By creating an urgent crisis that can only be solved by those fluent in a language too complex for ordinary people to understand, the Wall Street crowd has turned the vast majority of Americans into non-participants in their own political future.
Interpretation
The quote highlights how complex language and crises can alienate ordinary people from participating in political discourse.
Matt Taibbi critiques how the elite, particularly in finance and politics, create crises that are formulated in a complex language, effectively excluding the general public from understanding and engaging in political processes. This alienation leads to a disenfranchisement where most citizens feel powerless and disconnected from their own political future, as the language and issues remain beyond their grasp.
In practice
During a political rally to emphasize the importance of understanding political language.
You win the modern financial-regulation game by filing the most motions, attending the most hearings, giving the most money to the most politicians and, above all, by keeping at it, day after day, year after fiscal year, until stealing is legal again.
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A politician's words reveal less about what he thinks about his subject than what he thinks about his audience.
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