The American Republic's Crisis Of Authority And Legitimacy

Just yesterday in Who Would Rule A Post-Constitutional America? I raised the issue of rule in a post-constitutional America--an America ruled by a regime lacking authority and legitimacy. It may be well to expand on that a bit, and today at American Greatness I found two articles that may help.

First, however, I'll try to be more explicit about what I mean by the terms 'authority' and 'legitimacy'. Authority derives from the degree that a regime reflects the truth of human nature. Legitimacy refers to the degree that a regime reflects the views of the population it purports to represent. A bit of reflection will suggest that a given regime may be legitimate, yet lack authority--and vice versa, unfortunately. In an imperfect world, authority and legitimacy will normally be imperfect, as well. However, I take it as given that the regime established by our written Constitution had sufficient authority and legitimacy to command the consent of the population. The imperfections inherent in the American Founding, of course, have contributed to the recurrent crises of our constitutional order, as is the case with all regimes.

The current crisis is twofold. The crisis in authority is occasioned by the fact that our ruling class rejects--whether implicitly or explicitly--even the concept of human nature itself, let alone the idea of a truth of human nature. This revolutionary attitude of our ruling establishment was memorably lampooned by Justice Scalia in referring to the Libertarian views of Anthony Kennedy as (here quoting from Scalia's dissent in Lawrence):

The Court's claim that Planned Parenthood v. Casey, supra, "casts some doubt" upon the holding in Bowers (or any other case, for that matter) does not withstand analysis. As far as its holding is concerned, Casey provided a less expansive right to abortion than did Roe, which was already on the books when Bowers was decided. And if the Court is referring not to the holding of Casey, but to the dictum of its famed sweet-mystery-of-life passage, ("'At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life'"): That "casts some doubt" upon either the totality of our jurisprudence or else (presumably the right answer) nothing at all. I have never heard of a law that attempted to restrict one's "right to define" certain concepts; and if the passage calls into question the government's power to regulate actions based on one's self-defined "concept of existence, etc.," it is the passage that ate the rule of law.

As Scalia suggests, a constitutional 'jurisprudence' that purports to leave to each individual the privilege--or burden--or defining "one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life'" is no jurisprudence at all. It is, as he notes, a jurisprudence that has eaten the rule of law. A regime whose civic philosophy is expressed in such a parody of a jurisprudence lacks authority. And that's where we are as a nation.

The legitimacy of our constitutional republic is fundamentally defined and grounded in the concept of free and fair elections. Thus, the Constitution itself contains a "Guarantee Clause":

Important: It's Not Just Censorship

If you read one thing today, make it Lee Smith's latest--the whole thing:

It’s Not Censorship, It’s a Coordinated Effort

A time to strengthen families and communities

It's a simple point, really, like most important truths. What's going on currently goes beyond censorship alone--the censorship has to be understood in the broader context of the crisis of legitimacy that the American regime has been struggling through for several decades now. We've emphasized this point--the importance of understanding the concepts of legitimacy and authority--over the last several months.

The reason censorship--heavy handed and visible--has become necessary, in place of the less visible forms of social manipulation that were used in the past is because, despite the Uniparty regime's best efforts, assisted by its Tech and Media allies, is that Trump's unprecedented turnout has challenged the regime's legitimacy in an authoritative way. People are seeking, and finding, alternate centers of authority, and those centers of authority have allowed people to credibly challenge the regime's legitimacy. The other hoax efforts of the last four years have definitively failed, replaced now with fully armed boots and armored Humvees on the ground. Censorship is simply a part of that desperate, but misguided, effort to fool the people one more time.

With that intro, here are some of Smith's high points. Please pay attention to his closing recommendation. Every regime in crisis seeks to isolate individuals from one another, to break down human bonds in society that provide the type of alternate source of authority and legitimacy that constitute an existential threat to the regime. Those social bonds have been gradually dissolving in America, replaced by a one on one dependence on government. One of the few remaining secondary institutions that have preserved some degree of independence and ability to provide authoritative interpretations of of reality at variance with regime approved narratives are those of organized religion. Those institutions are now threatened as never before by the Covid hoax lockdowns. They need to be revived. We cannot rise to this challenge as disjoined individuals. Social solidarity needs to be restored on an authoritative basis.

