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Mob Rule in America? I Don’t Think So.
At the time of America’s rejection of British rule, the British aristocracy had found little purchase in the colonies and even less respect. When the revolution came, many of the stateside beneficiaries of the Crown’s titles and grants fled to Canada or moved back to Britain. Some sided with the States, abandoned their titles and embraced the new American republicanism. That is why the subsequent French revolution was such a barbarous thing. When America prevailed, there was hope in France that they could also transition from a monarchy to a democratic and representative form of government. However, the more the French aristocracy acquiesced, the more aggressive its opponents became. France went through waves of bloody revolution as the aristocracy, then waves of opposing revolutionaries, were summarily slaughtered in a hideous and extended display of violence that only ended when Napoleon commandeered the military and seized power.
Those ten long years of brutality in France reinforced and sparked the imaginations of future philosophers and economic theorists. Liberty, they announced, required revolution. However, Liberty had a different meaning among these new political thinkers. Liberty, in their view, was freedom from want. And the nemesis was those who had. This was the new political thinking. This was the kernel of political thought that grew into the credos of the modern left, this and the idea of a perpetual revolution to guide wealth redistribution. The irony of all this is the fact that it took a brutal dictator like Bonaparte to end that bloody decade in France. Egalitarianism was never achieved. Want was never satisfied.
Progressivism is a retreaded synonym for Leftism borrowed from the early proto-fascist Wilsonian movement. It imbues the Left’s vision of progress with a Darwinian idea of natural political advancement; that is that so long as government continues to move and embrace the ideas of the big government left, good ideas will give way to better ideas and good government programs will evolve to become better. The result is progress, marching forward, with government leading the way.
The funny thing is, in the places where socialist policy is actually embraced and practiced, the exact opposite happens. Time stops. Progress reverses. Advances in technology cease. Violence erupts. Liberties are taken away. Production and economic development decline further. There are shortages, outages, and rationing. Socialist ideas and policies are synonymous with failure, shortage, inflation, chaos, unrest, corruption, and tyranny.
Most recent example? Venezuela.
Now we have the Left in America, and some on the right, quite literally in virtual meltdown over the Trump election and the Republican control of Congress. After eight years of Obama, including four with complete Democrat control of Congress, our Federal Government became a full-on social progressive endeavor. Federal government departments became legions of social justice and environmental activism. Health insurance and care became a federally controlled cartel. Even the IRS was corrupted and turned against the opposition. In those eight years, the economy sputtered. Disability became a racket. By all measures, poverty was a growth industry with no end in sight. It was no longer fashionable to be an American in the world. We apologized, retreated, ignored lines drawn in the sand, encouraged tyrants, declared our withdrawals, and led from behind. It was clear: America was no longer engaged in the world, our military power, in decline. Perceived slights trumped patriotism and truth. The age of the progressive political tantrum had arrived.
That makes sense. Obama was first, if nothing else, a political activist. He believed that a carefully crafted, collective political melt-down, a protest, a tantrum, was the best way to obtain political advantage; that is concession, from the political class. He was from the very beginning the crier in chief.
But then, something happened. The Left in America failed to gauge how annoying and stressful the public would find all this noisy, pointless, activism. Any parent knows how tiresome it is to deal with whiny children and their practiced meltdowns. That’s how many Americans felt as one group after another marched and protested; dreamers, Black Lives Matter, La Raza, pro-abortion feminists, open borders people, gay marriage advocates, transsexuals, etc. These folks were winning, in fact, had won major concessions from the Obama Administration and the courts and yet they continued to whine and protest. The so-called social justice movement was nothing but a means for perpetual agitation; its objective, a rainbow without end.
What did Obama’s Progressive remaking of our government bring us? Solutions built on the quicksand of executive order. A malleable constitution. More poverty. More public assistance. Entrenched underemployment. Anemic economic growth. Abrogation of world influence. Debt and deficits as likely as sunrises and sunsets. And a marked increase in the politics of pathetic protest.
So-called progressive politicians ignored all evidence to the contrary and embraced this movement. No longer Liberals, they were the new Progressives and they would continue the Obama Legacy of American transformation. And they likely would have had they not been corrupt, arrogant and dismissive of one Donald J. Trump.
