ANOTHER SITUATION POORLY FORESEEN.

The summer housecleaning continues, with the March 1989 issue of The Atlantic going to the recycle bin. Not, though, before I skimmed through "Cotton Mather Democrats" by Mark Shields.  The reference is to the Cotton Mather of Technocratic Wisdom, not the Cotton Mather of witch-burning, and the puzzler Mr Shields was dealing with was common among the intellectual journals of the era, namely, how was it that Michael Dukakis, selling himself as a technocrat (anybody else remember Andrew Cuomo's "not ideology, competence?") whilst the elder George Bush, even more of a technocrat, sold himself as some sort of good old boy.  And note, dear reader, the Hungarian border was still closed in March of that year.

In the article, though, was this observation by William Schneider, who I think still turns up from time to time as Elder Political Analyst,  He asked, "When did the Democrats plunge into the fatal error that somehow it is acceptable to be rich, virtuous to be poor, and that the only sin is to be a member of the middle class?"  Recall, dear reader, that thirty years ago the massive shakeout of Big Steel and American Cars was still fresh in people's minds, and Robert Reich's "symbolic analysts" were still working off mainframes and relying on fast modems.

Read, though, this observation by Matthew Continetti, after the close of the Hollywood and Silicon Valley produced and urban poor catered to Democratic convention from anywhere but Milwaukee.  "Time and again, Americans have elected Democratic governments only to find themselves shocked and appalled two years later. The Democrats campaign as a worker's party, but govern as a Bobo one."  Yes, and Donald Trump became president running against both the entertainment elitists of the Donks and the rent-seeker elitists of the Pachs.  No surprise that more than a few moderate Pachs phoned in their support for Mr Biden.

James "Clusterf**k Nation" Kunstler also echoes what Mr Schneider warned about, only more pungently.  "The Democrats are crazy people with a mostly crazy policy program — which a large number of non-crazy Americans actually see for what it is: the drive to run America on sheer coercion, pitting the supposedly under-privileged against the supposedly over-privileged, telling everybody what to think and punishing all non-correct thinkers."  He fears that it's all an act.

I don’t see how this amounts to a winning election strategy. And the Democrats themselves may not either. Rather, their aim may be to generate as much disorder as possible from the election process itself to paralyze governing the USA at every level and paint Mr. Trump as Hobgoblin-in-chief in order to keep their hustle going: the mau-mauing of America. It’s a really dumb and reckless game and it will bring on a whole lot of not-good trouble for a country reeling into full-blown economic collapse.

There's a further problem: in Mr Schneider's formulation, it's acceptable to be rich only if you Pay. Your. Taxes.  President Clinton even stressed that, early in his presidency, when he had the votes to repeal tax rate reductions.  But thirty years of gutting the middle class means that there's less upward mobility as well as fewer examples of what life without dependency on the government looks like, and the only money that's left to tax is that of the rich people.  And even woke rich people have their limits.

California is home to 12 percent of Americans, but over a quarter of the nation's homeless. It also has the highest share of noncitizen residents, according to the Census Bureau, a group disproportionately likely to be less educated and more reliant on welfare benefits. The state is the nation's sixth most generous, in terms of public welfare dollars per capita—an arrangement funded largely by its wealthiest taxpayers.

But as state Democrats bear down on them, regular Californians and the uber-wealthy alike may reconsider if this bargain is really worth it.

"It's very tempting to look at [other] states and think how cost of living could be a lot better, and income could go a lot further, and you could grow your business a lot faster in different environments that may not even have an income tax at all," [Tax Foundation policy analyst Katherine] Loughead said. "So I think those types of states are going to look more and more appealing to Californians."

California's borders are still open for out-migration, although the legislature would like to impose exit taxes in the form of a wealth tax that applies even to expatriate residents.  But their technocrats make life more difficult for Uber drivers and the uber-wealthy alike.

By their fruits shall ye know them.