Who Would Rule A Post-Constitutional America?

Right. I understand that we're pretty much in post-constitutional territory already, and actually have been for some time. Nevertheless, for most people the Constitution still matters--there's an idea that with a few tweaks of personnel, on the Court, in Congress and the White House, our fundamental constitutional institutions could resume functioning and governing as intended. That notion is increasingly delusional, in the very literal sense of being divorced from reality. We cling to the delusion because we're afraid of what a future ruled by those who openly call for the Constitution's definitive demise would mean.

If there's one cardinal rule of politics, it would have to be that Power abhors a vacuum. That means that, once exposed, the illusion of authority and legitimacy will eventually be replaced by the reality of power. As Glenn Greenwald recently wrote, The Threat of Authoritarianism In The U.S. Is Very Real, And Has Nothing To Do With Trump. The Lefty Greenwald points out that, in actual fact, Trump has struggled to preserve and restore our constitutional order, rather than attempting to establish authoritarian rule. Far from Trump being a threat to the rule of law, the last 4 years have exposed for all to see who the real enemies of our constitutional order are, who the people are who want to wield power in an America freed of its constitutional trammels.

One major group would be the people with lots of money and crazy ideas of transforming human nature. These are people who think their influence in politics should be commensurate with their wealth and their supposed genius. People who read their press clippings and are surrounded by sycophants who want their help, mostly in monetary form. Those sycophants, of course, include the elected representatives of We The People. These would be leaders of America are Globalist visionaries, but their focus is largely on what could be termed domestic policy--controlling the intimate details of day to day human life. Their great delusion is of extending that control to the entire world through 'soft power' means.

Trump And Impeachments Past--The Difference

Daniel McCarthy has a fascinating article at Spectator | USA today that examines the significance of the current Trump impeachment mania of the Dems by comparing it to past impeachments of the modern era. His conclusion is that, as recently as the Clinton impeachment, there was still what he terms a ruling class consensus regarding the fundamental legitimacy of "the system," or as I would say, the constitutional order. We can certainly see that in the attacks from the Left on basic constitutional principles such as the electoral process as it has been know up till now. McCarthy maintains that the consensus has thus vanished and, with it, the legitimacy of the ruling class. The ruling class is going through the forms of legitimate constitutionalism, but in reality they are exposing their own constitutional bankruptcy. What we are seeing now is, thus, tantamount to unthinking "regime suicide."

Impeachment is regime suicideThe ruling class still believes in a consensus that doesn’t exist. Their legitimacy is vanishing

What I present below is the last third or so of the much longer article--read it all. And then compare it with the views of Daniel Greenfield, Patrick Deneen, and Gary Saul Morson that we've examined recently.

To the extent that there was still a skeletal national consensus, it favored Clinton. Impeachment was a circus, but it wasn’t a national trauma. It cast no shadow over the next presidential election two years later. It was a dud that reaffirmed the stability of the American regime. 

With Trump, everything is different. The 2016 election was a referendum on the regime itself. Trump resurrected the populist attacks on the country’s political and economic establishment that Buchanan and Perot had battle-tested in the 1990s. 

Trump was no mere conventional Republican who happened to beat Hillary Clinton. He was a completely unconventional Republican who first beat the party’s own ideological standard-bearers during the primaries, in the course of which he often said things that no Republican had said for a generation or more. Trump’s message in the primaries and general election boiled down to: they screwed you. ‘They’ being the Bushes, the Clintons, the establishment in both parties, the warmongers, the trade-deal architects, the communist Chinese, free-riding allies, and more. 

Trump is no ideologue or political theorist, but he launched a comprehensive attack on the domestic and international liberal order. He campaigned against the system as it has existed since the Cold War ended.​ 

The DACA Decision In Historical Context

I was asked yesterday why I hadn't commented on the DACA decision. My view at the time was that it simply lacked legal interest--in those terms it was simply dumb. Further, it probably doesn't stand for any lasting precedent. That was an aspect that President Trump picked up on immediately. Some commenters, tongue in cheek, pointed out the implications of the decision if it were taken seriously as precedent: 

Blue Flu Cernovich
@Cernovich 

Today's DACA ruling gives Trump immense new power to confer rights upon citizens, even when those newly granted rights contravene statutory law. 

