Ideas Whose Time Has Come. Part II: China Rising, the Death of Democracy, the New Nationalism, Corona, and Catholic Wisdom

A bit less than a year ago, I put up a blog post (Ideas Whose Time Has Come. Part I: The Middle Kingdom, Democracy, Globalism, and Islam) dealing with ideas and their impact on history -- especially on current events, which, after all, are history in the making.  Here's a brief summary with a few comments added:    

• China has, historically, generally minded its own business. The same can't be said for Europe or the U.S.
• The European powers have given up on traditional empires (the ones sustained by military might) but we have not as yet.
• Empires are becoming more primarily economic in character, and China is showing great skill in this area.
• Accusations against Trump for treason may signal the replacement of democracy by what amounts to gang warfare. (Politics has totally replaced principles.)
• Attempts to “spread democracy” inevitably run up against national character.
• Communism has evolved into globalism as the political “theory of everything”. Whereas communism has been shown to morph based on national character, globalism has yet to show any signs of doing this (or of being capable of doing so). (One could say that communism, at least in theory, chose to ignore national character, whereas globalism is actively opposed to it, i.e. to the idea that such a thing even exists and that it's important.)
• America had the (alleged) good fortune to start out as a more or less cultural blank slate, which made it an ideal experimental laboratory for secular humanism, AKA “democracy”. But human nature nonetheless got in the way. (Where flesh-and-blood people are concerned, there are no blank slates. Those only exist for ideologues and Utopian “thinkers”, who invariably become tyrants when they are given any power, because “the people” simply refuse to cooperate.)
• Democracy is already fragile enough (as the Founding Fathers realized). Trying to “spread” it is doomed to failure in the long run (and sometimes in the short run). (A good question for debate is whether democracy is, or approximates, the “natural political state” of mankind. If one looks at history, it's clear that democracy in any real sense is a rare bird – seldom found anywhere, and never found in most places even unto the present day. It's more likely that monarchy (either explicit or implicit) is a more natural state; it's certainly the most common historically.)
• We are, in effect, living in a post-democratic society where power has the upper hand. (What this implies is that “voting” is, more often than not, a cruel hoax. As Joseph Sobran once said, if it were important they wouldn't let you vote on it.) (Elections don't need to be rigged at the point of voting; they are rigged way before that point in terms of who is allowed to campaign for the nomination and who gets nominated. The actual election merely provides an imprimatur by the captive citizenry on something that the ruling elite have already decided.)
• Islam is the grass-roots movement of our time, and is directly opposed to both democracy and globalism. Its weapons include mass migration, fertility, militancy, and faith. (Note that Islam is not opposed to empire, but the empire they seek is strictly theocratic.)
• The sources of energy for militant Islam include economic colonialism (by the West), memories of traditional colonialism (by Europe), and the existence of Israel (which was established by the West in Muslim territory).
• “If there's a new Cold War being fought, it's between two international movements – 'democracy', which means globalism, and Islam. And, by the way, between secularism and religion.”

So, just based on the above points, let's think about what has changed and what hasn't in 11 short months:

• China has upped the ante not only in direct economic terms, but in having unleashed (accidentally or otherwise) a world-wide pandemic that, among other things, has mesmerized our leadership into, basically, shutting down what had been a booming economy (and China's main competitor economically). In other words, they (China) have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. But a note of caution here – as I said to someone the other day, China has tremendous investments in the U.S. and holds the lion's share of our national debt, so all of that goes into the dumpster if our economy fails to recover from this attack. Either they've pushed this thing too far, or they're willing, for whatever reason, to take the hit. Time will tell. In any case, it has put China into the global driver's seat for the first time ever, and they must be feeling kind of giddy about that. (So much for being satisfied with being the Middle Kingdom.)
• We haven't heard the word “treason” much lately out of the Gang of Four, i.e. Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, and Nadler – and Impeachment 2.0 has been put on hold, apparently for the duration of the pandemic. But worry not, they're gathering “evidence”, and building up a head of steam, and when the time is right they'll be back for another round. Thus, the “gang war” model is alive and well.
• “Spreading democracy” is on hold right now, even though bombing the Third World back to the Stone Age isn't. These are the throes of a dying empire, and it's sadly typical. Let's just say that the rest of the world won't miss us when we're gone.
• The globalists, on the other hand, have a new lease on life, and this applies whether we're talking about the domestic or foreign (European) variety. They are not letting this crisis go to waste by any means. They are increasing the powers of central government by many quanta. Prohibitions, dictated shutdowns, arrests of those deemed uncooperative, martial law (or its equivalent) are the order of the day. And the economic consequences, interestingly enough, don't seem to even be on radar. We have only to remember that totalitarianism inevitably leaves poverty in its wake, and that is, in fact, part of the program. An impoverished people is a dependent people – dependent on government largess and willing to submit, and grovel, and do just about anything to merely stay alive. I would say that this pandemic ranks right up there with the Great Depression and World War II as a means for the ruling elite to consolidate the gains they've been working so hard to achieve all these years. And this holds true whether the pandemic was their idea or not. If it was, then OK... if not, then it was serendipity. The end result is the same.
• And, to the extent that the globalist agenda includes reducing the U.S. to a vassal state at best – as a source of raw materials and military manpower – this process is also well underway. (One can argue that the European model of their military being our military was formulated when we agreed to jump into World War I. When they found out how easily seduced we were, that became a permanent piece of their long-term planning. So it's not a new idea; it's a bit over 100 years old, in fact.) And, we have turned into a technocracy, i.e. a system where the “experts” – the people with all the models, all the data, and the coveted scientific imprimatur – have the final say on everything. (This is also nothing new; it began with FDR's “Brain Trust” and re-emerged as JFK's “best and brightest”.) But what should not be overlooked in all of this is that those experts are all, without exception, employees of the ruling elite; they are not free, independent, and objective agents, but are at the service of whoever is really in charge, i.e. not politicians, who are more tools than initiators. They do serve a purpose, however, as the “face” of science, objectivity, reason, data, statistics, models, etc., and they provide ammunition for those who contend that “politics” has to make way, and hopefully disappear from the scene. (This is certainly true in that once we have a dictatorship of the elite, politics is no longer needed. There are many people who will celebrate this fact; I wouldn't be totally against it myself, I have to admit. If democracy is an illusion, then politics is unnecessary and so are politicians.)
• Militant Islam continues to make trouble and cause indigestion for the globalists. If the globalists are playing the long game, then Islam is playing an even longer game (possibly exceeded only by China). The question of who the last man standing will be has become more relevant than ever in these times. The globalists have the wealth... we have the military (which is at the service of the globalists)... China has the economic clout that comes from being the most populous country in world history... but Islam has what none of the others has, namely the dream of a caliphate... an empire, but of a theocratic sort, subject only to God. The globalists believe in no higher power than money, we mouth words about faith but on any given day couldn't care less... and China is explicitly and militantly godless. It would be highly ironic if a ragtag but very large group of people whose only distinctive attribute is belief in a higher power managed to subdue not only the U.S. but also the globalists, and – at some time in the future – meet China on equal terms. We don't normally think of the Muslims as experts in the long game, but notice how often they refer back to the Crusades – they even refer to us as “Franks”. That's 1000 years, folks. So, if you want to talk about long memories, they aren't doing too badly.

