingly embracing his role as a criminal/rebel, and he has real frustration with the way Superman does things. Bruce Wayne sees the collateral damage from Superman's battles and says, "why should I trust this all-powerful creature? Aren't I better off in my own hands?"

Modern man asks that question all the time. The problem here is that this frustration isn't really fleshed out that well and there's a big emphasis on Batman's concern with Superman's collateral damage, which is juxtaposed with sequences where Batman seems to show a similar lack of regard for whether criminals or innocents are hurt in his own vigilante escapades.

Lex Luthor is the devil, and he's very explicit about it. He looks to pit man against God and then what that doesn't work out issues the following line:

"If man won't kill God, the devil will do it!"

Another take is that Luthor is another person who's been hurt on earth, this time by an abusive father rather than a criminal who robbed him of his parents, and because his relationship with his father included so much abuse he's incapable of seeing God the father as being a force for good. As a result, he's looking to overthrow God (Superman) and sees Batman as the perfect tool for that purpose.

Now here the movie gets one thing right and two things very, very wrong.

What the movie does well is setting up the "Martha connection" in which both Superman and Batman have mothers named Martha. Luthor captures Superman's mom and tells him she'll die unless he brings Luthor Batman's head.

Superman then reasons that he must go to Batman and either convince him to help or else kill him. I'm not sure why he didn't instead determine to find his mom and rescue her, perhaps he felt Batman would be more effective in that role. This was all fairly lazy and somewhat disappointing, especially in light of how ineffectually the movie sets up Batman's motivations for taking down Superman.

What the movie gets exceptionally right, even though it fell flat for most of the audience (including myself until I finally stumbled upon the underlying theme), is when Batman has Superman beat and is ready to kill him when Superman says "don't let them hurt Martha!"

Batman is stopped, and then emotionally undone by the realization that Superman IS in fact vulnerable. Because he has people on earth that he loves so deeply, he's made vulnerable by their weakness. It's a chosen weakness, the same that God shows by allowing himself to be hurt by humanity's sinful choices as he bears with us in our weaknesses and errors.

Luthor never has this moment, his image of God is too broken (and the movie needs a supervillain), but Batman is reconciled to God by the vulnerability of Superman.

Here's the next error the movie makes, which is that it robs this moment of serving as the climax of the movie in order to pit the burgeoning "Justice League" against this CGI space-monster thing that Lex Luthor has cooked up.

There are so many mistakes here it's hard to count them all. First, Batman is pretty useless in this fight because the space-monster is so overpowered. They bring in Wonder Woman to fight it but she has so little to do in this movie that it's all rather lame. It would have been better to introduce her character with an entire film like Marvel did with most of the Avengers characters. DC was too hasty here, imo.

The plot holes that lead to Luthor creating the space-monster are pretty ridiculous. How did he know that having access to the Kryptonian spaceship would enable him to build it? Once he got aboard the ship how did he so quickly realize that it included procedures for building biological weapons?

The movie would have been much, much better if Luthor had put all his chips in the Batman basket and never said the line "if man won't kill God, the devil will do it!" After all, Batman v Superman is supposed to be the point of the movie. Justice can dawn from their alliance, you don't have to show them fighting space-monsters with Wonder Woman just yet.

Another problem is how silly and over-powered this monster is, which just didn't fit with the intended grim realism of the rest of the film. They literally nuke this monster (and Superman) and it does nothing. The Batman v Superman showdown was way cooler than this stupid fight.

Snyder also tries to give Superman the opportunity to show weakness again and sacrifice himself in order to destroy Luthor's space-monster, which brings about his own death (or not). This is needless, he already showed the vulnerability the movie needed in the "Martha" scene with Batman.

Ultimately, in the devil's battle with God his ultimate play is trying to turn man against him. That's what this movie was trying to do and could have done well. Instead, Snyder tried to add the additional fight scenes with stupid biological weapon creature and Wonder Woman.

Maybe Affleck will get all this right now that he's in charge but if the problem is DC trying to rush things and do too much while playing catch-up with Marvel then I don't know if even Affleck and Ironside's very effective Batman-Alfred combo will do the trick.