Under today's DACA ruling, Trump could create an executive order to workaround Section 230 immunity. 

Trump could declare via EO that citizens have a right to access social media, and that it is unlawful to ban people based on their political viewpoint. 

Under today’s DACA ruling, Trump can issue an executive order granting Americans amnesty from paying taxes.  

This ruling is a blank check.  

Never seen anything like this.  

The unitary executive theory is back, and on steroids!

But Trump, as usual, got to the heart of the matter:

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump 

Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn’t like me? 

10:10 AM · Jun 18, 2020

This was simply the Establishment reflexively thwarting our non-PC president, the president the Establishment abominates and wishes to vomit from its maw, without a thought for constitutional principles--hardly surprising after the Bostock decision. Indeed, the majority of the SCOTUS appeared to proceed without a thought for its own legitimacy, given that legitimacy in their own eyes is sufficient unto them. Legitimacy in the eyes of a huge portion of the great unwashed outside the major metro areas seems to not to be a concern.

Four Recommended Reads: 9/2/2020

Is there a common theme to these recommended reads? I suppose one thread that runs through them all is the way that the forces of evil--in varying forms--seek to beat normalcy into the ground.

Let's start with Carter Page. There's an excerpt from his book that describes his experience being interrogated by the FBI. No, not just once. He was interrogated five times. A brave man, he did it without a lawyer and, turning the tables in a way that only Carter Page could do, he tried to educate them--presenting Power Point slides and documents he had written, not suspecting at the time that the FBI had almost certainly acquired and reviewed all of that material already via illegal FISA warrants:

Excerpt From Carter Page's 'Abuse and Power'

Next, we turn to the story of Mike Strickland. Strickland, confronted by a threatening Antifa/BLM mob, pulled his legally carried Glock to make a getaway.

Charges against him grew from two misdemeanors to 21 counts, ten of which were felonies, within hours of Portland politicos getting an earful from one of Strickland’s favorite targets, an anti-Second Amendment group called “Ceasefire Oregon.” The politicos also seemed to take on faith the word of one of the conspirators who insisted Strickland must be a racist, even though he knew better.

Strickland lost at every level of the Oregon courts. He's now appealing to the SCOTUS. This makes a compelling read, and a preview of what awaits us if the election is stolen:

Exclusive: Case of Portland Man Who Defended Himself Against Antifa Mob Heads to Supreme Court

The Challenge of Marxism

I'm inserting here an extensively edited version of Yoram Hazony's fine essay, The Challege of Marxism. The essay is Hazony's explanation of why Marxism--which was assumed to have been defeated and discredited with the end of the Soviet Union--has made an astounding comeback in, of all places, the United States, the winner of the Cold War. The short version is simply that a Marxist frame of reference is inherent in what Hazony calls Enlightenment Liberalism or Classical Liberalism--which includes most of those who call themselves "conservatives". Marxism of the variety that we see resurgent in America, argues Hazony, is a logical outgrowth of the Liberal Democracy that was enshrined in the American Founding. If that sounds far fetched, give him a chance--I've edited it to provide the bare outline of his argument.

You may recognize similarities between what Hazony is saying and the thought of Patrick Deneen--as presented here in past posts in which we discussed his Why Liberalism Failed. Hazony, however, is coming from a somewhat different direction than Deneen. Hazony is an Israeli philosopher and a Modern Orthodox Jew. He is also "an outspoken nationalist and has written that nationalism uniquely provides 'the collective right of a free people to rule themselves.'"

For my part, I can agree with his views on religion and tradition to a point--the point at which he rejects reason. Or, at least, I would want to interrogate him as to his exact meaning. However, my purpose here is not to dispute that point but to present Hazony's ideas for the positive value they have in drawing attention to the nature of the crisis in our constitutional order that we're facing. It's important for understanding exactly why this election is so important. It's also important because it will challenge readers to ask just what the way forward is for those who do not wish to slide down the slippery slope into the fantasy anti-reality of Neo-Marxism. Or who believe they have something worth preserving for future generations. What is that? And how can we preserve it?

