I
was talking with a friend, and he said that his son would probably go get a PhD
because he wants to do “policy” in education.
I
replied that, for me, “policy” is the
problem in education. Government does not learn (Kevin D. Williamson)
so adding more policy into the dead-end mess we call government education isn’t
going to solve the problem.
In fact, I went on to say, the policy
people are the well-born elitists doing the dirty work for the ruling class,
figuring out, like Jonathan Gruber, how to dress up the monster of ObamaCare so
it looks like affordable care, even it if walks, talks, and defecates like a
dead-end government program to pay off the ruling class’s supporters. The
policy people are part of the problem.
So it is telling that the people really
upset about the Trump phenomenon are the policy people, those well-born men and
women that went to the right schools and interned with the right power people
and are now seen all over the media carrying the ruling class’s water.
The policy people intuit that the Trump
candidacy, in some dark and animalistic way, represents the end of the line for
people like them. Politics in the future, they fear, isn’t going to be nicely
turned policy papers but something ruder and cruder.
I think they are wrong. But that
doesn’t stop a chap like David Brooks from imagining the end
times for policy-nerds.
Enough
about the yelping and yipping at the policy puppy store. What is the meaning of
Trump?
This
week’s answer is in Mencius Moldbug’s idea of The
Cathedral (recently sneered
at by Kevin J. Williamson). Says Moldbug:
The great power center of 2008
is the Cathedral. The Cathedral has two parts: the accredited universities and
the established press.
Under the Cathedral’s bishops and canons
is the Apparat of the civil service and the NGOs, etc.
Downstream from the Cathedral is politics, organized as the Inner Party of
Democrats and the Outer Party of Republicans. When the Inner Party is in power
it gets to rule; when the Outer Party is in power it only gets to govern. This
means that Inner Party functionaries get one
free grope, but Outer Party cuckservative policy types better not even
think of it. This is because, like any established church, the Cathedral
enforces its Articles of Faith, received directly from God, and it is heresy to
depart from the orthodoxy of Holy SJW Writ, and the Cathedral leans more on
people whose Faith is suspect rather than on those that just went to Policy
Confession.
The
frustration we conservatives have felt in the last few years as the GOP won the
House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014 is that the Outer Party GOP establishment knew that it was better obey
the Holy Writ and not challenge the Inner Party and the bishops at the
Cathedral. Not yet, and maybe not ever.
But
Donald Trump is running for president from the Outer Party and he has driven a
stake through the Cathedral’s orthodoxy and lived to tell the tale. No
wonder the lefty muscle-men are marchin’ and protestin’ and blocking highways
and closing down Trump rallies. They can see the Antichrist and know what to do
about it.
A vital job at any Cathedral is to cover
the mailed fist of political power with the velvet glove of gentle Christian
persuasion. That is why I like to say that liberals are always pretending that
their ruthless political operatives are nothing but kindly librarians.
But government is force; politics is
violence; system is domination. That is the truth about government and politics
and government programs, as anyone on the receiving end of such wonders will
tend to agree.
But
ruling classes all end up forgetting these simple truths, and are genuinely
shocked and offended when the slaves rebel. Of course they are,
when the Cathedral echoes every day with tuneful anthems sung by the Cathedral
choir attesting to the godliness of the ruling class, its ethics and its
compassion.
And
so, when the head of rebellion shows up, the ruling class is shocked and
insulted, not just the bishops and the canons and the Cathedral choristers and
the Inner Party thugs but the Outer Party policy puppies as well.
And
really, we would all probably end up much better off being good little girls
reciting our lessons and getting our government checks regular. But there is
something in human beings that, every now and again, rebels against
good-little-girldom, and strikes out west to the Territory. Maybe this is one
such time.
But
my guess is probably not, and so all the policy puppies can stop yipping and
whining and peeing and shut up.
Mommy
will be along with the Puppy Chow soon.
Christopher
Chantrill @chrischantrill runs
the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also
see his American Manifesto and
get his Road to
the Middle Class.
