Maggie's Farm

The US (and the first world in general) still face several kinds of fiscal train wreck: unambiguously in pensionish commitments, and probably unambiguously (as a nonexpert trying to guess what the authorities seem to make opaque) in banking in at least some major countries. And the ruling class, the formal organs of the state, and various formally privileged "nonstate" organs (such as professional licensing organizations, and such as educational institutions whose "business" model is deeply mixed with licensing and certification privileges, and largely funded by transfer payments) continue to gnaw away at things related to (what remains of) rule of law. And formal organs of the state continue to cheerfully screw up stuff related to the legitimacy of core mechanisms like election counting and informally appointing a new people. And our betters are not content to patiently await the experimental outcome of how public attitudes might bounce around a bit as instant pervasive electronic communication evolves: no, they are apparently adrenaline junkies who just have to make things more interesting by exploring new frontiers in pissing on people while telling them it's raining, and new frontiers in various kinds of visible "deplatforming" of opposition voices. Power, it's so intoxicatingly exciting, so let's see what happens when we demonize and IRS-stall the Tea Party, run Operation Chokepoint, make critics unemployable, escalate street violence with open police and prosecutor complicity, and gleefully experiment with shocking the bourgeoisie with whatever inspiration occurs to us, such as new frontiers in identity group struggle sessions, and transgender pharmaceutical interventions for children under 10, and increasingly routine national hate sessions for shrill crude fake news (e.g. Covington Catholics) hooted by approximately 100% of the big news organizations that still retained some credibility even past 2010?

(Left as an exercise for the reader: peppy analogies to Reformation-era Vatican and James-II-era Stuart comeuppance, moderated by tiresome caution about how hard it is to guess when that or USSR going out of business or other historical swerves will occur.)

Also, it's not conclusively screamingly obvious, but it does seem rather plausible to me (especially when considering the Long March Through The Institutions as a particular instance of the general pattern of leftist takeover) that we have been starting to "enjoy" the usual pattern of victorious leftists in power splintering into factions eating their own as they run short of spoils to take over from outsiders. Cynics might see this e.g. in some aspects of #metoo, or in the increasingly intense jostling over intersectionality pecking order for identity group patronage in appointments and awards, or in ongoing controversies about which hate speech is not hate hate speech even though it targets a historically reliably leftist demographic group, because --- new rule! now totally legitimate new rule! --- more importantly the totally-not-hate speakers demand to be recognized as a more-intersectionally oppressed group that is more equal than the leftists they are attacking, in very much way that in the old solidarity days leftists used to maintain that leftist identity groups were more equal than other demographic groups simply for being leftist. Let go of the nostalgia, let it go; it's punching up, because shut up! And while a cynic can experience a certain amount of grim satisfaction in seeing would-be persecutors distracted by persecuting each other, it's the kind of thing that this cynic would prefer to watch from afar, because experiencing the fallout up close might not necessarily make for the kind of uninteresting times that I would prefer to experience.

All that said, yes, there is a lot of ruination in a nation, so things might turn out OK somehow. And yes, it's quite nice that the US isn't officially applying the organs of state to shoot itself in and about the feet nearly as energetically as in summer 2016 or so I expected that it would be by now, so clearly things could be a lot worse. But nonetheless it seems to me that we remain rather deeper in the "interesting times" zone than we were in the time interval between, roughly, the peaceful standdown of the USSR and, um. The new abnormal. The new abnormal doesn't have such a tidy boundary as the lowering of the Cold War sword of Damocles, but I will date it to roughly 2009 or so. It's partly just the general rising tide of the long march through the institutions, with no particular date, but 2009 or so seems about right for the financial crisis not being allowed to go to waste, and for various Obama administration initiatives; also honorable mention for the general rising tide of campaign regulation and ballot friction, and the official opposition designating first Romneycare and then McCain-Feingold as the legitimate opposition to Obama shortly before 2009 and shortly after it.

(Famous last words, 2019 edition: (1) Don't worry, we can handle it. (2) You and what army? (3) If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't be a deplorable.)