But hold on. Lest we get too carried away with this model, it bears mentioning that nationalistic impulses are also alive and well in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and certain segments of the U.S. population (highly correlated with support for Donald Trump, no surprise). And by nationalism I don't mean militant nationalism, AKA imperialism or empire building, AKA neoconservatism. This is more akin to good, old-fashioned patriotism – belief in and loyalty to one's family, tribe, ethnic group, race, religion, language, and culture, as well as a tendency to want to mind our own business and escape foreign entanglements. It is a true grass-roots movement for the simple reason that it opposes virtually all forms of cultural warfare on the part of the elite, which means that it opposes the agenda of the vast bulk of what are termed the “media”, as well as “entertainment”, anti-traditional art forms, soulless architecture, musical anarchy, gender chaos, economic exploitation, and any other form of reducing the individual to a number, a unit, or a statistic – the slouch toward dystopia, if you will. In other words, they oppose forced conformity in the name of “diversity” as well as discrimination against any form of true diversity. They oppose being ruled by committees... by bureaucrats... by officials... by people who are, in truth, much less human than they are. They're against “programs” whose main goal is to exterminate all that makes individuals and small groups interesting and worth honoring and preserving. They're also opposed to imposition of deadening uniformity in areas such as culture and education, and prefer, rather, to celebrate all of the many and variegated fruits of human life, and to allow each demographic to celebrate its identity and express pride without being shamed and harassed by social enforcers. And they are, as a result, engaged in an existential struggle with the globalists, international business and finance, all of the various forms of cultural leveling (and cultural genocide), and especially with the propaganda apparatus that seeks to shame and condemn people whose values differ from the approved ones (or, some would say, people who have any values at all – blind conformity, submission, and slavery hardly qualifying to be termed “values”).

And this is a struggle that has a definite David-and-Goliath aspect to it. You have people like George Soros, globalist extraordinaire, whose strategy is to subvert and suppress all expressions of national, regional, and local pride and identity, whenever and in whatever form it may occur, and to support collaborators among our politicians. His is a grass-roots campaign as well (by design), and complements perfectly the top-down political, social, and financial strategies of the more conventional globalists. The result is that the average citizen finds himself in a kind of vice; he is oppressed and dictated to from above, but at the same time cannot trust the very ground on which he stands, because it has been contaminated by unclean, diseased, and deadly elements.

And yet there is still resistance, just as there is resistance to government dictates when it comes to the pandemic. The human spirit remains alive and well, even in the darkest hours. People see, with varying degrees of clarity, that the end of all of this is not only physical, social, and economic slavery, but also the death of the spirit, and they react.

On the home front, do we have any reason to hope? Well, Donald Trump is not the perfect nationalist by any means, and cannot be accused of any sort of doctrinaire conservatism, but he is fairly consistent in his speeches when it comes to taking more pride in being a citizen of the U.S. than in being a “world citizen”, which was Obama's trope. He is resisting the efforts of the globalists to some extent when it comes to things like trade, currency, economics, and intellectual property. But there's not much he can do about the world banking system, which is completely out of the hands of the U.S. government, which has come to play a subsidiary role. And as much as he talks about cutting back on our “contribution” to the globalist war against Islam, he's finding that it's impossible to reduce it to any significant degree without causing a riot among our “allies” (not to mention Congress). And he's also finding it impossible to reduce our military presence even in countries that we consider allies. The U.S. military is their military, in effect – and they wouldn't have it any other way.

Another way of putting it is that the subservience of the U.S. government, including its military, to the globalist ruling elite has become so established, so set in stone, that it's virtually impossible for us to extricate ourselves – to pull ourselves back up and assert our sovereignty. We can dig in our heels in a token way, but that only makes our pitiful position more obvious. This situation, I would say, is hopeless for the time being, and the current pandemic has only served to aggravate matters.

But again, the human spirit is not bound and in fetters, and in this there is at least some small hope. In an ironic kind of way, we can even take comfort in the observation that the Muslim world, which became comatose as the result of World War I, has come surging back onto the world stage in a most dramatic fashion, albeit with the help of considerable oil wealth, but also because they are believers. The part of their brain labeled “faith” has not been surgically removed or deadened by all of the blandishments, tricks, and temptations proffered by the “decadent” West. As such, Islam is the only major player on the world stage that is overtly and militantly opposed to globalism. If they can do it, why can't we? But if the key is faith, then we have a long way to go.

Plus, we have resources at our disposal which are virtually unknown in today's political and economic world, and the one that comes most readily to mind is Catholic social teaching, and the concept with perhaps the most power to oppose current trends is that of subsidiarity. This (to quote Wiki) “an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible, rather than by a central authority.” This is not a new concept by any means, and it has been taught by a number of popes and written about quite extensively over the years along with what I would call its sister concept, namely distributism. The relevance of this concept to the current situation should be obvious. The response to the corona virus pandemic has occurred not only at the federal level but at state and local levels as well – in many cases with greater effectiveness than the federal-level response, albeit with the same level of opposition. Governors and mayors are exercising powers no one knew they even had; in fact, they may not have known it either until someone reminded them. (Or, they may simply be assuming powers that were not granted them by the electorate, on an emergency basis.) What's good about all of this is that it has awakened people to the possibilities and options of greater self-rule – of government that is responsive not to an abstract, faceless mass of humanity but to real people on the local and regional level, with all of the needs, wants, and values that are characteristic of those regions and locales. It is actually a return to the situation which was nearly universal in pre-Progressive times, before Washington moved in with its ham-handed diktats and reduced state and local officials to mere bureaucrats and clerks. It is, one might say, a dramatic reversal of the usual rule that crises inevitably enhance the power of the central government while leaving all others impotent. This crisis has exposed literally fatal flaws in federal policy, and created a gap (of credibility and action) which state and local governments are only to happy to move in and occupy, often in direct defiance of the federal government. 

So what we have is two simultaneous trends, which – even assuming the corona crisis will recede at some point – are locked in mortal combat, and will continue to be. And there is nothing at all new about this, except that the current crisis has brought it out in a dramatic fashion, as well as having shone a very bright light on who is involved, who is on what side, and what their motivations are. We have the “usual suspects” – those who describe themselves as “liberal” and “progressive” but who have demonstrated a startling degree of authoritarianism vis-a-vis the federal government, or let's say the federal government sans Trump... and the other side, which has developed a newfound respect for state and local authorities in some cases, and a newfound contempt for them in others, all the while feeling that Trump is on their side while everyone working for him is not. 

