“There are twenty-seven specific complaints against the British Crown set forth in the Declaration of Independence. To modern ears they still sound reasonable. They still sound reasonable, in large part, because so many of them can be leveled against the federal government of the United States.” P. J. O’Rourke
We recently witnessed the absurd event “No Kings Day”, a panorama of the ignorant who confuse themselves about how Trump became the 47th president, and how Harris didn’t; it’s called an election, and Democrats are still trying to convince themselves that it didn’t happen as if it was instead a coronation, just like Harris’ nomination as the 2024 Democratic Presidential candidate. “No Kings Day” included multiple very well organized and orchestrated performative events with mass produced placards, chants, and marching routines, like a band at a college football game. What it didn’t have is anything that would inform us as to why we should consider Trump a king and not a president.
The opening quote from P. J. O’Rourke, while humorous, is factual; when it comes to our chief executive, “We the people…” have made the office of the president a monarchy. I doubt that the participants in the “No Kings Day” possess a shred of historical perspective; instead, they’re acting out a partisan narrative we have come to recognize as “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, more commonly and simply called TDS. Every time we hear from politicians and the media about some crisis, we should take a step back to learn and understand what that crisis is; then we need to determine if that crisis is real or imaginary. If we learn that it is imaginary, we should then understand what James Madison meant when he said, “Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.” If we learn that it is real, we should then understand what Obama’s Chief-of-Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, meant when he said, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”
This has happened with the Great Depression, the 9/11 attacks, the Financial Crisis of 2008, Covid, immigration, trade…there’s always something as if our existence is now just a series of crises that become opportunities for yet another power grab. This is not a new phenomenon however as in 1832 Andrew Jackson was so vilified for his tyrannical behavior that he was called “King Andrew”. It is said that nature always fills a void to reach a state of equilibrium; unfortunately, the same is not the case in politics that always fills a void with chaos. This has happened with both major political parties, but with two different outcomes.
The Democrat Party (I was recently advised that I have in the past erroneously used the name Democratic Party) has fractured into competing groups since Obama was elected; the media uses terms like the left, the far left, progressive, socialist, moderate, radical, centrist…sounds more like biological descriptions of the animal kingdom, which is how some of these groups behave. What binds all these factions together is not policies or ideas, but an ethos of hate, mostly directed at Trump, but also Republicans in general.
In the meantime, ever since George H. W. Bush became president, The Republican Party also similarly fractured, although into fewer competing groups; some were already extant at the time, like the “Tea Party”, and conservative, and then we get neocons, Christian Right, moderate, Never Trump, Maga…sounds more like corporate entities, which is how some of these groups behave. What binds them all together is something that they do not have, and that is the Democrats’ support for a deplorable social ideology regarding immigration, sex, race and religion. For more details tune into mass media for a “Ground Hog Day” like repetition of events.
Both these two major political parties, through the fracturing that occurred created the void that became filled with chaos, like hyperinflation, disease, war, violent protests, broken borders, assassinations…they actually did start the fire! Historically, chaos leads to populism, a tipping point which can lead anywhere because it absorbs the energy of the chaos created to become the person seen as a path to “normal”; the electorate yearns for policies that will get them there and whoever convinces the people that they have them, becomes their leader.
The Democrat Party has become leaderless, with no tangible platform of coherent policies, relying instead on partisan narratives; the problem with narratives is that they lack the factual content common sense people can trust, causing the American People to be apathetic and/or ignorant. This creates even more chaos and as the old saying goes, “…we’ve seen this movie before…”, but with a difference, i.e., we don’t know how it will end because the chaos hasn’t.
As a society we are losing our cultural heritage as a constitutional republic, devolving into populism. In order to stop the chaos, we need to fill the void it comes from with the principles that created our republic, a shared sense of values from which civil discourse replaces partisan narratives; we should start with a more careful examination of who we choose as leaders.
“Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.” P. J. O’Rourke
Libera Voce 