I take two weeks away from compiling pithy elaborations, and the introduction turns into a mini-dissertation. There will be a few short takes after today's sermonette.
How's that battle for the soul of the United States going? "The US is now starting to look more like a backward banana republic than a modern constitutional democracy." Donald Trump might have sounded off about jailing his opponents. Joe Biden's lackeys are doing so. Militant Normals are noticing. "Democracy, as Biden uses the term, really just means 'rule by Democrats.' Trump is a threat to that, whether you like him or not, and that is the real reason he can’t be allowed to be on ballots. If people can pick the candidate they prefer, they might choose the wrong guy." Grumpy economists are noticing. "It is noteworthy that the party bleating most loudly about "threats to democracy" is so distrustful of democracy that it is waging legal battles to keep Mr. Trump from being democratically elected. If it's so self-evident that Trump violated the Constitution and his oath of office, the correct remedy is to simply let voters not vote for him on that basis. The party supposedly of the little person does not trust that little person to make the most basic decisions." That's not what democracy looks like. "Saving democracy doesn’t mean upholding the rules no matter what and letting the voters decide the election and the next president."
Law professors are noticing. "Democrats out to save democracy long for a solution to Donald Trump that is anything other than defeating him democratically. The judiciary is supposed to swoop in and rescue Democrats from the task of winning the votes of the people. But the Supreme Court isn't stacked with judges who lean in the political direction that disfavors the candidate they loathe. So their hope for a nondemocratic alternative to the next election is pre-crushed." Self-styled progressives have discovered that legislating from the bench isn't a good idea. "The only effective way to halt Donald Trump and the neo-fascist movement he leads is to vote him down next November and build a lasting counter-movement of the left. That is a tall order for supporters of democracy — and time is running out." What do I keep telling you about deconstructing norms? "The protective shield that all democracies and social orders rely on – legitimacy of the governing body, some level of elite responsibility, the willingness of citizens to view their neighbors in a civic way – is in an advanced stage of decline or collapse." We're well into the punishment stage of the grim strategy outcome, aren't we? "The U.S. stands as the most successful and stable democratic system in history. In the blind quest to block Trump 'at any cost,' these officials have introduced a destabilizing element to our system that could be replicated in tit-for-tat politics for years to come."
It's not that those Responsible Adults have shown any responsibility, have they? "Joe Biden intentionally created the border crisis; he intentionally caused the Afghanistan debacle; he intentionally caused the gas crisis — and he intentionally implemented the disastrous policies [he spins as] Bidenomics."
The failures by the Professional Managerial Classes extend beyond Official Washington. When the leading universities embraced the denial of coherent beliefs, could anything good follow? "Research universities, and the wider modern project of improving human life through research and scholarship, depend on academic honesty. Consider how modern universities differed from their medieval predecessors. Medieval university teaching was built around collections of authorities in philosophy, medicine, law and theology." Intersectionality: the return of the medieval. "Harvard followed the mob and when the mob turned and the season changed it had left itself no defense." Nor did it hurt that recondite theorrhea facilitated the Minimal Publishable Unit at the expense of, oh, scholarship that other scholars, postulants, and curious lay readers could engage. " A garbled rant in an obscure journal counted equally with a brief note of profound intellectual consequences." Let us call b.s. on the b.s. "Tossing around some Freudian—and rather more Marxist—terminology does not make a series of assertions analysis." Let the regeneracy begin with Harvard. "No decent institution, really, can declare a standard and then let its leader flout it without consequence." Some bells you can't unring. "Getting rid of Gay does next to nothing to address the real problem here: the hostile takeover of higher education by DEI, it’s attendant postmodern horseshit, and it’s assault on merit."
Let the reckonings with failed government and incompetent higher education intensify. "For weeks, the American people have been relatively silent as they digested these ongoing catastrophes. But at some point, their patience will run out." I'll keep documenting it as long as I am able.
The weekly round-up of pithy elaborations on traditional Cold Spring Shops themes returns for 2024. Buckle in.
1. Your blessing for the New Year. "Prosperity is the gift that keeps on giving."
2. Protect the sacred eagles. "It’s not just that the wind industry lost; it lost to a Native American tribe."
4. Emergence, revealing the incompetence of the allegedly wise. "Because economies are infinitely complex, resources are most efficiently allocated through market forces, which involve buyers and sellers who possess local knowledge making rational decisions."
5. Prosit. "Well, there's a reason people call them 'sex in a canoe' beers. I wasn't able to join the Bud Light boycott as I hadn't touched a Bud beer in decades; all I remember about them is that when I drink them, IPA lot." Arguably, he had been boycotting colored water in blue cans all along.
8. Aaron Rodgers. "Only Judge Judy gets paid more to sit on the bench."
11. Cliques forever. "We're turning out kids who don't think in complex ways."
12. Who needs walkable cities? "Once workers got a taste of remote work, and they fully realized just how ridiculously annoying the commute and office culture truly is, they would not and could not be pushed back into a full-time relationship with the office."
13. Pass the popcorn. "President Biden campaigned on reversing all [these] BS policies from the Trump administration. Now they are just openly willing to bring back Title 42 in order to get money for their well-funded genocide happening in Gaza?"
14. A tinderbox? This is the world President Biden has produced.
15. Some of them are good people. "Millions Of People Of Color Endure Grueling Thousand Mile Trek In Effort To Enter Systemically Racist White Supremacist Hellhole."
16. Whosoever would be a man. "Nonconformists help protect freedom by raising the cost of enforcing conformity." In my own small way I keep doing my part.
17. Be calm, watch the playoffs, and work on your model railroad, or your stamps. "Just because the political class sneezes doesn't mean the rest of us are obliged to catch a cold."
18. Eschew punishment cycles. "When you demonize those who disagree with you, you invite treatment in kind."
19. Contextualize vandalism. "[Critical thinking] is a catch-all phrase for criticizing people and institutions by deploying popular clichés. Splashing tomato soup on a famous painting in a museum is not 'critical thinking.'"
20. That presidential cult. "A Constitution-flouting ‘authoritarian’ is already in the White House"
And now, the post comes to an end as the 2023-2024 football season winds down, with the football roundup.
21. The Bears, despite playing well since the trade deadline, will finish out of the playoffs. "2023 ends with gas prices still much higher than when Trump was president." (Dementia Joe's interns have been touting the price decreases since mid-2022.)
22. Mike McCarthy, with Seattle nightmares recurring? “We’re trying to put it away. You call plays you feel good about. The penalty on first down, I gotta see it. I’m trying to get into striking distance on third down is all I’m thinking about.”
23. You have to play all sixty minutes. "We wanted an opportunity to get this thing to the fourth quarter and find a way to finish. That’s probably been our Achilles’ heel all year. We just couldn’t get it done."
24. The hard way. "Rocky Lombardi Earns Bart Starr MVP Trophy with 200-Yard Passing Game."
25. The Packers are, as of this writing, still in the playoff picture, and yet questions persist. "Everything begins, and ends with the head coach." We'll enjoy the process, and yet, a nineteenth weekend of football would be a fine start to the year. "The disappointment you feel stems from the development of the young players on the roster. You see the promise but not the wins and that's frustrating for all parties involved." I do not want to read this again. "They're beating us. They're outcoaching us, they're out-scheming us and outplaying us, ultimately."
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