Is the balance of power in America moving back to the people?

Many of the Republican pundits in the #NeverTrump movement have been very keen to point out that the US is a Republic, not a pure democracy, and that the GOP itself should have ultimate deciding power to choose their own party's nominee. Not the voting public.

Of course all of these pundits were happy to parade and extoll the virtues of democracy as long as the voters were doing what they wanted them to do, but when the party's base revolted and decided to nominate a vulgarian billionaire with a penchant for humiliating the party's actual leaders many of these pundits felt the need to put the voters back in their place.

This was a massive mistake, of course, and simply resulted in Trump wrapping up the race with yet another landslide victory in Indiana. You don't convince voters to do what you want by demeaning their choices and suggesting that perhaps power should be more concentrated in the hands of the elite, particularly when anti-elite sentiment is already driving the choices you don't like.

But few have accused Republican pundits of being the best strategic thinkers in the biz.

Anyways they happen to be right about at least one thing, the Republican system established by the founding fathers was designed in emulation of the Roman Republic before it fell, and like most all forms of government, the Roman Republic was ultimately an oligarchy.

Sure the people would vote and Roman citizens were afforded particular powers and privileges (including the right to go die with the legions while expanding the Republic into an empire) but the major decisions and power was wielded by the ruling class.

The same was true for the US Republic established by the founding fathers, which was ruled by elites. The history of our nation's politics can largely be understood as representing struggles between a few elites for control of the helm and that history is important for contextualizing what is happening in the current US election.

The original American elites

One thing that used to puzzle me about American history was how so many brilliant men ended up in the original colonies. Growing up you always get the impression that the original colonists were simple-minded peasants who were fleeing England in order to have a chance at a better life in a new world. From there the cream rose to the crop and "survival of the fittest" enabled some great men to emerge later on such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Washington.

Then I learned about the massive role that genetics play in human abilities and began to wonder how it was that America ended up with so many highly intelligent and gifted people.

The answer can apparently be found in a book called "Albion's seed" by David Fischer, which I've personally only read spark notes about. The four main Anglo-Saxon groups that defined original American settlement and still influence culture today include:

The Puritans
The Quakers
The Cavaliers
The Borderers

The Puritans were evidently not the simple-minded fundamentalists you tend to imagine from your public education but came from the educated, upper-middle class ranks of England. They were obsessed with education and their legacy lives on in the Ivy Leagues of America's northeast. The Quakers were more or less America's source of liberal conscience and they pushed an agenda for society that would still be described as fairly egalitarian today. They settled in Pennsylvania and Delaware.

The Cavaliers settled in Virginia and were made up of British Aristocrats fleeing a Puritan takeover in England that was hostile to nobility. They brought with them a great many indentured servants and became the landed class of the south.

The Borderers are often described as "the Scots-Irish" and were the rough and tumble folk who were hardened and fashioned on the violent border of England and Scotland. These are basically your classic rednecks, the folks that would push out the frontier, and the better part of the country's overall WASP population.

I'm betting that a great deal of my own lineage is "borderer" although there are some other groups mixed in.

American politics up till the Civil War can largely be defined as northeastern elites of Puritan heritage battling southern elites of Cavalier heritage for control of the state with the Cavaliers usually winning, in part thanks to the 3/5 compromise that counted black slaves as extra votes for southerners.

Jefferson's vision for the American Republic

Jefferson's primary concern for the US was that it not be transformed into a centralized empire, which he saw resulting from the creation of "mobs" within big cities that would be easily controlled by increasingly powerful elites. While he was on board with oligarchy he wanted a certain balance of power to prevent either the masses or the elites from wielding too much power. As a general rule, the Democratic-Republican party led by Jefferson and Madison and focused in the South was ironically more libertarian (usually) than the northeastern party despite including so many landed aristocrats.

The Louisiana purchase was Jefferson's big play to ensure that America be a balanced Republic in the future. His hope was that if provided with tons of room to expand, America could be maintained as nation of self-sufficient peasant farmers for decades to come. Of course this didn't work out.

