Caesar vs. The Experts
You cannot stop authoritarianism through elections - it takes an equally authoritarian force to defeat it.
First, I want to express regret over the fact I haven’t been writing much in this blog, lately. It’s certainly not for a lack of effort or ideas. I have so much I want to write about and I spend a certain amount of time daily on this blog. The problem is, I’m not a professional writer, meaning I have to find time to do so, but this also means that, by the time I’ve found time, my train of thought has evaporated to the point it becomes very difficult to put those thoughts into words.
Writing isn’t just about putting what’s on your mind down on paper (or, in my case, on a computer screen). It needs to be comprehensible and convey your intended point. This is the art of writing and precisely why not everyone is good at it. If I merely wrote what was immediately on my mind, none of it would really make sense to anyone besides me. All I’d be doing is taking notes and I’ve never been a great note-taker, to start.
Having said that, I’m grateful you’ve all stuck around. Back to regular programming.
A few weeks ago, I came across a Tweet which troubled me and also got me thinking:
I’ve said elsewhere, if I haven’t said it here: I don’t support dictatorship. I don’t care if it comes from the Left or the Right. The United States of America was founded on liberating itself from tyranny and everything we’ve done throughout history has been, for better or worse, devoted to that aim. Anything other than federal republicanism and you can call this country “America” all you’d like, but that won’t make it so.
At the same time, something has changed in me these last several months. I’ve changed because the world has changed and continues to do so, rapidly. As loyal as I consider myself to our founding principles, the ideology of classical liberalism which underpins this country’s very existence, and our system of governance, I also find it increasingly difficult to bring myself to defend it any longer.
Why? Because I can’t shake the feeling that our system’s freedom and openness is enabling the very forces trying to destroy it.
Every country on this planet has endured an authoritarian phase of history. Even the U.S., for brief periods, was under what amounted to a form of dictatorial control, whether under President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War or President Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Governance in general has something of an authoritarian bias since, after all, the whole point is that someone’s ultimately in charge.
But countries also become authoritarian because, well, that’s sometimes what it takes to survive. I know this seems to contradict what I said earlier, but I don’t mean survive as a polity - I mean to survive as a civilization and way of life. Countries have often resorted to authoritarianism in times of crisis as a way to weather storms and preserve some semblance of order and stability as powerful forces threaten to consume it whole.
America isn’t quite there. Yet. But it’s starting to get there. Even if cataclysm is still a good ways off, there does exist a revolution swallowing our institutions, if not our entire country. I came to the realization our time is short the other day while contemplating on recent events and seeing how quickly things are unfolding. Specifically, it was the Biden administration’s response to the recent federal court ruling striking down mask requirements for public transportation:
The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) possesses some authority when it comes to dealing with pandemics. However, all authority is subject to checks and balances. If the federal courts aren’t allowed to dictate when the CDC has overstepped its bounds, who is? Hence, it’s not clear what the White House means by “preserve the CDC authority over the long term.”
Eric Weinstein, pretty much the smartest man on the planet (not exaggerating!), sums up why the Regime’s response to the federal ruling is so troubling:
Consider another context: in the U.S., we have civilian control of the military. During war, the military doesn’t take over governance: whether the enemy is halfway around the world or on our doorstep, a civilian, elected commander-in-chief is in charge. The military knows best how to fight a war, but civilians, know best how to run a republic. Likewise, epidemiologists like Drs. Anthony Fauci or Deborah Birx may know how best to battle a pandemic, but they don’t know how to run a country. The fact they are professional experts compromises their judgment on matters not related to their area of expertise (hence, the admonishment to “stay in your lane”).
Most important, as Weinstein points out, they’re not elected. There’s simply no way to get rid of them other than for elected officials themselves, namely the president, to fire them. But, even that doesn’t tell the whole story:
The nice thing about being part of the administrative state (a topic deserving a deep dive of its own) or a government bureaucrat is job security. Supporters of Dr. Fauci might say he’s just that good at his job, but, even if that were true, the fact that the public needs to rely on political figures to hold un-elected bureaucrats who are political appointees themselves, accountable is concerning.
