For a long time they were able to keep the choice to candidates where it did not matter who you voted for. But they had to dial bias in the media up to eleven, and credibility of the legacy media collapsed.
Elections were, and in some countries still are, relatively free and fair, because the candidates and parties have identical policies and an elaborate system to prevent any outsiders from gaining traction.
And when they could no longer keep voting irrelevant by soft power, resorted to increasingly blatant election stealing. Election stealing has been under way for a very long time, it is just that in 2020 it jumped the shark. Elections are going the way of the legacy media. Time for Caesar approaches, in part because people cease to believe in election outcomes, just as they ceased to believe the legacy media. The faith the Republic has been a delusion for over a century, and now the delusion collapses. The faith dies before our eyes. The media legacy jumped the shark, and now elections are jumping the shark.
Elections have not mattered for a very long time. But for a while soft power was sufficient to keep them irrelevant. The public was manipulated by the methods that have now become obvious, and the elected officials were manipulated by the methods depicted in “Yes minister”, and “Yes Prime Minister” – which methods worked on Trump well enough to outrage us, but because Trump actually tried to govern, failed badly enough to outrage the deep state.
When Trump was president, his influence over the presidency was insignificant. He enraged them by attempting to govern. Most politicians do not even try. Recall that one of the grounds for impeachment was that president was interfering in foreign policy and speaking to foreign leaders. Kim had the same problem — Kim and Trump had to set up channels of communication where the president protected his communications with Kim from the presidency, and Kim similarly. They hate to lose a frozen conflict. Kim’s bureaucrats have more in common with our bureaucrats than either have with their leader or their nation. Similarly, when the Soviet Union was a going concern, but showing signs of imminent collapse, you saw President Reagan trying to collapse the Soviet Union, and the presidency trying to prop it up. They loved their cold war. They like national conflicts for the same reason as they send the shills onto Gab to make trouble within the alt right. They play both ends against the middle.
Notice that Trump always praises foreign leaders, even though his base does not like it. He flatters them, because he wants to work with them peacefully, and deep state does not like it, because they want to work with the bureaucrats of other countries against the leaders and peoples of those countries. Hence their love of frozen conflicts.
They fear that if President Trump is elected, he will interfere in the government. As the conflict between the deep state and the nations that they govern has become ever more severe, the old soft methods are failing. When they went after Sheriff Joe and General Flynn, they put naked violence on the table, as did the Senate of Rome when it killed the Gracchi brothers. You cannot return to a republic after that. Pandora’s box has been opened, and what has escaped cannot be stuffed back in again.
Having resorted to more extreme methods, naked violence against officers of the Republic and naked theft of elections against the people, these method remain on the table, rendering the old soft power methods irrelevant. If Trump or similar becomes president, he can only exercise authority by using such methods.
“Yes Minister” is a story about soft power methods. Sneakily manipulative, but very civilised. But if the bureaucrat in that story, Sir Humphrey Appleby, employed naked violence, well then, the other power holder in that story, Jim Hacker, would have to employ naked violence also. And, of course, no one rules alone. In real life, there are a lot more than two players. If you have a poker game, and one player pulls a gun, everyone has to pull a gun.
Trump said “Pandora’s box has been opened”. So, though mired deep in normality bias, he is not so old that he cannot see. This is the new normal. Everyone can see. There is no going back. The time for Kings has come. In the event that Trump is allowed to be elected, the old normal will not return.