A Political Scientist Ponders Constitutional Legitimacy After A Hoax Election

I've tended to regard The American Conservative as basically a NeverTrump site and rarely go there. Today, however, totally by chance, I came across an article there that I liked quite well:

Memorandum: How The 2020 Election Could Have Been Stolen

A political scientist examines the evidence and concludes that widespread fraud took place.

Claes G. Ryn is professor of politics and founding director of the new Center for the Study of Statesmanship at The Catholic University of America.

The bulk of the article is a review of why there is every reason to suspect fraud on a massive scale in the 2020 "election." You're all almost certainly familiar with the main outlines of what Ryn presents as indicative of fraud, but you may find it worth reading anyway--it's well presented and presents a broad brush picture. I want to focus on briefer parts of the article that offer food for thought.

First, in explaining why he decided to write this article--despite realizing that he wouldn't be changing any minds--Ryn offers this perspective. It's one which will make sense to most of us, but also one that few have thought about, since we're in a sense wrapped up in details close to home. Thus, the views of non-Americans has its own special value, especially given the generally anti-Trump background of most Europeans offering their views.

Good For Ted Cruz

I like Senator Ted Cruz's idea of establishing an Electoral Commission, involving a "10 day audit." This idea is patterned on the Electoral Commission following the disputed presidential election of 1876. You can read about that election and the resulting dispute and resolution at Wikipedia: Electoral Commission. Here's a key paragraph:

Facing an unparalleled constitutional crisis and intense public pressure, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and the Republican-controlled Senate agreed to formation of the bipartisan Electoral Commission to settle the election. It consisted of fifteen members: five each from the House and the Senate, plus five Supreme Court justices. Eight members were Republicans; seven were Democrats. The Commission ultimately voted along party lines to award all twenty disputed votes to Hayes, thus assuring his electoral victory by a margin of 185–184. Congress, meeting in a joint session on March 2, 1877, affirmed that decision, officially declaring Hayes the winner by one vote.

Cruz's idea has garnered support from 11 Senators so far, but I wouldn't be surprised to see additional Senators get on board with the idea. So far supporters include:

Ron Johnson (WI), James Lankford (OK), Steve Daines (MT), John Kennedy (LA), Marsha Blackburn (TN), and Mike Braun (IN), and Senators-Elect Cynthia Lummis (WY.), Roger Marshall (KS), Bill Hagerty (TN), and Tommy Tuberville (AL).

Below, per Zerohedge, is the statement from the Cruz led group. No doubt Cruz is responding to Senator Josh Hawley's initiative, and that's fine. Both have their eyes on 2024 and, in this constitutional crisis, the time is now for these two senators--both of them fine constitutional lawyers. The main point is that this is a good idea for the country:

UPDATED: They Believe Their Own BS

How do you beat Don Surber when he's on a roll? He walked up to that barrel full of fish, shotgun in his hands, and let loose--what a mess!

NYT fears we will treat Biden like NYT treated Trump

There's plenty more where this comes from:

Paul Krugman tweeted on January 7, 2017, "Seriously, how will this presidency ever be considered legitimate? And what happens to America when it isn't?"

Nearly 4 years later, the New York Times wants everyone to forget all that by publishing Krugman's latest rewrite of history, "How Will Biden Deal With Republican Sabotage?"

Krugman wrote, "When Joe Biden is inaugurated, he will immediately be confronted with an unprecedented challenge — and I don’t mean the pandemic, although covid-19 will almost surely be killing thousands of Americans every day. I mean, instead, that he’ll be the first modern U.S. president trying to govern in the face of an opposition that refuses to accept his legitimacy. And no, Democrats never said Donald Trump was illegitimate, just that he was incompetent and dangerous."

An opposition that refuses to accept his legitimacy?

I pulled a muscle rolling mine eyes on that one.

Byron York must have rolled his eyes, too, because he wrote, "Does anyone at the New York Times read Krugman's column before it's published? Of course some Democrats said Trump was illegitimate. Hillary Clinton said so last year. 'He [Trump] knows he's an illegitimate president,' Clinton told CBS's 60 Minutes on September 29, 2019."