How often do we have to break a social/economic/political phenomenon down to the molecular level in order to do any analysis? Things used to be so simple. And yet we see that there are historical precedents for all of these trends – precedents which have been established for generations in many cases, way before the corona virus was a gleam in the eye of some germ warfare developer in Wuhan. Each side understands perfectly well what their respective positions represent, and therefore why they are worth fighting for. On the one side you have the “basket” (Hillary's word) containing, to a greater or lesser degree, all of the following:

• Lockdowns, shutdowns, prohibitions, fines, arrests
• Ramped-up surveillance
• Letting the wrong people out of jail and keeping the wrong people in jail
• Open borders in complete defiance of common sense and any of the traditional rules as to how to handle epidemics
• A police state
• Authoritarianism
• Totalitarianism
• No personal privacy for the individual or for non-victim groups
• Conventional medicine (and suppressing alternatives)
• Globalism
• Economical dictatorship and top-down control (traditionally known as a “command economy”)
• Treating the public like retarded, helpless children
• Class consciousness, expressed especially in despising rural and small-town people (men of the soil in “flyover country”)
• A ruling elite and their minions in the bureaucracy
• Liberals/progressives/Democrats
• Trump haters
• Democratic socialists
• Anti-religion
• Anti-tradition
• Anti-family
• Accusations of “hate” and “fascism”
• Deference to large, international corporations
• Deference to the mainstream media
• Censorship by the mainstream media and social media
• Deference to academia, “science”, and “experts”

Quite a mixed bag, right? But if you take it point by point it seems like the Soviet Union has come back to life with a vengeance. But then there's the other basket – the one Hillary was actually talking about, and which she vowed to oppose with every ounce of her being, and annihilate if possible:

• Individual freedom
• Small business
• Alternative medicine, and alternative points of view regarding the current crisis
• Treating people as adults
• Paleoconservatives and libertarians
• Nationalism
• Churchgoers
• Pro-Trumpers
• Skepticism re: the media, “entertainment”, academia
• Skepticism re: the claims of “science” and “experts” (especially when the story keeps changing on a daily basis)
• A newfound, or increased, interest in localism, especially when it comes to food
• Grass-roots economic activity
• Community spirit and mutual aid “off the grid”, including barter
• Integrity of borders, and actual requirements for immigration and citizenship (and voting, and benefits)
• The rule of law (when the law is not arbitrary and just a way of one gang exerting dominance over another)

That sounds a bit more like America in the 19^th Century. And please note who is left out of this equation, at least for now – the mainstream Republicans, who can't seem to make up their minds which team they're on. And this, of course, is due to their chronic ambivalence regarding Donald Trump, which I won't bother to detail here. They've been dithering about this for nearly five years now, and still haven't come up with anything. 

So, the question is – as the old union organizers' song put it – which side are you on? And I don't blame anybody for being uncertain. We are being challenged in ways unique to our entire history as a nation and society. It's easy to be complacent when times are good – but now we're getting a taste of how things have been for the mass of humanity down through history, and for a considerable portion even in this day (think Third World). And yet people did find a way, and found time to sit under their own vine and fig tree, even if when they went out into the world death lurked around every corner. This may, in fact, be a kind of awakening for all of us (not to be confused with “wokeness”, which is simply the latest form of opiate foisted upon the citizenry). Other crises have offered this benefit as well, although not everyone has taken up the offer. Our search for adventure is always in conflict with our desire for peace and quiet. Right now there is no peace and no quiet – and the hallowed “rule of law” has taken on a much darker tone. But there are opportunities here to find new strengths within ourselves; let's not let them go to waste.

Mayor Pete was the Wine that was Sold Before its Time

Thinking back to the Democratic campaign, debates, and primaries – wow, was it that long ago and far away or what?  It's not even considered "current events" any longer.  But think, Super Tuesday wasn't even two months ago. And it was the only story in the news. Funny how things can change in our otherwise ponderous, slow-moving society; all it takes is one catastrophe.  Shows you how fragile everything is.  Next thing you know, they'll let it out that Mount Rushmore is made of papier mache.  (Well, the Old Man of the Mountains crumbled, so... )

But travel back with me, if you will, to one of the Democratic debates. Arrayed before our eyes was about as motley a crew as you're going to find anywhere. It included:

• A crabby old geezer who threatens and insults people who show up for his rallies and town halls;
• Another crabby old geezer who would be a card-carrying Bolshevik if the Bolsheviks still handed out cards;
• A gay mayor of a small Midwestern city, who is also Maltese-American. (Wow, talk about an ethnic minority! Albanians, move over. He's one of the few white people who can't be blamed for slavery.)
• A make-believe Indian whose babbling and gesticulations reminded me of a high-school cheerleader on amphetamines;
• A billionaire who was hoping to unseat the billionaire who occupies the White House;
• Another billionaire who was also hoping to unseat the billionaire in the White House by, basically, buying the election;
• A guy whose hobby is squirting whipped cream into people's mouths (Dr. Freud, call on line 1);
• A woman who made way too many libertarian noises, which is a death sentence if you're a Democrat;
• And various other loose cannons, Stalinists, and people whose speeches were so boring that sleep therapists are using them as treatment for insomnia.

I mean... what was this?? A re-boot of “Gilligan's Island”? So to say that any of these people had serious credibility – as in, can you really picture them in the Oval Office? – would be a sign that you weren't really paying attention. And yet there they were – the cream of the liberal crop – the best the Democrats had to offer. But how did things come to this sorry pass?

To answer this question, you have to delve deep into the liberal/Democratic psyche... and yes, I know, there are some doors that were never meant to be opened, but we must forge ahead if we seek enlightenment. Their serious disconnect from reality came on Election Night 2016, when the impossible... the unimaginable...the earth-shattering, world-destroying event... happened, namely that Hillary Clinton lost the election to Donald Trump. Or... at least that's what we think happened. But for a substantial portion of the citizenry, and for everyone with any position or influence in liberal politics, or the mainstream media, or the entertainment industry, or the Deep State, etc. it didn't happen that way at all. That was fake news, and an illusion created by dark forces based in Russia. The truth is, Hillary won the election (she did win the most votes, after all, and that's all that counts) and should, by rights, be living in the White House again, except that this time her “bimbo eruption” task force room in the basement would have been converted into a bachelor pad for Bill. So there she is – the Empress in Exile – unable to mount her throne because of that orange monstrosity – that usurper – that gonif. The amazing thing is that she hasn't mounted a military campaign like a modern-day Joan of Arc, and attempted to take the White House by force.  Surely what worked with Muammar al-Gaddafi should work with Donald Trump!

But it goes deeper than that. So convinced were they that Hillary had, in some mysterious way, taken the oath of office and initiated her administration that it never occurred to them that they would have to actually come up with another candidate, or the same one, a mere four years later. Why, it's an outrage! It's just wrong! Hillary should at this moment be enjoying her 4^th year as president, and preparing to be shooed back into office for a second term, with pro forma primaries and a pro forma election. They just couldn't wrap their heads around the idea that they would have to come up with one or more credible candidates, hold actual primaries, conduct an actual campaign, and hold an actual election. But reality in the form of a circus clown car came along and filled the gap by disgorging what we wound up seeing in the Democratic debates. All were unlikely... all were accidental... all were merely random products of a certain time and place... except.