The sound of the collective hissy fit advocated among Obama’s little armies has now risen several octaves since the Trump election and they’ve been joined by a complicit media, the remaining Never Trumpers from the right and the old guard Progressives. These are desperate people. The Obama transformation of our governance is unraveling; executive orders are countermanded; taxes cut; mandates eliminated and international agreements, renegotiated. We are rebuilding our military and have unapologetically re-engaged in the world. Not only are the Obama changes threatened with reversal, so are foundational progressive laws and precedents that can be traced all the way back to the Great Society; we have a majority of conservative originalists on the Supreme Court and this majority will likely get stronger.
All this has made the Left crazy. They will do anything to reverse this course, however, in their desperation they are exposing their own corruption as it was this corruption, after all, that allowed them to pervert our governance in the first place. There is no revolution; that is a myth. The United States is still a constitutional republic no matter how the Left tries to spin it. And the law applies to everyone, equally.
When will they learn that this is not France at the turn of the 19th century? Trump does not represent the corrupt Aristocracy, the ruling class. They do! Their calls for his head will simply continue echo through their own chambers. Their corrupt tactics and their own arrogance will boomerang. The heads that roll in this revolution will be their own.
Published in General
We don’t need to roll any heads …
… okay, maybe a few. Two or three dozen, tops.
Doug, you really had your thinking cap on for this one. One of the best posts on Ricochet in a long time. I am particularly impressed with your French history. Took a course in it in college and it all came flooding back.
The French Revolution had many Aristocrat supporters at first. Most of them lost their heads unless they fled like German Jews did in the mid 1930s. Those that thought they could ride it out, mostly ended in tumbrils on the way to the Guillotine.
Bravo, DK! From your keyboard to – every site on the ‘net and, well, you know where else. :-)
In America as a whole? Probably not.
Will portions of America want this so much, they are willing to split up the country to get it?
Maybe.
Outstanding post! Every word of it is true, including “and” and “the.”
Apparently, you and I have been reading different news.
The Constitution is still largely, if not wholly, applicable. The 2nd and 4th Amendments are only partially breached, while the 10th is essentially ignored. But it’s significant that even Democrats must still pay lip service to the Constitution.
As for equality under law, I seem to recall an unprosecuted felon nearly being elected President this last time around. And I would be surprised if any of the half-dozen conspirators in the FBI and DoJ recently in the news suffer legal retribution for abusing and acting beyond their authorities. In no scandal of recent years, from IRS targeting to Operation Chokepoint, was anyone severely punished. AG Holder determined that voter intimidation is legal when the perpetrators are black. And so on.
So, not at the highest levels of politics. Can the little guy expect equal application of law? Maybe. Politics is politics, at any level.
The latter so far has not demonstrated the former. Trump campaigned on gutting some executive departments. When does that begin? Is the FDA’s campaign against e-cigarettes an example of deregulation? Is the DoJ’s crusade to topple the President by his own authority an example of reining in the bureaucracies?
Amen. I’m with you on most of the post. But the triumphalism is unmerited.
Give it time. The first wave of criminal referrals in the FBI-DOJ conspiracy were just recently made. I have faith that justice will be served, raw and wriggling.
Agreed. Until at least one of the Clintons is frog-marched into jail in an orange jumpsuit, we are not equal before the law.
One big thing you left out, Doug. That would be the politicization of the Judiciary. The President, as Chief Executive, has broad authority, both in statute and in judicial precedent, to regulate immigration. It is Trump’s RIGHT to issue his decrees regarding immigration from certain countries where terrorism has a foothold. The Political Judiciary has NO authority to stop his edicts from taking effect, but everyone in both the Executive branch and the Judicial branch ignores this, and the US still admits those who have no right to come here. This is the worst effect of the Obama years, and the one area where President Trump has not asserted himself nearly enough.
The Judicial branch was not designed to be an unchecked final arbiter of all questions on authority. But in my lifetime there has never been a check against it.
Likewise, the Legislative has ceded most of its authority to the President and to unelected bureaucrats of Executive agencies.
The Constitution is largely symbolic, I’m sad to say. Without willing obedience, it is an idle relic of history. Law cannot operate independent of culture.
Very good addition! No question the judiciary has become shop-able with judges willingly playing along with the Left to push their agenda forward, laws and Constitution be damned.
I sympathize. We really do need to repeal and replace the Administrative Procedures Act and put Congress back in the accountability business. It’s not sexy enough to get people to look at it, but it would be a tremendous game changer. Perhaps it could be challenged. Lawyers?
Again, NRO’s headliner is relevant to our discussion.
Ricochet’s lawyers might know better. But it seems to this layman that the President should simply defy this Judicial overreach by refusing to act in accordance. I am not sure how else the branch can be checked apart from impeachment of judges.