One wonders whether the FBI ever caught the miscreant who hacked Krugman's computer at the NYT and placed kiddie porn on it. Somehow I missed the follow up stories on that. 

UPDATE: From Red State:

Krugman was so widely mocked and ridiculed for his statements (and deservedly so) that the New York Times stealth-edited his column to where it now reads like this:

And no, Democrats by and large were not claiming Donald Trump was illegitimate, just that he was incompetent and dangerous.

And that revised claim is also not true, as Saavedra pointed out with tons of examples.

Lee Smith On Russiagate As An Operational Model For The Left

Author and investigative reporter Lee Smith has a new article at The Epoch Times, in which he analyzes the never ending Russia Hoax as the "operational model" for the Left's continuing assault on our constitutional order. The article is behind a subscription (but non-pay) wall here:

Russiagate the Model

Smith begins by noting the disastrous consequences of the Barr/Durham failure to hold the Deep State to account for the Russia Hoax. Of course, we now know that that failure of responsibility ran even deeper, to include the failure to address Leftist street violence and the assault on our electoral system:

Because former Attorney General William Barr failed to hold anyone accountable for the Democratic Party and FBI’s dirty tricks campaign against Donald Trump, Russiagate lives on. Indeed, recent news reports show that it’s become the operational model that the party and its partners in the spy services and media will continue to use against their adversaries.

The consequences are certain to be catastrophic, for setting intelligence operatives loose on one half of America cannot help but further fracture the country’s domestic peace.

From that beginning Smith moves on to the Zhou regime's alarming plans to use private contractors to conduct domestic spying on US citizens and the continuing efforts to frame Trump associates like Rudy Giuliani and Ron Johnson. Smith connects the subcontracted domestic spying to the origins of the Russia Hoax, in which the Hillary campaign paid Fusion GPS to come up with the Russia Hoax narrative and then seed that narrative not only to the MSM but also to the US Intelligence Community. Alarmingly, that is now the plan, the "operational model", for what the Zhou regime is seeking to do to counter all domestic dissent--now reclassified, as Smith notes--as domestic "terrorists":

Update On The Domestic War On "Terror"

Pretty obviously I'm not the only person who's been considering the meaning of the Dem and Deep State determination--or so they want us to believe--to launch a euphemistic Domestic War On "Terror". I say euphemistic because what they term "terror" is nothing but a bad joke and attempt to gaslight the American public. The continuing military occupation of the Imperial City on the Potomac, the open threats to unleash the Deep State FBI and DoJ against political dissent, the persecution of those who would dare reveal the corruption behind the entire Zhou regime, and much more--it's all intended to intimidate. 

That is likely a sign of weakness. Yesterday we reviewed some of the polling that reveals the basic weakness of the Zhou regime, and the rapid decline in support or tolerance for it. Today there are two articles that expand a bit on the meaning of the DWOT, and are very worthwhile as a follow-on to yesterday's reflections.

First we have Greg Hunter's Election Panic Coming in 2022 – Martin Armstrong. To say that Martin Armstrong has had a checkered past is probably an understatement. You can, and should, read about it here. However, for my purposes I simply want to present some of what he's saying as a plausible narrative in the current situation, working from Hunter's summary.

Hunter begins by citing a Rasmussen Reports poll from 4/13/21--so very recent. The results present a shocking picture of a regime--the Zhou regime--that appears to lack basic legitimacy:

Most voters say it’s more important to prevent cheating in elections than to make it easier to vote and, by more than a two-to-one margin, they reject claims that voter ID laws are discriminatory.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that just 29% of Likely U.S. Voters say laws requiring photo identification at the polls discriminate against some voters. Sixty-two percent (62%) say voter ID laws don’t discriminate. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

A majority (51%) of voters believe it is likely that cheating affected the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, including 35% who say it’s Very Likely cheating affected the election.

Seventy-four percent (74%) of Republicans believe it is likely last year’s presidential election was affected by cheating, a view shared by 30% of Democrats and 51% of voters not affiliated with either major party.