Now, I have to keep you in suspense a bit longer in order to explain a seldom-noted, but very real, aspect of our political system, especially on the Democratic side. This is something I call “grooming”. The first clue is when a candidate comes, seemingly, out of nowhere, but already has all of the necessary credentials as well as an aura of inevitability – a halo that is visible to true believers. They appear before our eyes as having been chosen, and anointed, almost from the cradle, like a personage out of the Old Testament. They already have an impressive record of achievement (academic, political, military, etc.) and, most importantly, represent Change. Change is, of course, the core concept behind every liberal/progressive idea, plan, and program. Change for its own sake, I mean – and if you want to know how that differs from revolution, I would say only in speed and intensity. (Like their counterparts in Mao's China, American liberals believe in continuous revolution. The here and now is just a passing thing – a snapshot. It has no value other than as a mile marker en route to Utopia. What counts is the dogged, unending, fanatical quest for change – for the new and different – and, contrarily, the equally dogged, unending, fanatical quest to totally eliminate all traces of the past, including tradition, family, religion, true democracy, individual rights, gender – anything that might qualify as “conservative” and therefore “hate”.)

Other unmistakable signs – which seem superficial but are sure-fire vote-getters – include immaculate grooming, a practiced delivery, and – most important of all – a script. Not just talented speechwriters, but a library of memes, verbal tics, and pat answers that are designed to either satisfy or derail any question, inquiry, or expression of skepticism. And these scripts are dutifully memorized and wielded with unerring timing and precision, which, among other things, means that the Anointed One has to be highly intelligent and have a good memory, and be an instinctive actor.

So who were, and are, the Anointed Ones of our time? John Kennedy might be considered a precursor, even though it would be inaccurate to say that he came out of nowhere, having been a scion of the ruling elite. But he served as a model for what those who came after had to be, look like, and do. After he met his untimely end, those in charge initiated a search for the next Anointed One, the way the Tibetans scour the countryside for the next Dalai Lama when the old one passes away. And who should they choose but Bill Clinton, who – no accident – idolized JFK. But he had what it took, including the ability to mesmerize people and, if need be, convince them to lay down their lives for him. (A local cemetery here has a gravestone with a name on it and the inscription “Friend of Bill”. I kid you not.)

Now, it would be mere quibbling to debate as to the quality of Bill Clinton's time in office, because in the world of liberal hero-worship that doesn't count. It's not about results, it's about “ideas”, and if ideas are lacking it's about star power and, at last resort, pure animal magnetism, which both JFK and Bill Clinton had in abundance.

Next in line was, of course, Barack Obama – once again with very little in the way of actual achievement, but a surfeit of charisma (not to mention trouser creases). But he was not only crowned emperor for his time in office, but continues to be the “gray eminence” in the Democratic Party along with Bill Clinton. Once the anointing takes place, no one ever gets de-anointed, in other words.

So we see the trend here – 1961, 1993, 2009 (years in which they took office) – roughly one per generation. (One wonders why there haven't been more, since that leaves plenty of room for evil Republicans or non-anointed Democrats... but apparently this process isn't all that simple, and it takes a rare convergence of time, space, and the planets.) (Plus, who knows, there may have been plenty of other contenders along the line – other candidates for anointing who, for whatever reason, could not manage all of the hurdles and therefore were eliminated from competition. Some possible examples come to mind, but let's move on.)

Now then – for the “reveal”. (Well, you already know what I'm going to say, right?) The next in line for anointed status was Mayor Pete. Once again, he had all the right stuff in his vita or bio – all the right boxes had been checked – and he came out of nowhere in a similar fashion to that of Clinton and Obama. There are many other parallels as well, and they are striking. They are, if you will, part of the formula – of the template. The problem is that Mayor Pete was half-baked – and I don't mean that in the usual way. He was well on his way to being the next Obama, but he hadn't been properly cured, or aged, as yet. He was not politically fleshed out. He was youthful, but to a fault. (And there's still a lively debate as to whether he looked more like Mr. Bean or Alfred E. Neuman.) And yet there he was, and the Democrats, because of their utter desperation, decided to make him the man of the hour, even though I'm certain there were misgivings. And sure enough, even though he had a certain charisma, and was more precisely scripted than one of those “reality shows” on TV, he just couldn't whip up the same level of frenzy that his predecessors could. He wasn't rich enough, or handsome enough, or convincing enough for the unwashed who are allowed to vote in Democratic primaries, so he fell short and had to take the “walk of shame” along with all the other losers who were forced to kiss Joe Biden's ring. (Please note that the “walk of shame” started with “the meeting” they all had with Obama. Any questions as to who's still in charge?)

So yes – the Mayor Pete era lasted a bit over 13 months, and if the wheel of fate had only turned in a different way – if Hillary were president and not scheduled to leave office until January of 2025 – Mayor Pete would have been fully formed like one of the pod people and ready to succeed her. And of course he may yet get that chance; who knows? American history is full of comebacks.

Populism, Then and Now

A while back, I put up a blog post dealing with populism, and pointing out that the populist mantle has now been assumed by both the left and the right – although the term “populist” seems, most of the time, to be restricted to descriptions of the right, and not necessarily complimentary. You can find the blog post here: https://zarathustrasoldman.blogspot.com/2017/06/whose-populism-is-it-anyway.html

But what is populism? Rather than get into poly-sci theory, because most populists aren't theoreticians, let's just say that “populism” is what happens when a large portion of the citizenry starts feeling left out. Left out, neglected, ignored... mocked and derided... exploited... persecuted, even. This is clearly what energized Trump's “base” during the 2016 campaign, and what continues to energize his supporters. They basically felt that the people in charge – the ruling elite – had written them off, forgotten them, chosen to ignore them... and they were perfectly correct. But at the same time, there was an equally malcontent group on the left, including supporters of Bernie Sanders, who felt pretty much the same way. But how can this be? Part of the answer – as we see more clearly than ever with the results of the Democratic primaries – is that the mainstream, or “moderate”, Democrats had no more use for the true radicals – the “democratic socialists” – than did the conservatives. In politics, and especially with our one-party system that masquerades as a two-party system, the worst thing you can do is rock the boat. Things as they stand are the result of years – decades! – of fine-tuning... of a balancing act that puts the Wallendas to shame. Most of the opposition and controversy between the Republicans and Democrats is nothing more than a kabuki dance to gull the citizenry into thinking there is Something Really Important going on... something fraught with principles, morals, firmly-held beliefs. Whereas in practice, after putting on a farce on the floors of Congress our elected representatives retire to the nearest watering hole and slap each other on the back with cries of “Good show!” and “We fooled 'em again!” and so on.

