Fuck the Heritage Society; this is too funny! The sack of Rome? Aside from the fact Rome was a brutal empire with citizens and those who couldn’t be citizens (I recognize the MAGA appeal), we aren’t really the fortress and source of “civilization” ( which ain’t all that “civilized,” anyway). But the funny part is that the End brings both a justification for any solution, and that our lives (like those of “the Greatest Generation”?) matter. And our times matter.The decline and fall of the Heritage Foundation is a thing to behold. Once a great intellectual center of the conservative movement. Now reduced to featuring Tucker Carlson, who barely even believes his own monetized demagoguery. https://t.co/d4QNhtqgDr
— Robert Kelner (@robkelner) April 22, 2023
😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣
It’s the same argument you get from on-line liberals/leftists: that you must stand with them or it’s the end of the world! Because, you know, these times really matter, and our lives will really matter!
🤣🤣🤣
Yeah, you’re not gonna change the course of history, or save history from itself (or humanity from itself, for that matter). The Nazis aren’t coming in force: against your side or the Heritage Foundation. Indeed, the pendulum is swinging back against MAGA and Alito and the political evangelicals. But it’s not permanent and it won’t last for centuries.. Yeats was a crackpot when it came to theories of history, but his theory of cycles that repeated themselves (from chaos to order and back to chaos, moving from what we could say were the excesses of “right” to “left.”) is closer to truth than the notion that America is Rome in the last days, or that the democratic republic “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” is on the verge of perishing because of an indicted reality TeeVee show host and a gang of clowns temporarily, and only nominally, in charge of the House.
And remember, that which you most oppose, you most come to resemble. So consider living, not in opposition, but in proposition; not against, but for.
You can’t combat chaos without becoming chaotic in the name of order. Better to advocate for what is good, rather than argue about what is “bad.”
The NY Times had an article a few days ago that he Heritage Foundation has become the point organization for generating list of conservatives to staff Federal agencies when the Republicans are back in power. They are planning to couple that with executive orders to turn what are currently large numbers of civil service jobs into political appointees. Trump singed such an executive order right before the election and it was quickly eliminated by Biden, one of his very first acts as president. The goal is to staff all the government agencies with people actively opposed to the agencies they lead with a goal to destroy their function and existence. Imagine Betsy DeVos on steroids. I have a good friend that worked at the SEC leading some of their biggest enforcement actions, he left when Trump came to power and they settled cases for effectively nothing. He left, why work hard when you are undermined by those in charge. I can imagine an EPA or OSHA that is completely gutted and left ineffective for a generation.
ReplyDeleteIt's not so theoretical, the Washington Post had an article on something similar in a count in Michigan. I have a subscription so this gift link hopefully works. https://wapo.st/3AnXnQg
The Republicans are picking ideologues candidates over experienced, (the Michigan article mentions this, experienced Republicans were tossed out for reactionaries), and the same is true for now picks to operate the government. An HVAC technician to run public health, and here in NH a guy with a business degree and zero experience in education to run our department of education. What is true in all is a hostility to the actual function of government.
Institutions take a long time to build, but can be rendered ineffective for decades in one election cycle. It's hard to see the way out of this bind when one political party refuses to act in good faith in any way.