The Comey Memos And More Obstruction

THE COMEY MEMOS


CTH has a fascinating piece today regarding the long running and ongoing litigation between CNN and the FBI. CNN has been seeking the release of the memos that James Comey wrote to document his meetings with President Trump. Only, a newly released filing by the FBI (originally filed on October 13, 2017) reveals that those memos contain a lot more than just documentation of those meetings. Apparently, each time Comey met with Trump he went back to FBIHQ and wrote up a memo which embodied not only his version of the meeting but also a complete update of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation--what had been done up to that point, what additional investigation was planned, what sources and methods had been and would be used, etc. Not surpisingly, the FBI says that release of the Comey memos would "suggest a map of possible investigative activity."

For example, in paragraph 8 we read:

"the memos discuss sensitive details regarding the progress of the pending Russia investigation [Crossfire Hurricane] ... Specifically, additional witnesses are identified and a confidential human source is identified by both true and code name, as well as evidence obtained therefrom, and investigative steps taken or not yet taken in the investigation as of the dates of the meetings [with President Trump] ..."

Two quick points:

1) To identify a confidential human source by both true name and code name in the same document is a huge No-no. That's the kind of thing that would lead to serious disciplinary action against an agent and his superiors. Worse, if Comey removed these documents or copies of them from FBIHQ after his firing for however short a period that would clearly constitute theft of official documents--documents that should have been highly classified.

2) Any judge reading this filing in October of 2017 would undoubtedly assume that as of October of 2017 the FBI and the Special Counsel had complete faith in the legitimacy of the Russia Hoax and that the investigation was focusing on President Trump.

Overall--and we may learn more about this with AG Barr's release of the Mueller report--the impression you get from this is that Comey was conducting investigative interviews with President Trump. Just how legitimate that was would, of course, depend on the legitimacy of the entire Crossfire Hurricane in the first place--which we now know for certain was zero.  Even such hard core anti-Trumpers as Strzok and Page knew at the time that there was likely "no there there." There seems to be no doubt at all that Trump was being targeted for removal. When Comey went to speak with Trump, Comey saw himself as conducting evidence gathering expeditions. The only thing needed was some connection to the "four Americans" whom Comey says were the subjects of Crossfire Hurricane. And all this was, essentially, being done against the POTUS on the basis of Chris Steele's creative writing and imagination, which every single official who has testified to Congress has stated was unverified.

Update From Maricopa

Here's the thing about election fraud investigations--it's all so obvious that an update can be done in a single tweet. Or two, if you want to get really expansive:

Guess what: it's an undeniable fact now that the 2020 election was rigged in Arizona.

Maricopa County officials deleted a directory full of election databases right before the election equipment was delivered to the audit.

And now they deny they have the router passwords.

— Emerald Robinson ✝️ (@EmeraldRobinson) May 13, 2021

Yesterday @GOPLeader McCarthy said: “I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election.”

Actually the entire GOP base is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election.

And 120 retired generals are questioning it too.

— Emerald Robinson ✝️ (@EmeraldRobinson) May 13, 2021

However, with the Establishment pretty much totally invested in thwarting the voice of the people, how will things change--unless people vote and then follow up on their vote?

Why Liberalism Failed (5)

Below I'm presenting excerpts from the conclusion to Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed. The previous excerpts were from the preface to the paperback edition. That preface was written in 2019 and it was intended to clarify matters that may have been somewhat unclear as well as to respond to the reaction to the book when it was first published. The Conclusion is from the original edition, written in 2018. Having argued that liberalism has failed due to its own inner contradictions, Deneen speculates regarding what type of regime might replace our current failing liberal regime. I highly recommend this brief video of Piers Morgan, whose diagnosis of the current state of the liberal regime closely tracks some of Deneen's analysis: Piers Morgan: "The Left Have Become Unbearable".

Liberty after Liberalism

Liberalism has failed because liberalism has succeeded. As it becomes fully itself, it generates endemic pathologies more rapidly and pervasively than it is able to produce Band-aids and veils to cover them. The result is the systemic rolling blackouts in electoral politics, governance, and economics, the loss of confidence and even belief in the legitimacy among the citizenry, that accumulate not as separable and discrete problems to be solved within the liberal frame but as deeply interconnected crises of legitimacy and a portent of liberalism's end times. 

