Where Are We, Where Do We Go?

Steven Hayward’s Spot-On Analysis of the Challenges Ahead - American Experiment:

Hayward sums up what brought us Trump in one brilliant line:



"Elections no longer change the character of our government."



The reason for this is the Administrative State, the subject of a big book I'm slogging through:

The premise of the Constitution is that the people should rule. The premise of the administrative state, explicitly expressed by Woodrow Wilson and other Progressive-era theorists, is that experts should rule, in a new administrative form largely sealed off from political influence, i.e., sealed off from the people. At some point, it amounts to government without the consent of the governed, a simple fact that surprisingly few conservative politicians perceive. Ronald Reagan was, naturally, a conspicuous exception, noting in 1981 in his first Inaugural Address, “It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.”

The problem is that even Reagan was unable to actually reduce the size of government (he only slowed the rate of growth).  If Trump wants to change the character of our government, Scott Walker needs to go to Washington. The unelected Democrat union controlled administrative state MUST be brought under control, or this will be yet another election that doesn't change the character of government.



The other prong of attack to return to some semblance of freedom has already been strongly begun by Trump -- we must take back our history!

Post-modern intellectuals have pronounced their historical judgment on America’s past, finding it to be morally indefensible. Every great human achievement of the past—whether in philosophy, religion, literature, or the humanities—came to be understood as a kind of exploitation of the powerless. Rather than allowing the past to be viewed in terms of its aspirations and accomplishments, it has been judged by its failures. The living part of the past is understood in terms slavery, racism, and identity politics. Political correctness arose as the practical and necessary means of enforcing this historical judgment. No public defense of past greatness could be allowed to live in the present. Public morality and public policy would come to be understood in terms of the formerly oppressed.

BOistan is like a person in recovery from addiction or mental illness. We need to embrace our past as our past, imperfect, but OURS, which includes both strengths and weaknesses -- we need to focus on WHAT'S STRONG vs what's wrong! Attempting to punish ourselves in the present for the past while ignoring the strengths of that country we killed called America is hurting all of us!



Here is how the excellent linked article puts it:

More than just a rebuke to political correctness and identity politics, a Trump victory would be, in their eyes, a vehicle for reasserting the sovereignty of the people and withdrawal of consent for the administrative state and the suffocating boundaries of acceptable opinion backing it up. A large number of Americans have responded positively to Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” because they too see Trump as a forceful tribune against the slow-motion desiccation of the country under the steady advance of liberalism.

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