How is this possible if there is no truth? Cannot wrap my brain around the Left’s conflicting belief system.
The Governor of Connecticut calls the NRA “terrorists.”
Hillary proudly stated that the NRA is the enemy she is most proud of.
How do you walk those back? And if you truly believe that is the case, why would you want to walk them back?
We may not be interested in a revolution, but that doesn’t mean the revolution isn’t interested in us.
It is centered around enemies. Leftist groups each have their bogeymen, and beliefs (or lack thereof), but they ally under the banner of the enemy of my enemy is my friend theory, and when one group’s core beliefs conflict with another, they all agree to accept truth as flexible. Then the conflicts disappear and the alliance continues; you know, like middle school.
But for one thing; the bureaucracy does not want armed conflict with an American militia. If they call in the guard, they will likely join the militia.
You should read about the sobbing EPA and State employees bemoaning the numbers that have been cut.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/24/us/politics/state-department-tillerson.html
https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-employees-leaving-2519323571.html
That is good news. But it goes back to Doug’s point that anything done by executive order or bureau management can be undone by the same.
The “proposed” budget cut will not happen without legislation. The 20% staffing cut is nothing to sneeze at. But the next Democrat administration will simply refill those positions which are authorized by law. The necessary step is to repeal that authority. The EPA, Energy, Education, and other agencies must be gutted of authority.
No member of Congress is worth a cent who isn’t pushing to restore the Legislative’s original role by undoing the bureaucratization of American government.
We have headaches about this; their buns hurt about things. Being that retentive must be terribly uncomfortable. No wonder they’re so loud and nasty when challenged.
Trump has a uniparty Congress. He does what he can.
The uproar about Admiral Jackson may be a rebellion by the VA bureaucracy at an outsider. If Congress would act like he is the GOP president and not some foreign potentate, they might have no trouble getting re-elected.
Doug, where you write :
The funny thing is, in the places where socialist policy is actually embraced and practiced, the exact opposite happens. Time stops. Progress reverses. Advances in technology cease. Violence erupts. Liberties are taken away. Production and economic development decline further. There are shortages, outages, and rationing. Socialist ideas and policies are synonymous with failure, shortage, inflation, chaos, unrest, corruption, and tyranny.
I am in agreement. But I feel I must mention that those people who announce so proudly how they are part of #The Resistance, #The Rebels and the #MeToos — they have no idea that this is the fate that awaits them should their movements succeed. Part of the reason that the mobs of the 1790’s overthrowing the nobility resulted in no one achieving any advantage is that that mob was ruled by the same ‘progressive’ notion that everything must be destroyed. So the aristocrats left the country, and the mobs came in and burned to the ground all the Great and Fabulous Chateaux. Any sensible success-desiring populace would have utilized the chateaux to be their hospitals or schools. Or even once subdivided, their 18th century version of middle class condos. But no, the mobs burnt the great houses to the ground.
To what purpose, a thinking person would ask? And that same question is now being asked by US voters everywhere, as they realize how there is a disastrous local shortfall to the budget brought about by the very expensive removal of statues deemed too “Slave-y” to be left in place. So kids from Charlottesville to Houston have fewer school programs in place. And the kids’ parents are now more than a little skeptical that the McResistance folks are anything but spoiled brats whose movements should be completely avoided.
No, they didn’t burn them all to the ground. Or even most. They barely burned any, and most survive to this day. (Been there, visited many.) The revolutionaries expropriated the property and tried to use it themselves. You’ll have to back up your “burn it all down” assertion with other facts, as these don’t support you.
Socialism and its variants fail because its assumptions about common people’s willingness to work in its idea of a “fair” economy doesn’t match actual human nature. People, in large groups, always consume more than they produce when there’s no incentive connection between producing and consuming.
I agree socialism distorts incentives, but, ultimately I think it doesn’t work because its aim is to concentrate power in the hands of the few. And, human nature being what it is, the few ultimately, invariably end up being the most ruthless and desirous of power — their precioussss.
There’s simply no remedy other than the American system of separated (limited) powers and sovereignty of the people. We’re learning even that is susceptible to corruption.
We are not now, and perhaps have seldom been, the educated and virtuous people the Founders envisioned…Hence, consequences, as you describe them.
I just finished three volumes relating to the French Revolution and its aftermath, and many chateaux were burned to the ground. Really and truly. However, I am guilty of globalization. As I should not have used the word “all” at all. (Books were written back in 1850’s, BTW. By the Abbot Brothers.)