But this is precisely what populists of either the left or the right are protesting. They are tired of business as usual... of every election resulting in the new boss being just like the old boss... and mainly of feeling chronically out of the loop, exploited, taken for granted, overtaxed and underrepresented. So when this feeling reaches critical mass – which it does roughly once in every generation – you wind up with a “populist” movement of some sort.

This phenomenon could be traced, in American history, all the way back to the Revolution, except that in that case it was more like the landowning elite enlisting the aid of the common people to make good their decision to split off from England. Anything that is birthed among the elite can hardly be termed populism in the strict sense. Many years later, we had the Progressive movement, which had some of the markers of populism, except that this time it was an invention of the intellectual, humanist elite – and its flaws were brought out in sharp relief when Woodrow Wilson – a progressive of the first order – got us into World War I and then became a dictator on the domestic front. (So much for intellectual college professors, especially those of the Ivy League persuasion.)

But the first blush of populism in our history, unless you include the Whiskey Rebellion, was the movement called Jacksonian Democracy. And then, just as now, “the people” rose up in protest that the country was being run by an elite (made up of wealthy landowners, bankers, merchants, transportation moguls, and the like) for their own benefit. And while the era of Jacksonian Democracy may not have lasted intact for very long, it set a tone, and the dynamics of populism were established to appear again and again (while being suppressed at other times) right up to the present day. One can talk about historical cycles, thesis-antithesis-synthesis, etc., and the history of populism fits the model.

The question about populism as a movement, or cultural meme, is not why it arises from one generation to the next – that's obvious -- but why it fades – why it seems to go away. One reason is that other events intervene – either accidentally or by intention – and war is a prime example. The Progressive Era came to a screeching halt when we got into World War I – ironic, since going "over there" and fighting in a war that should never have started in the first place was Wilson's idea, and he was a died-in-the-wool progressive, as I mentioned above. The New Deal, likewise, had to be put on hold when World War II broke out. (Some will say that the New Deal ended with World War II, but all you have to do is wander along the Mall in D.C. and gaze at all of the New Deal-era government buildings, which are still intact and which house the very same agencies that were established in the 1930s by FDR. And some of these agencies and programs were only established on an “emergency” basis in order to deal with the Depression. So why are they still gobbling up billions of dollars each year 80+ years later? Don't ask...) The Great Society – not a grass-roots movement by any means, but certainly designed to appeal to populist sentiments – hit an iceberg called Vietnam. And so on. This is one of the great ironies of America – the greatest, perhaps. Our ideational founding set the stage for ever more “progressive” domestic policies, but at the same time planted the seed of empire building. It's the old “guns vs. butter” question, and at any given time we have to choose, because we can't have both – not in abundance, even by increasing the national debt to stratospheric levels. War may be “the health of the state”, but it's the death of all economic sectors not directly involved in supporting the war effort. And on those rare occasions when a war ends and prosperity breaks out, we soon become restless and start looking for another one to either initiate or get involved in. We are – let's face it – a warlike people, and we have to accept the consequences (either that or engage in massive denial, which is the more common response). We marvel at the economic and social achievements of countries in Northern and Western Europe, and wonder – if they can do it, why can't we? Well... they don't stagger around with the heavy chains of perpetual war hanging from their shoulders, and they're no longer spending their wealth establishing, maintaining, or defending empires. They might even have learned a lesson from World War II; who knows? In any case they've managed to avoid pretty much any serious direct involvement in wars ever since (with the exception of France, if you want to talk about Algeria and Indochina), whereas we have been on a war footing the whole time, and have, since 9-11, explicitly adopted a perpetual war policy (one of the few things both the major parties can agree on). (Ironically, we spend money on military preparedness so the Europeans don't have to. Any questions on who actually won that war?)

To return to the populism thread – another major instance of genuine, up-from-the-grass-roots populism was the response to the Great Depression and the enthusiastic support for the New Deal by the “forgotten man”. Even then, there were plenty of “agents of change” stirring up the citizenry – said agents being, in many cases, real agents, i.e. of Stalin and the Soviets. But it was populism in that the people found a voice, and applied it in a political way, and the system responded – perhaps more readily then than at any time since. (It's important to remember that capitalism – however defined – was in severe disfavor at that time, and that it was widely felt that the future lay with some form of socialism. The leading contenders were Soviet-style socialism, AKA communism; German-style socialism, AKA Nazism; and American-style socialism, AKA the New Deal. Make no mistake – World War II was not about capitalism vs. anything else, it was about which form of socialism would emerge triumphant. And since both we and the Soviets were on the winning side, it had to take 45 more years before a victor emerged from the Cold war, namely us – but by that time socialism had become controversial, and not something to simply be accepted without question.)

Fast forward to the 1960s. The hippie/anti-war/anti-draft movement had a populist flavor, but it had a limited agenda and was also the province of a fairly narrow age group (albeit under the considerable influence of left-wing academicians both here and abroad, and undoubtedly aided by some “dark money” from the Soviet Union). Plus, the establishment at that time was pretty much united behind the war, from the conservatives (American empire, and war is good for business) to the liberals (since it was started by JFK, a liberal icon, and escalated by LBJ, hardly an icon but nonetheless a hero when it came to domestic policy). (If you want further proof, look at what happened to the anti-war Democratic candidates in 1968.) If the only people out on the streets protesting are “dirty, drug-crazed hippies” and a few wild-haired professors, it's not going to impress anyone. I think in the long run the cultural impact of the 60s was much greater than the political impact, especially when it comes to foreign policy. The culture war was won by the anti-establishment types, but the foreign policy chickens haven't yet come home to roost. (Some will contend that 9-11 was a major piece of push-back, but that's assuming the establishment narrative is true, and really, what are the chances?)

But at the same time – actually a bit earlier – we had the Goldwater campaign, which can be seen as the very first blush of conservative populism, i.e. conservatism not limited to polysyllabic eggheads like William F. Buckley Jr. Goldwater was, as we all know, crushed and ground into fine powder by the LBJ machine, the media, and all of the other usual suspects that are still on the front lines today. But he paved the way in a sense – at least making it semi-respectable to be a home-grown conservative without an array of think-tank appointments and framed advanced degrees hanging on the wall.

But – you might ask – why was this significant? Why then? Wasn't the country as a whole still fairly conservative in its thinking at that time? And it was, compared to now. But the culture war had already shifted into a higher gear... the lid of the cultural Pandora's Box had been lifted just a crack... and people were starting to be afraid that “their” country – the one they had grown up in and were used to – was under assault. And, lest we forget, the war in Vietnam was getting off the ground at that point, and the civil rights movement was in high gear, and so the cultural fault lines were starting to stand out in sharp relief. All of a sudden it was the young vs. the old, conservative vs. liberal, black vs. white, male vs. female, freedom (however defined) vs. liberty (however defined), and so on. So Goldwater represented a return to that which was old and reliable and secure – to a nostalgic, sepia-tinted time that may never have existed, but which had great power as an icon. It was the first reaction, in other words, of people who had always taken things for granted, but who now saw the revolution coming over the hill. So while the left at that time claimed to represent “the people”, the populist conservative movement also claimed to represent “the people”. And they were both right; the difference was in their constituencies. (And please note, in that case as in all cases each side claims to represent the real people as opposed to the other side, which is made up of – pick as many as you like – reactionaries, collaborators, socialists, communists, religious fanatics, drug and/or sex addicts, traitors, fools, the gullible, the easily-persuaded, anti-intellectuals, intellectuals, people who are pro-science, people who are anti-science, etc. etc.)