Then, there was this alarming announcement made regarding the formation of the “Disinformation Governance Board:”
The Department of Homeland Security’s creation of a Disinformation Governance Board has set off a backlash on the right — even as it’s not entirely clear what the perhaps unfortunately named board will do.
Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas mentioned the creation of the board in multiple congressional hearings this week. In one, he linked it to efforts to combat misinformation from human smugglers. In another, he said it would be used to counter Russian cyber and election misinformation: “We have just established a mis- and disinformation governance board in the Department of Homeland Security to more effectively combat this threat, not only to election security but to our homeland security.”
Amid growing anti-censorship fervor on the right, a bevy of Republicans have suggested that the initiative amounts to policing speech. Elon Musk declared it “messed up.” Many on the right likened it to the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell’s book “1984.”
They’ve also questioned the fitness of the board’s executive director, Nina Jankowicz, who has in the past supported Democrats, praised efforts to crack down on coronavirus misinformation on social media and expressed skepticism about the provenance of Hunter Biden’s laptop. [bold mine]
It’s not entirely clear what the perhaps unfortunately named board will do? Good God. We all know the media considers Americans to be fools, but even this is a bit much. There’s literally no other reason to establish a committee like this, beyond controlling information. One might be able make an argument in favor of it, but, by pretending like the purpose of the board is somehow ambiguous, they’ve given the game away. It looks even more insidious, given this was hardly an emergent response:
There’s no surprises, here. This is just the latest development in the Regime turning its guns inward at the American people. Now, meet the person tapped to head this board. Definitely one of the best and brightest. Undoubtedly stable and level-headed:
Where’s all this going? It seems, since 2020, the Regime has experimented with technocracy - Rule by Experts. It seems increasingly so that the Regime is driving past the last signpost marking the experimental phase and is looking to make technocracy a reality in the U.S.
Many might see this as a good thing. Our best and brightest should be leading the country, right? Can’t have stupid people running the show, after all, we already have enough stupid people in this country to populate many lands many times over!
But there’s a difference between a government where leaders are advised and counseled by our best and brightest versus a government that, at best, implements their every proposal or, at worst, is run by them. Popular Science quickly explained why government-by-expert is actually an awful idea:
“All policy shall be based on the weight of evidence” is a deceptive promise. Certainly, for people worried about global climate change, the lack of weight given to evidence by politicians is maddening. If politicians were obliged to follow the consensus of science, then here, they might have made better choices, choices that would improve the entire world.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is not advocating for a return to the days of phrenology, when generally accepted science was used to support racist agendas, but his Rationalia puts a burden on science that it cannot bear: to work, it must be immune to the passions of the day, promising an objective world and objective truth that will triumph over obstacles.
Science is not a window into a perfectly rational world. It is, instead, an ever-evolving tool used by humans to better understand the world around them, and a method for other humans to replicate the same work, so they see if the original findings hold true.
Humans doing science have their own ideas and interests, and a pressing need for food, shelter, and the basic comforts of life.
Scientists study what they want, and they study what they can get paid to study, so the work of science is not free from the pressures of money, nor interaction with the business world.
It would be good, for many causes, if scientific evidence was taken more seriously in the political realm. Yet the human problems that government exists to address are solved by choosing among options based on human values, while of course listening objectively to reality.
In a hypothetical world where a single person (let’s call him “Neil”) decided policy based on precisely measuring the weight of evidence, how that person selected evidence would matter a great deal, and would likely come down to values.
If Tyson is interested in weighing the evidence for and against his system of government, and how outside values could influence it, it turns out there’s already a discipline for that. It’s called Political Science. [bold mine]
Leaving aside the evils committed throughout history in the name of scientific progress, the point is that governing through expertise and science, is ultimately, subject to the same factors and pressures which influence decision-makers, currently. Like a theocracy, government-by-science would regard its decisions as wholly righteous - after all, it’s based only on the evidence and guided by the irrefutable education and wisdom of those calling the shots. What’s there to refute?