... 

The "Nobel Lie" of liberalism is shattering because it continues to be believed and defended by those who benefit from it, while it is increasingly seen as a lie, and not an especially noble one, by the new servant class that liberalism has produced. Discontent is growing among those who are told by their leaders that [liberalism's] policies will benefit them [the servant class], even as liberalism remains an article of ardent faith among those who ought to be best positioned to comprehend its true nature. But liberalism's apologists regard pervasive discontent, political dysfunction, economic inequality, civic disconnection, and populist rejection as accidental problems disconnected from systemic causes, because their self-deception is generated by enormous reservoirs of self-interest in the maintenance of the present system. This divide will only widen, the crises will become more pronounced, the political duct tape and economic spray paint will increasingly fail to keep the house standing. The end of liberalism is in sight. 

This denouement might take one of two forms. In the first instance, one can envision the perpetuation of a political system called "liberalism" that, becoming fully itself, operates in forms opposite to its purported claims about liberty, equality, justice, and opportunity. Contemporary liberalism will increasingly resort to imposing the liberal order by fiat--especially in the form of the administrative state run by a small minority who increasingly disdain democracy. End runs around democratic and populist discontent have become the norm, and backstopping the liberal order is the ever more visible power of a massive "deep state," with extensive powers of surveillance, legal mandate, police power, and administrative control. These methods will continue to be deployed despite liberalism's claim to rest on consent and popular support. Such a conclusion is paradoxical, not unlike Tocqueville's conclusion in Democracy in America, in which he envisions democracy culminating in a new form of despotism. 

This certainly describes exactly what we see happening in the Russia Hoax--the disdain of the Comeys, Brennans, and their ilk for the rest of the country, while they continue to spout bilge that they think the "deplorables" will perceive as high minded. But of course the Russia Hoax is simply the most egregious example of many of the way the American Republic has been transformed into a "soft" despotism," as envisioned by Tocqville.

How Are Popular Uprisings Triggered?

Late in the evening yesterday Matt Taibbi published at Zerohedge the beginning of his new article: The Prophet Of The Trump Era. Taibbi's full article is, as usual, behind a paywall, and I certainly don't begrudge him a reward for his labors. However, I'm not willing to pay, so I'm working off the Zerohedge come-on.

Taibbi is riffing off the ideas of Martin Gurri. He describes Gurri as "the former CIA analyst of open news sources." I'm not sure how descriptive that really is of Gurri's past employment. Gurri himself says he "is a former CIA analyst specializing in the relationship of politics and global media," which raises flags.

I'll say this right up front: I'm not much of a fan of "analysts," nor of their increasing roles in the Intelligence Community. Think back through the Russia Hoax and attendant hoaxes and you'll see "analysts" constantly popping up. As far as I've been able to determine over the years the role of the analyst is to parrot the Conventional Wisdom. The CW is acquired at mainstream institutions of higher education and through the MSM. That means that the CW is filtered through varying degrees of a Lib/Prog perspective.

In that regard Gurri doesn't disappoint. Checking around on the internet he appears to be depressingly shallow in most respects. I specify "depressingly" because, after all, he spent a career with the CIA studying "the relationship of politics and global media" without apparently learning much of anything beyond the CW.

To give you a brief example of just how shallow he can be ...

Right after the January 6 Event Gurri wrote this for Discourse Magazine:

The Truth About George Floyd's Encounter With The Police

I don't publish long excerpts from other sources without good reason. In this case the reason should be obvious--there has so much misinformation, disinformation, and outright falsehoods propagated regarding the conduct of Minneapolis PD officer Derek Chauvin that the interests of getting the truth out require a wide republication of this article (below). What this article demonstrates is that, not only did Chauvin NOT commit murder but that all his actions were taken and were justifiable in the interest of actually saving Floyd's life.

Beyond that important point, the article demonstrates the way in which the police are placed in an impossible position precisely because the citizens who demands that they fulfill such a difficult function also fail to educate themselves regarding the realities of police work. This allows the police to become pawns in the hands of political radicals when a claim of brutality is made because the informed opinion and forthright defense that is required is lacking.