So populism suffered a stunning blow in 1964, but it didn't go away. It returned in full force in 1980 with Reagan's election, and yes, he won at least in part due to Carter's towering incompetence, but it was also because the grass roots from the Goldwater debacle arose, bloodied but unbowed, to give it another try. And they felt duly rewarded for their efforts – so much so that they were willing to support George H. W. Bush in 1988, even though he was a charter member of the ruling elite with nary a populist bone in his body. Then we had Clinton's “vacation from history” when populism took a vacation as well because the 8-year soap opera that was the Clinton administration was much more interesting... and then we had the Bush II administration which was based entirely on a single event, namely 9-11... but then populism returned on the other side with Obama. And it was the blatant triumphalism of Obama and his supporters that paved the way for Trump – action, reaction. But at the same time, there were people for whom Obama's brand of liberalism wasn't good enough, and they became Bernie supporters. Even when Bernie caved to Hillary in 2016, they remained loyal, and when he caved again to Biden, well... we'll see how that plays out at the Democratic convention. (My question is, will Antifa be there, and if so, whose side will they be on?) Right now the Bernie-ites are licking their wounds, but they may yet turn the 2020 convention into the 1968 convention redux, which would at least be mildly amusing before we slouch into the brain-dead Biden era.

When it comes to populist movements – of which there have been plenty, as we see – it's always tempting to assign scores, or ratings, as to which ones were more radical, i.e. anti-mainstream and anti-establishment, which ones lasted the longest, and which ones had greater impact. It strikes me that we're still “enjoying” (if that is the word) the fruits of Progressivism 100 years later – including, I might add, the fruits of empire, and make no mistake, these are intimately linked. The New Deal expanded government far beyond the wildest dreams of the Progressives, and established, once and for all, the Deep State, which is still very much with us and getting bigger every day. In fact, it has been argued that the Deep State has, for all intents and purposes, supplanted the presidency, and I believe this is true in many respects. But it also depends on their relationship at the time. Obama, in addition to being The Anointed One and being crowned king, was also the head of the Deep State, and is even now considered its head emeritus. Trump, on the other hand, has been at war with the Deep State ever since he announced his candidacy. But in a sense this supports the argument. If, in Obama's case, the presidency and the Deep State were one and the same, then you clearly don't need both. And if, in Trump's case, the presidency and the Deep State don't overlap to the slightest degree, then it makes more sense to get rid of one and keep the other. A house divided against itself cannot stand, etc.

After that brief – ahem! – introduction, we come up to the present day, when an interesting phenomenon is taking place. We have the pandemic, and the government's reaction to it, which is to basically shut down the entire economy until further notice. And then we have the reaction to that. Now, the latter reaction is a spontaneous, grass-roots movement if anything ever was. There is no charismatic leader, no money behind it (How could there be? Everyone's out of work.), and coverage by the mainstream media is entirely negative, and the social media are censoring all attempts to organize protests and start petitions. You might say it has all the earmarks of an underground movement except that it's just the opposite – it's above ground and out in the streets. What they're objecting to is that those in charge want them to stay underground (or behind closed doors). But at the same time there's a very strong, and vocal, social movement in favor of the restrictions, and I don't think they're all working for the government; they're grass-roots as well, and – I'm sure – convinced that what they're doing (admonishing, enforcing, tattling) is what's good for the community. It is, if you will, a civil war which is being fought on Facebook and Twitter. (Better that than with guns and cannons, I guess.)

There are, of course – as with everything else these days – political correlates. The obedient ones tend to be liberal and authoritarian, and cheering for Fauci and Birx, and whatever they consider to be “science”. The rebels tend to be conservative and on the side of Trump. So the fact that Trump and his brain trust appear on the same stage for hours every evening has to be causing a bit of cognitive dissonance whiplash.

The one thing that the two sides in the current controversy have in common is fear – and fear stoked by, no surprise, the government and the media. One side is scared to death of dying, and the other is scared to death of the spectre of unemployment and poverty. Some in government (at all levels) are trying to pull off a balancing act (the Wallendas again) and come up with a formula that will satisfy both sides, but I think this is an exercise in futility. If they go all in for health and safety, they're going to be blamed when the Second Great Depression hits, and if they go all in for the economy, they're going to be blamed every time someone sees a hearse rolling down the street. So they can't win, and I wouldn't want to be in their shoes for all the tea in China. But hey, they campaigned for this job, they wanted it in the worst way, and sure enough they got it in the worst way.

If you want to talk about Trump himself, history will remember him primarily as the guy who was in office when everything changed. There will be plenty of blame and credit to go around, but at least the entire impeachment drive will fade into oblivion by comparison, and rather than finish out his time as a lame duck Trump will be able to think of himself as a brand-new kind of war president, and that may convince him that it was all worthwhile. I mean, who knows, he may even get his face on a stamp some day; now that would be something!

Conspiracies on Parade

This is a tough time to be a conspiracy theorist. And it's not because there aren't plenty of conspiracy theories to go around – on the contrary! They multiply and proliferate on a daily basis. They spill out, unimpeded, from the print media, TV, radio, the Internet, social media, and pretty much anyone you might encounter on the street (keeping a safe distance, of course). No, the problem is more about which theory to choose, or which cluster of theories to choose, and which ones to reject, and where to assign various theories according to perceived probability. Besides which, there don't seem to be any “leading” theories – ones that are getting the lion's share of the votes. While not all are perceived as equally probable, it seems like there is an unusually high number of valid contenders – kind of like the Democratic field when the 2020 race began. (We have yet to identify the Joe Biden of conspiracy theories, in other words.)

