Political economies represent political will--the will of the people or the will of the powerful--only rarely do both interests align! But seldom do we see what we find now in America, a case in which nearly half of the people oppose their interests! How come?

Convention says anger. (I heard anger mentioned 3 times on television while reading this note!) Look closer, I say, comfort. The use of blame is not in anger. It's a source of comfort for those who accept the labels of lazy for the unemployed, broken and undeserving for the poor, or slaves of government for citizens in socialist states. This comfort comes from concentric confusions, a fractured world view comfortable--even exhilarated by its tangled tensions--because others are at fault.

Trump's lead in the polls is simply an "I told you so." It signals it's okay to believe the myths: about others, about safety, about the rich creating jobs (rather than getting rich by killing jobs!), that Carly is right, that Dr. Ben is our kind of nut, that (like Tupac!) Ben Laden isn't dead and Barack is solely a citizen of Kenya and we should shut up and wait.

The source of this comfort ties directly to the strange twists required to accommodate the political economy of slavery, whose distant echoes of logic about the nature of people and society still resonate today!

Its comfort, not its anger, is its staying, shaping power.