Technocracy is still an oligarchy and oligarchies are anti-democratic. In theory, it’s possible to have a system where oligarchs are elected, yes, but what’s the use? If governance is too important a task to leave to the uneducated, uninformed body politic, why would you have them pick the folks who’ll be leading us?
Tom Nichols, a U.S. Naval War College professor who longs for a day when only the well-informed (to his personal liking) can vote, recently had this to say about Americans concerned with inflation:
Really? Setting aside the fact that fuel costs impact every aspect of our lives and not just our ability to drive to the beach on weekends, I wonder if Nichols would ever confront middle- and working-class Americans, to include Blacks and Hispanics, and tell them to quit complaining about the cost of living and, instead, steel themselves for war with Russia. After all, it’s not Nichols-types who are going to be fighting this war. Instead, the very people the technocrats look down upon, the folks who need to quit complaining, are the ones who will fight and suffer for it.
The Regime is so worried about authoritarianism and our democracy being threatened. Yet everything they do and say proves that it is they, not the Republicans, not the Right, not the American people, who long ago crossed the Rubicon. Technocracy is what they want because they see any opposition that exists outside of the limits which they define as not merely problematic, but an existential threat. It used to be “authoritarians” and the uneducated/uninformed who threaten them, but, now, even middle- and working-class Americans concerned about the cost of living are a threat, too. Maybe they have a point there - after all, political instability tends to ensue when inflation gets out of control.
If they see any future in democracy, it’s one where only the professional-managerial class (PMC) does the voting. After all, the PMC is highly-educated, comprising the talent pool from which the Regime builds its roster. George Hoare, writing in Compact magazine, provided an overview of what the PMC is:
Enter the PMC. Across the West, the PMC enjoys a high degree of integration, both sociologically and culturally. Their use of social-media platforms, particularly Twitter, and cultural conformity help promote a coherent identity; the nongovernmental organizations they almost exclusively staff help to train them in the modes of activism, protocols, and language necessary for their collective political action. They see themselves as the political conscience of the whole of society. They represent the general interests of reason and, as it would develop during the pandemic, “The Science.”
More:
Whereas once we lived under bourgeois rule, we now live under PMC management. This explains much of the response to Covid. The “email-job caste” was able to greatly improve its work conditions—mainly in terms of increased “flexibility” and a greater freedom to work from home. At the same time, Covid became a pretext for suppressing working-class dissent. Populist movements like Brexit and Trumpism were depicted as threats to public health. Anti-lockdown protests were dismissed as “superspreader events,” while causes that the PMC favored politically, such as BLM protests, were endorsed as necessary for saving lives. The Covid pandemic has now come to an end, according to Anthony Fauci, but we continue to live under a politics of emergency, in which extreme measures must always be taken to protect vulnerable subjects. This is what joins Covid to BLM to Ukraine.
This is what the future looks like. We used to worry about socialism, followed by communism, coming to America, but it looks like the Left found something even better: anarcho-tyrannical technocracy, underpinned by left-wing gender and racial ideology and supported by society’s most affluent and educated. It is as much a worldview as it is a form of governance, meaning anyone who thinks outside the lines is someone who needs policing - hence, the Disinformation Governance Board.
To the technocrat/PMC, the thought criminal is the greater threat to society than the violent criminal and, again, maybe they have a point - the thought criminal has something invested in the system and participates in it to a large extent, whereas the violent criminal does not. But, what does it say when the ruling class feels threatened less by its predators and more by its dissenters, other than the obvious fact this constitutes anarcho-tyranny?
It’s a totalitarian system, where your speech and thoughts, are considered a matter of public concern and will determine whether you’re fit to participate in the broader society and economy. The panicked reaction from the Regime over Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is all about the fact they’ve now lost the ability to police speech on what has become the world’s de facto public square. This ties into what Hoare said about society being something to manage - it sounds more benign than “control” or “rule,” but it’s managed entirely to their precepts. In other words, it’s about organizing society to ensure PMCs feel safe and secure from dangerous middle/working-class Americans who think terrible thoughts, yet, nonetheless, are still expected to do the hard work that keeps society humming along.