Of course, any situation that generates conspiracy theories also features the establishment narrative, also known as “the official finding”. This is, traditionally, something along the lines of “stuff happens”. In other words, there are accidents, coincidences, and random events that make up most of existence, and this is just another one of them. The most they will ever allow for is a single narrative, which is striking in its simplicity. For example, the “lone nut with a gun” narrative has been used so many times that it has become a meme, or a verbal tic. But curiously, the “lone nut with a gun” explanation is always accompanied by a frantic search for a “motive”. It never occurs to anyone that the premise (lone nut) renders any search for a motive futile. The very concept of a “lone nut” implies that there may not be a motive – at least not one that any sane person can understand. And I think on some level they (officialdom) know this, but they also know that people are looking for something they can understand and grasp on to, and which will provide that perennial will-o-the-wisp known as “closure”, which also ranks high on the list of verbal tics of our time. And “closure” is another word for “all is well”, and Big Brother is in control, and you can plug your thumb back in your mouth and space out. Brutal, but true. (Ever notice how network news programs always end with some feel-good, “human interest” story? That's the opiate that is intended to neutralize the crazy juice you've been force-fed for the preceding 55 minutes. Create fear, provide relief. Rinse and repeat. It's a time-honored method, and it works just as well now as it ever did. The fact that in the long run it creates chronic anxiety and paranoia in the public mind, and a longing for protection by Big Brother, is... well, how about totally intentional?)

And yet in this case, even the establishment narrative looks shaky. We all agree that it started in China, right? But did it start in a biological research laboratory or in a market that sells bat soup? Or pangolins? Or bat soup with a side order of pangolins? Or pangolin soup with a side order of bats? (And for that matter, was the laboratory studying viruses for public health reasons, or for biological warfare reasons? Or for both offensive and defensive purposes, not unlike comparable facilities elsewhere?) And then we have the interesting phenomenon of the media vs. the Trump administration when it comes to policies and actions vis-a-vis the corona virus. For the mainstream media, anything Trump is for they will be against, without exception. They will oppose his every action and every statement – his every thought, every gesture, every choice of necktie. So what happens when he assembles his corona virus team in front of the press every evening? When he and his superstars Fauci and Birx seem to be on the same page, Fauci and Birx are, according to the media, stooges, sell-outs, hacks, yes men (and women), sock puppets, etc. On alternate days, when there appears to be a rift between Trump and his brain trust, the media present them as saints! Victims! Whistle blowers! Martyrs! Scientists! And so on. So much for the unshakable reverence for “science” that the media always claim to have.

So what we have is an establishment narrative that looks anything but firm and well-grounded. It makes the narratives for the JFK assassination and 9-11 look downright Biblical – etched in granite! (And all the “conspiracy theories” in those cases are still scratching at the back door, begging to be let in.)

So... having set the stage, let's delve into some of the many conspiracy theories that festoon the airwaves and everyday conversation at this point (and these may not be mutually exclusive):

• Yes, it originated in China, but it was no accident. It was an intentional biological attack on the U.S. in retaliation for economic and trade sanctions, our position on Taiwan, our positions on currency manipulation, intellectual property, etc. As such, it was intended to be a “shot off our bow”, i.e. get out of our face or else (it could be worse).
• Variation 1: It was a probe – a test case – to see how effective biological warfare would be, what our response would be, etc. Corona was never intended to be the ultimate weapon, in other words; that's still under development.
• Variation 2: The intention was not only near-term but long-term. By bringing the U.S. to its knees economically, China would be assuring its ascent to the position of leading economic power on the planet – and, soon to follow, leading military power.
• Variation 3: The focus was on causing major damage to our military, which has turned out (no surprise, if you know anything about history) to be particularly vulnerable to viral infections and epidemics. If you can sap the strength of the U.S. military, and get it to stand down, it's much easier for China to continue its high jinks in the South China Sea unimpeded. (If the military was the prime target, then the civilian population counts only as “collateral damage” – something that aggressors are always willing to accept.)
• Footnote: China has decided that a direct military confrontation with the U.S. would be costly, and they might not even win. So they had to come up with something completely different (if not totally unexpected – after all, we've been studying the biological warfare issue since before World War II).
• It was a false flag operation on the part of the globalists and their collaborators in the U.S. (including no small portion of the Deep State). See that China gets the blame, while in fact they are creating a crisis in order to (1) cut the U.S. down to size, and (2) increase the power of central government exponentially, which will, in turn, (3) increase the power of the globalist elite once they consolidate their control over the U.S. government, which will, at that point, become a mere proxy or shadow government for the globalist empire, the way most Western European governments already are.
• It was cooked up by the vaccination industry and lobby in order to demonstrate, once and for all, that vaccination is the only way to survive, and that vaccinations for every conceivable ailment, up to and including toenail fungus, should be mandated by the government, and anyone who objects should be arrested and jailed because their reckless ideas threaten public health.
• It was a false flag operation on the part of our own Deep State, which seeks (1) a death blow to the Trump administration, because all other efforts have failed; and (2) an exponential increase in the power and reach of the Deep State, with the ultimate goal of complete control of the citizenry, including monitoring all movements, transactions, and social contacts. (The totalitarian dream, in other words.)
• It was a false flag operation on the part of our economic “planners”, political ideologues, “agents of change”, and the ruling elite. Getting rid of Trump is necessary, but it's only a first step. The main goal is to deliver the final death blow to the American middle class, and finally achieve what the elites have been dreaming of for generations – namely, a slave state made up of serfs and rulers, with the middle class eliminated as an economic and political factor. Note that:
  • The titans of big business have no problem at all with the shutdown – in fact, they're urging Trump to keep it going indefinitely. That should be a clue right there. And with their cash reserves, they can weather just about anything while they wait for their “stimulus” check from the Treasury Department.
  • The ruling elite and the working classes have recently discovered a common cause in demonizing the middle class and gradually eroding its resources and influence. This is exemplified in the makeup of the Democratic Party.
  • The economic shutdown is having a much more severe effect on the middle class – in terms of employment, income, and small business – than on big business (an example being the DJIA, which took a major hit but is still alive and well, because it represents big business, which has sufficient reserves to ride this out, whereas small businesses are dropping like flies and unlikely to recover). (It's also possible that the scheme included letting the Dow take a hit as a cover – “See, we're suffering too”, etc. But see what recovers first when this is over with.)
  • Footnote 1: Why is the middle class so despised and persecuted? (And why, for that matter, has this process been going on ever since the Progressive Era, although it has become much more blatant over the last 50 years?) For one thing, it tends to be, and vote, conservatively-- especially if you're talking about people in agriculture, small business, and the skilled trades. People who do meaningful work that has a well-defined product, and people with ties to the land, are naturally more conservative. It's the paper traders and parasites who tend toward the liberal side.
  • Footnote 2: What the people in charge of this project intend is for small business to vanish, and for all of those enterprises to be absorbed into vast industrial and commercial cartels which will eventually become synonymous with the State. Note that (1) this process is already underway, with predatory large businesses gobbling up small businesses at a rapid rate, and turning those business owners into franchisees at best, and wage slaves at worst; and (2) what we call “crony capitalism” will, in its ultimate state of evolution, become either business being a wholly-owned subsidiarity of the State, or vice versa. This will be a distinction without a difference. Whether those in charge are called CEOs or commissars will make no difference to the disenfranchised citizenry.
  • Footnote 3: But how does a “modern, industrialized society” function without a middle class? We've had that discussion before. The answer is that it doesn't – not in the way we're used to. But the Soviet Union managed to pull it off for many decades. (China, on the other hand, was stuck in the stone age until they decided to try a bit of free enterprise and property rights. And apparently it worked.)

