It's also hard to keep track of the existential threats. "Democrats don’t much like Constitutional government, and indeed don’t much like the Constitution itself." Nor do their court intellectuals like normal people. "They mostly speak to the college educated, the urban and affluent, in their language. Their tone is condescending and paternalistic." And irrelevant to the lived experience of normal people. "You’ve known it for years: they’re snobby, condescending, overly educated, and care about things that normal people couldn’t care less about." When they're not outright wrong. "The cult of expertise is the problem. In many cases, expertise is really just unearned certainty. No expert should be certain of things to the point that they ridicule others, prevent dissent, and quash inquiry." Sanctimonious liberals make me want to vote Trump. Likewise.
If the Expert Class take a beating this election cycle, that's good. "Tom Friedman deserves a lifetime achievement prize for cluelessness." He's in bad company. "David Brooks, Tom Nichols, William Kristol, and Peggy Noonan have all written the most amazingly refutable piles of nonsense in the last few days, being professionals at the task, and I kept asking out loud if David Brooks hears himself, because every paragraph clashes and refutes all the other paragraphs around it. But no." Undermine them with mockery. "The word 'experts' has taken such a hit in the last few years... right up there with 'democracy' and 'fascist.'"
What's the answer to expert failure? Invent another existential threat. "Trump has already been president, and it turns out he wasn’t Hitler. He wasn’t even just a disaster." In two weeks, we'll see whether energy independence and secure borders matter.
The deeper questions remain. "Leviathan may seem calm and controlled at one moment, but the potential for a sudden and destructive outcome exists due to the unpredictable and fundamentally dangerous nature of the forces involved." And the Trumpian coalition, eclectic as it is, gives conservative purists pause. "Trump has some advantages over Harris, especially in the realms of illegal immigration and the judiciary, but he is a long, long way from being a conservative." That article reinforces the importance of the city council, the school boards, and the dog-catcher. "In the states, by contrast, conservatism is ascendant." What happens when the government turns out not to deliver the promised miracles?
The weekly round-up of mostly pithy elaborations of traditional Cold Spring Shops themes follows.
1. Diddling elegance, doodling rigor, and academic economics. "Our profession has become insular and status-obsessed, and not focused enough on making a positive impact on the world. Regular people think we economists are out of touch. Unfortunately, they have a point." Unfortunately, the fix might be more rent-seeking. "Empirical research is expensive."
3. Politicians lie. "We’re fighting over who’s more in touch with minimum wage workers — billionaire Donald McDonald of the deep-fryer photo-op or Kamala of the questionable fast-food career — while the guy who is still in the White House is a few nuggets short of a Happy Meal."
4. Praise ice when you're across it. "It doesn’t take Trump flipping burgers at McDonald’s to know that Harris is cooked."
5. Charlie Brown's teacher is speaking. "Trump Campaign Raises Millions Overnight With New Donation Ask: 'How Much Would You Pay To Not Have To Listen To Kamala Talk The Next 4 Years?'"
6. If only. "Jared Kushner begins developing “beachfront properties” on the land previously known as Gaza."
7. Weimar America. "The difference between Iran — where they trans young gays and lesbians en masse — and America, is that in one, the parents’ religion is fundamentalist Islam, and in America, it’s wokeness."
8. Vote accordingly. "Our way of life is slowly deteriorating under Kamala and the shadow government who is trying to install her for four more years."
10. Do you have to grant the major premise? "If women are supposed to support a female candidate just because she is a woman, then men have the right to support a male candidate just because he is a man."
11. And then claim it wasn't adequately funded? "Only in government is it possible to have people do something well in advance and still have it end up delaying everything, out of easily fixable bureaucratic ineptitude."
12. That's how he overhauled Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley. "It’s hard to see Trump-bashing as helping Trump, but that might be what is going on."
13. Exactly. "You are voting for a regency—with Harris as an inconsequential figurehead who signs papers and offers her thumbprint should the regents decide to press the nuclear button."
14. There are limits to that cheap labor subsidy. "Most Americans do not support the continued flaunting [c.q.] of immigration law so rich people can pay a little less for their gardeners."
15. Sad! "This calls out for a satire on how The New Yorker‘s descent can be traced from reporting on 'the banality of evil' to 'the banality of Big Macs.'"
16. Do you want lies with that? "Forgive me, but I smell the same gigantic, disingenuous rat that Trump’s been smelling about Kamala’s supposed McDonald’s career move."
17. The Biden con. "Democrats met Republican authoritarianism with "hold my beer" totalitarian intolerance for dissent." Read the full article, Reason staffers justify their presidential votes there.
18. Probably? "Your PowerPoints Probably Suck."
19. Schumpeterian wisdom. "The picture of the prettiest girl that ever lived will in the long run prove powerless to maintain the sales of a bad cigarette."
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