So, what do we do about it?
I’m not entirely sure. What I’m sure of is that we can’t vote our way out of this. Currently, the political process operates on their terms, made worse by the fact the political opposition does such a poor job of fighting back. It’s not that my faith in classical liberalism and democracy has been shaken, but they’re not holding back the tide of left-wing totalitarianism. That’s just a fact. The problem with liberalism unbridled by religion or any other higher belief is that it cannot talk itself off a cliff - it finds a reason to justify anything.
At the outset, I pointed out how troubled I was by a tweet seemingly endorsing the emergence of someone like Spain’s Francisco Franco. But, it’s beginning to seem like an American Franco might be exactly what’s needed to stop the dystopian future the Regime has in store for us. You cannot stop authoritarianism through elections - it takes an equally authoritarian force to defeat it. The inconvenient truth is that dictators are often a response to a destabilizing system or the dictatorial ambitions of another side. Someone like Franco or even Hitler and Stalin don’t come to power in a stable society. Too often, the intelligentsia make the mistake of thinking authoritarians are like outside invaders trying to ruin what a nice thing we have, but, in reality, dictators are frequently responses, albeit imperfect ones, to a dire need for national unity in the face of a threat. Even the Regime’s attempt at technocratic governance can be regarded in this fashion.
But, if Franco is too much for you, what about an “American Caesar?” The Roman Republic’s constitution did permit a leader to assume dictatorial powers under positive control of the Senate. It under this exception that Julius Caesar assumed power, though we all know he eventually declared himself dictator-for-life, contributing to his eventual demise. The circumstances under which Caesar ascended to Roman dictatorship, along with the provisions within the Roman constitution permitting it, have no real parallel in the U.S., but the point is that Caesar was the product of a political crisis and war and his dictatorship was an attempt to stabilize the situation.
As our country finds itself spiraling into a long emergency, made worse by a Regime on the verge of lashing out against its own people as it feels its power slipping, some Americans see the need for a Caesar-like figure to rise and restore order and stability, as well as ensure the future viability of the American Republic. It must be remembered, however, that Caesar is, ultimately, a tragic figure who is killed by insidious forces within his country. His killing leads to the demise of the republic, as well as his enemies, and what emerges from the ashes is an empire, an authoritarian regime led by someone perhaps even more cunning and ruthless than Caesar, or at least the very thing they once feared Caesar would become. It is one of history’s greatest ironies and I can’t help but think if we’re seeing it play out in its own unique way today in America.
At this late hour, I’m fairly certain our country will be under authoritarian governance within the Millenial generation’s lifetime, if not this decade. I believe many Americans, having grown exasperated with democracy, will welcome authoritarianism, depending on who’s leading it. Our PMC-dominated society will surely welcome the leadership of technocrats like Anthony Fauci and they are certainly well-positioned to rise to power. After all, they need only be appointed by the president.
But, this will only increase the demand on the part of dissidents for American Caesar. Should American Caesar seize power, but meet an untimely end in the ensuing power struggle to follow, the Regime, the Left, and the PMCs just might find they’ve bit off more than they can chew. Today, they consider an array of figures as diverse as Donald Trump, Jordan Peterson, and Elon Musk to be the manifestation of fascism in America, but, if an Augustus or Franco does emerge here, it’ll be the wake-up call to end all wake-up calls for them. The expertise of Anthony Fauci is nothing in the face of sheer power of conviction and the willingness to crush the enemy.
It’s a future none of us want, but I’m afraid there’s no stopping it, either.
Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.
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While I am not as convinced an authoritarian moment is on the horizon for America, I appreciate the thought provoking analysis you make of the current cultural and political landscape.
As for the relationship between science and values, I have also explored this subject in the following piece.
Thanks for sharing.
https://thenomadhistorian.substack.com/p/science-is-downstream-from-values?r=pgobs&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=direct