Victory for the Northern elites

For years and years the Southern aristocracy had the upper hand over America's northeast. Despite the north's economic progression towards manufacturing and establishing a middle class built on urban workers rather than farmers, the south maintained political control due to factors like the 3/5 compromise.

Andrew Jackson built the modern Democratic party around borderer sentiment as he and his people feared that elites would tend to use the government to promote their own interests over the interests of everyday Americans (true) and his response was that government should be limited and curtailed. Ironic given the modern Democratic platform, no?

However, the party was frequently hijacked by southern elites who used the party's popularity and credibility with borderer masses to push their own agenda, such as the protection of the institution of slavery. They kept the commoners on their side by fighting against northern measures like the tariffs, which were designed to benefit northern manufacturing at the expense of southern agrarians.

From the inception of the Democratic party and it's election of Andrew Jackson in 1828 until the year 1861 when the Republican party's first president (Abraham Lincoln) assumed office the Democrats held the presidency every term save for the 1841-45 and 1849-53 terms. The Democrats lost those elections to "Whig" presidents. The Whigs accomplished those victories by nominating war heroes William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor that allowed them to expand into the south on the electoral map and beyond their northeastern cluster.

The establishment of the Republican party and a split ticket in 1860 finally allowed the northeastern elites to break the power of the southern elites. Seeing the writing on the wall and fearing that they would henceforth be ruled by northern interests thanks to that region's superior population, the south then seceded. The north won the war and established control back over those states.

Ebbs and flows in American political power dynamics

From the Civil War on the country has been ruled by a wide variety of different interests but northern elites have usually run the show. Some of the power of American elites was broken and their exploitation stopped by the "progressive" Republicans of the early 20th century, such as Teddy Roosevelt. At this time in American history the papers started to wield a good deal of power helped provide the people some counter-balancing power. Prior to that William Jennings Bryan tried to take up the populist cause but was soundly defeated.

Over the last few decades the country has come to governed by a "ruling class" consisting largely of well educated people in the D.C.-N.Y. axis and the nation's small supply of billionaires. While the Republicans and Democrats have each fought for different values in the culture wars you'll notice that none of the last several presidents did anything too different from one another in terms of expanding American reach abroad and pushing a globalist economic vision.

The major media networks all largely sang that tune and candidates like Ron Paul that cautioned against aggressive foreign interventionism were universally labelled as "nut-jobs." Essentially, America's oligarchy had become a bit too powerful and unchecked.

The 2016 election is probably the first in which the super-democratizing internet has made it possible for the descendants of the borderers who swept Andrew Jackson into power back in 1828 to make another dent in American politics with Donald Trump.

When you see Bobby Knight campaigning with Donald Trump and helping him over the top in Indiana you're seeing classic America fight to reclaim a seat at the table.

The 2016 election is partially about globalism vs nationalism in the same way the Civil War was about slavery vs free labor, but it also represents average Americans using the power of the internet to check the power of the nation's elites.

Take a gander at how much money the various candidates have raised and spent:

A few notes here, I combined the money raised and spent by the campaign and their Super-PACs and the numbers are in millions. Neither Bernie Sanders nor Donald Trump have really used Super-PACs in their campaigns. I didn't include super-delegates in the count for Hillary vs Bernie and their rules for delegate dispersions are different than in the Republican primary so direct comparisons are inexact.

Super-PACs are the means by which billionaires can have unlimited influence on a campaign because there are donation limits to presidential campaigns but none for Super-PACs. Despite raising $76 million for Hillary and about $188 million for Jeb and Marco with Super-PACs, billionaires have had very little impact in the 2016 election, save perhaps for influencing super-delegates to roll with Hillary rather than Sanders (she currently has virtually all of the super delegates on her side).

Trump is a divisive candidate who basically represents all the rough edges of America's non-elites, but perhaps someone like Thomas Jefferson would be pleased to see the pendulum of power swinging back again and limiting the control elites have in the American system.