The portions that I have omitted largely have to do with police deparment policy. The author makes most of the points that I have previously tried to make here, but with greater detail. He unfortunately indulges in a bit of the usual attempts to placate the mob, with bows to PC opinion. For that reason I've done some editing.

The anecdotal remarks made at Reddit by EMS personnel are, IMO, particularly revealing.

Archbishop Viganò's Exhortation To Americans

Thanks to TGP for the transcript of Viganò's interview with Steve Bannon. It's an eloquent and timely discussion:

INTERVIEW OF MR. STEPHEN K. BANNON WITH HIS EXCELLENCY, CARLO MARIA VIGANÒ, ARCHBISHOP

UPDATED: Flynn Update: Status Hearing 6/24/19

First the formalities. Due to Flynn's dismissal of his original legal team and hiring of Sidney Powell to represent him in his false statement case before Judge Sullivan, Sullivan set a date for another status hearing--the last day of August. That gives Powell a little over two months to spend getting a handle on the documentation in the case. However, Powell told the judge that she'd need a good three months, and buttressed that estimate with a description of the extent of the documentation she has received to date.

The real news, however, was confirmation that Flynn and his previous legal team never had access to classified documentation relating to the case. This confirmation arose when Powell informed the judge that she might need a security clearance to review some of the documents she might want to see.

Several observers on Twitter had essentially identical accounts of this aspect. Here's how it went:

Powell raised the possibility of needing a security clearance and said she may need to review classified information. But prosecutors say they did not turn over any classified info as part of discovery. Prosecutors & the judge seemed confused about what the info might be. 

The judge ultimately decided that the defense team, prosecutors and the court’s classified information security officer should be in touch and figure out if the judge needs to step in.

Obviously, the classified information that Powell might want to see will depend on where she wants to go in representing Flynn. Most commentators focused on the clear implication in this that Flynn had never been allowed to see the transcript of the conversation with Russian Ambassador Kislyak that he's charged with lying about. Instead, he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI based on the FBI's FD-302. Further, Team Mueller, in response to Judge Sullivan's demand to see that transcript responded that it wasn't relevant--Flynn had plead guilty and that was all that mattered. Sullivan caved to that.

This is a major problem for Flynn. Flynn has repeatedly maintained to the court, under oath and under questioning by the judge, that he lied to the FBI and wants to be punished for his crime. He has consistently maintained--again, under oath--that he has full knowledge of what he's doing, was satisfied with the representation he had received from his lawyers, and was making this decision voluntarily. On what grounds can he now, while awaiting sentencing, ask to examine the evidence that underlies the false statements that he claims he made to the FBI?

In my view, the answer to this lies in two related matters. The first derives from the statement we quoted above: "Prosecutors & the judge seemed confused about what the [classified information that Powell wants to see] might be."

Reflecting On Legitimacy

It's a bad sign for the health of our political establishment that more and more articles are popping up with people writing about issues of legitimate governance. I don't think I've ever been naive about the American political order, but I'll be the first to admit I didn't think the country would ever sink to this level. Trump has revealed to all: The Empire's clothing is threadbare at best. And now serious people are asking: What comes next. That may seem extreme at this point, but events have a way of taking on a life of their own. Once a rock starts downhill it gathers momentum.

So I plan here to provide examples of the type of commentary that's out there, and increasing. First, however, I'll sketch out the traditional ideas on government in the Western tradition.

Aristotle's classical formulation of good and bad types of government has retained its usefulness. Aristotle came up with three categories, based on : Rule by one, by several, and by many, and divided each category in two: good and corrupt forms. Thus, there could be good or bad forms of government in any of the three categories (simplified): 

One:  Monarchy  Dictatorship

Several: Aristocracy  Oligarchy

Many: Timocracy  Democracy

Aristotle and other ancients were advocates of a governments in which all three levels of society were involved.

During the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas was also a strong advocate for a mixed constitution, in which all elements of society received representation under a strong executive. Aquinas presents his reasoning in favor of a mixed constitution in three elements, which explictly includes the idea of what we now term "checks and balances":