We base our entire politics on the idea that we're living in a meritocracy. In other words, like the knights of old at a joust, we find out who is best through competition, a competition assumed to be both fair and honest. In the old days, the joust was assumed to be fair and honest because God was both omnipotent and just and therefore, obviously, would not allow a bad man to win.

We were told that electing Hillary Clinton would have been a daring, unprecedented step.
On right-wing media we are told that electing Donald Trump is a bold break with tradition.

Both claims are based on a myth.

I wrote this essay nearly a year ago, and I am recycling it because it explains why those in the seats of power refuse to do anything to help the average citizen. It is more than just greed. It is more like a religious belief that they are better than the rest of us. It infects both parties, but it has been exposed for the rest of the world to see just how deeply embedded this philosophy is within the Democratic party. Meritocracy forms the bedrock of neoliberalism.

(originally published in Feb 2015 as A Very Long Way from Galt's Gulch. I'm republishing this in response to a conversation happening in ek hornbeck's diary Why Corbyn Will Win)