And finally...

• It was a deal worked out between China – birth-control experts extraordinaire – and the ZPG cartel, to reduce populations worldwide because free and unrestricted abortion has failed to do the job (as has war).
• It was an act of sabotage by the “greens” and eco-fanatics, who are already celebrating the improvement in air quality as the result of restrictions on commerce and travel.

So... and this just scratches the surface (and I'm not going to assign a probability value to any of the above – consider that an exercise you can perform on your own). Stay tuned for many more, and many more outlandish (or maybe not) theories. (What's crazy one day is overtaken by reality the next. Then we have to redefine “crazy” – until the next day.)

So what we wind up with is a cafeteria of sorts (or a Chinese menu, appropriately enough) – pick two, pick three, and go to town. The thing is, these theories are all possible – quite possible, in fact, although I doubt if very many would succeed in isolation. In a state of symbiosis they could work quite well. They are not out of la-la land, they don't involve flying saucers or tinfoil hats or even 5G. They could happen because things like this have happened, more than once down through history (our own and that of the world in general).

It's also true that, regardless of how this all got started, there are plenty of people willing and able to take advantage – to the extent that it might be possible to add conspiracies, layer upon layer, as more people and entities pile on. So we might wind up with a single initial cause, but many conspirators after the fact. Is having dreamed something like this up worse than taking advantage of it once it's going full speed? To answer that you'd have to probe the minds of everyone involved, and who wants that job? Similar questions can be asked about any man-made catastrophe down through history. Are the people who lit the fuse worse than the exploiters? Well, if it hadn't been for the original mad geniuses, the exploiters would have had nothing to exploit, right? But being who they are, they would have found something else in due course. Plus, in some cases it might all have fizzled except for the people who came along and gave it more energy – a booster shot, if you will. This has been claimed for the Great Depression, for example, and it's almost certainly true of the Great Recession. Even in the present case, there is so much self-serving going on that it's hard not to find the people doing it guilty, regardless of what we believe about initial causes. There are slickee boys around every corner, and on every Internet page, looking to make a buck from other people's misery – 'twas ever thus.

But a word of caution is apropos here. It's one thing to theorize as to how something came to be, who cooked it up, etc. And it's one thing to theorize as to what they expected to gain from the event. (The eternal question, “Cui bono?” is always relevant, and no, it's not always about the money, but that's usually the first place one should look, to be closely followed by power.) But when one views any major event in retrospect, and sees who and what really benefited, it would be a mistake to assume that that was always the motivating force, and that those who benefited were in on it from the start. For example, plenty of people benefited from the events of 9-11. Does that mean they were all in on it? Maybe their benefits were accidental – something the people who really were in on it allowed to happen, partly as a cover and partly because it was too small a matter to be concerned with. If a hedge fund manager makes a killing in the stock market by devious means, and some day trader makes a killing because he happened to have a portfolio very similar to that of the manager, that doesn't mean the day trader was in on the scheme. Likewise, there will be many people who will benefit from the current crisis, and we shouldn't hold them accountable without further evidence. On the other hand, some of the conspirators may actually wind up losing, but that does nothing to lessen their guilt.

I should add that – in line with the fragmented establishment narrative – public confidence in the government's pronouncements seems to be at an all-time low. (Who knows, maybe conspiracy theorists will someday be in the majority!) This is attributable to the Trump Effect to some degree, i.e. to the idea that some people would trust the government if Trump weren't nominally in charge of it, and some people would trust Trump but not the government in general. But regardless of the reasons, this newfound skepticism can only be a good thing. The ruling elite has been blowing smoke up our butts for generations, with the full cooperation of the mainstream media, and if it's time for a reckoning, this would be a good place to start. Part of it, of course, involves skepticism regarding “experts”, and people who rely on “models”, and of course this can run into the opposite extreme, namely that of anti-science. So as with any other historical process that can be characterized by thesis/antithesis/synthesis, the present process may yield up a favorable and valid middle ground, where the “experts” are no longer worshiped without question, but the citizenry are not treated like a bunch of idiots and retards either.

At this point in history, as omnipresent and powerful as the ruling elite is, I don't believe that they have yet acquired total control, by which I mean total control. We have not yet become a people's republic (although a lot of people are starting to think they're inmates in some vast prison camp, and it's hard to blame them). I think the current crisis is a major step in that direction – perhaps the biggest single step since the Depression – but total control? It would be like having total control of the weather. There are just too many variables... the system is too complex, and there are too many random factors. And besides, you have human nature, which is notoriously fickle, cupidic, irrational, and subject to whims, crazes, fads, panics, and hysteria. (And American human nature is especially that way, as we see on a daily basis.) Every time a totalitarian regime has attempted to remake mankind, it has failed – we had the Master Race, the New Soviet Man, and all of the various lunatic schemes of Chairman Mao and his acolytes in places like Cambodia. All failures, and spectacular ones at that. Why should this be any different? We are feeling the cold, heartless hand of totalitarianism in our midst and in our daily lives at this point, but at the same time the Regime is getting a lot of push-back. People are cooperating up to a point, but then turning around and saying “Enough! We're not taking it any more!” They are spilling out onto the streets and highways in protest, and to hell with “sheltering in place”. This, to me, is an encouraging sign. Other peoples, at other times, have resorted to sabotage, insurrection, revolution, and so on; I don't think we're anywhere near that point as yet. But if the degree of oppression, and its degree of apparent arbitrariness, increases, we may see signs. Right now, the “vibe” I'm picking up is similar to the “feeling tone” of people who have to pay income and property taxes, or obey traffic laws. They gripe and mutter, but they do it – grudgingly and with occasional glimpses of dark humor. The elite have to think long and hard before they assume that if people are basically cooperative now they will remain so if the ante is raised. There is a point at which any people – any society – will rebel, and turn on its masters. And this varies from one society to another. In Cambodia half the population had to be exterminated by the other half before people decided they'd had enough. Things were slightly less severe in Mao's China and in the Soviet Union, but the dynamics were similar. Right now we seem to be at the tipping point – either we capitulate to increased control, or we fight back. And fighting back will not be without cost; it never is. “There will be blood”, as the saying goes. What comes out at the end is anybody's guess, but whatever it is will both confirm and debunk conspiracy theories. Many will fall by the wayside and others will rise to greater prominence (those Democratic primaries again!). Those that survive will serve as a conceptual template for the future, and those that don't will nonetheless be stored up in the event of future needs, like 3-piece suits. There is, after all, always a future – maybe not the one we would like, but a future nonetheless. And the chances are that it will continue to be inhabited by flesh-and-blood people, not just by bats and pangolins.

There will be many winners and losers who will come out of this episode – some according to plan and some according to accident, and some with what one might call karma (good or bad). It's going to be very interesting to see how it all falls out – even though the process may take years or even decades – and how it impacts the future of this nation and society.