I worked late into the night on Election Day 2016. I rememb…

For most of my lifetime, people on the Left focused on the perils of Big Business while ignoring, or actively embracing, the menace of Big Government. A great deal of the Right did the reverse. Both Bigs are perilous, especially when they fuse into a combined threat to liberty.

The growth of both government and corporate titans was inevitable, especially after a century of industrial and technological revolutions. Technology makes it possible to have larger endeavors, both public and private. Economies of scale bring enormous benefits.

Industrial advancements meant government had to get bigger to handle even its most basic responsibilities, like national defense. The World Wars erased the model of a tiny central government handling a few key elements of defense. Every war became a clash of industrial titans.

After the wars, people - not just voracious political opportunists, but many average voters and nearly all of the intelligentsia - fell in love with the notion of using the power of industrialized warfare to address domestic issues. Every crisis became "equivalent" to war.

People expected more of government, so it grew - and then it exploded. Meanwhile, Big Business was growing too, and it delivers tangible benefits that would be impossible to achieve with only small, decentralized local companies. There is an inescapable logic to corporate growth.

John Hayward
@Doc_0

Funny, before the election I recall lefties muttering the caravan must have been a Trump setup because it made the open borders crowd look so bad. Why would the pro-migrant crowd engineer a crisis that played into Trump's hands? THIS is why. THESE are the "optics" they wanted.

Funny there are those who think these migrant caravans were a FANTASTIC idea that's going to take the immigration issue away from you.

Like several weeks watching a rampaging horde storm the fences & throw rocks at our border patrol agents & getting gassed = great optics!
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) November 26, 2018

This media manipulation effort was inspired by the success of the "kids in cages" freakout, a 100% Stalinist propaganda drive that required people to forget about Obama putting migrant children in cells. It worked, so now they want pics of Trump "gassing children on the border."

There's a heavy air of Pallywood around the whole thing as well. If the Palestinians can stage huge theatrical performances of victimhood with the willing cooperation of Western media, why shouldn't the migrant caravan organizers expect the same?

It's business as usual for Anarchy, Inc. - the worldwide shredding of national sovereignty to increase the power of transnational organizations and left-wing ideology. Many in the media are true believers. Others just cannot resist the narrative of "change" and "social justice."

The product sold by Anarchy, Inc. is victimhood. It always boils down to the same formula: once the existing order can be painted as oppressors and children as their victims, chaos wins and order loses. Look at the lefties shrieking in unison about "Trump gassing children" today.

John Hayward
@Doc_0

Excellent analysis! One of our biggest problems is that people think "democracy," all by itself, is a sufficient check on power. I frankly don't understand how anyone can still believe that, but of course they probably won't be taught otherwise in school.

I wrote about how Mike Lee is right about "democracy" https://t.co/1dKUae4TUe
— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) October 9, 2020

The disturbing flip side of thinking democracy is a magic talisman against tyranny is the belief that democracy sanctifies power - the essence of majoritarianism. "They can't be dictators if we can vote them out of office!" is one of the most dangerous ideas in the world.

The restraints placed on power are MORE important than the process of choosing who gets to wield it. You would be more free under a tightly restrained hereditary monarch than in a "democracy" with totalitarian centralized power.

The human race learned, fairly recently, that elected government is the approach most likely to maximize liberty and human rights, but where on Earth did we get the notion that it's perfect and sufficient all by itself? The world is full of tyrannies that hold elections.

"Democracy" would be the worst of all worlds - tyranny by mob rule, with the oppressors claiming their every fancy was fully and completely sanctified because they won a vote, and why should we let a stubborn minority thwart The Will of the People?

John Hayward
@Doc_0

Panic has always been a valuable political resource, but 2020 was the year our ruling class perfected the art of harvesting it, renewing it, and refining it to weapons-grade purity.

The bitter irony is that one reason panic became so easy for politicians and grifters to sow and reap is the great collapse in confidence caused by their own incompetence and greed over the past few decades. The political class found a way to profit from its own ineptitude.

If public confidence in government and major institutions had not been so thoroughly shaken by years of rampant corruption and incredibly expensive failures, perhaps the public would not have been panicked so easily - and profitably! - when the coronavirus struck.

Even as public confidence collapsed and paranoia grew, social media came along to make our society more twitchy and neurotic. We argue constantly about the spread of "disinformation," but not enough about how social media rewards irrationality and performative emotionalism.

Panic and social media both nourish the human herd instinct, and herds respond to loud noises, not reasonable arguments. Our society was panicking over far less important and dangerous things before Covid-19 arrived. We were panicking over some bizarre social issue every week.

John Hayward
@Doc_0

Time once again to emphasize the differences between totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and fascism. They're often used as synonyms but they are different, although they do tend to lead to each other. Order one, and the other two are usually delivered soon enough.

Totalitarianism is best understood as the politicization of everything. Every facet of life is infused with political meaning... and subjected to political control. There is little room for privacy or individualism. Every word and deed is seen as a political action.

Totalitarianism does *not* require authoritarian government, although it usually leads to such. You can be totalitarian without having any real government power at all, enforcing your political will through mob actions and corporate power. Examples from recent history abound.

Totalitarianism is the easiest of the three deadly "isms" to slide into, because it can easily be disguised with claims of its good intentions. Totalitarians usually claim to be motivated by the Greater Good. They claim to represent the interests of sympathetic victims.

Totalitarians claim that society is unjust and must be corrected by force. Before they gain the power to become authoritarians, they often assert the right to use force outside of the law because the government is corrupt or serves the interests of their ideological enemies.

I worked late into the night on Election Day 2016. I remember the shocking news of Trump's victory reaching Clinton campaign headquarters, her supporters howling in anguish and sobbing. Many of those images have been sarcastically memed over the years since that night.

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