X Thread by Peter Savodnik
The thesis of The West Wing was that civic-minded, Ivy-educated liberals, given the chance, would do a brilliant job of running the world.
the HBO max intern who had to explain why they should put the west wing back on streaming after it was removed for a week pic.twitter.com/LVIGfSj87J
— no context west wing (@LemonLymancom) January 8, 2025
The problem is when the people in charge are not civic-minded and only superficially intelligent, outfitted with the correct lingo…
the correct opinions, the correct aesthetic. There is a tendency, among many on the left and center-left, to think these people are the people they claim to be, but they’re not. They’re simulacra.
This is the lesson we keep learning over and over. Los Angeles is just the latest iteration.
The lesson is not that there’s something inherently wrong or wrongheaded w/progressivism (although that may be the case in some cases).
It’s that our elite is not an elite, but…
an aristocracy — hostile to its subordinates and hermetically sealed off from them.
An aristocracy — unlike a more meritocratic, republican-minded elite, or establishment, as Digby Baltzell would say — feels no sense of obligation w/r/t to the body politic.
This is what makes our politics so confusing right now. It’s not exactly a struggle pitting left against right (although the partisans would say it is). It’s a struggle pitting the liberal against the illiberal faction — those who embrace democracy v. those who do not.
The aristocracy is deeply illiberal and self-serving and, really, militant about policing its interests at the expense of everyone else.
An establishment steeped in the democratic tradition welcomes pluralism, upward mobility, the constant churn of an open society.
I’m sure competent people exist in the government, but I’m extremely suspect of anyone who tries to claim it’s the norm.
If there are competent people in the government I have never met them. I’d like to know who and where they are.
The brilliant harvard educated civil servant type went poof when Barry came along and appointed so many crony activists into the ABC departments. Shifting companies fines to left wing causes. Kissing Islam but with no mutual respect. They knew he was installed.
These people use other people’s money to gain a position of power from which they put in place all the elements THEY themselves wish were in place. Now, that may inadvertently please a number of other like-minded delusional people, but it does nothing to benefit the general public.
Often, the general public, in fact, suffers greatly.