The Grad Who Worked for Kamala

I thought about how disappointed a high school alum who worked as the chief aide to Harris must be now that his ticket to the top has lost. Sorry, not sorry. But he’ll land another job, they always do. 

His career well illustrates the parasitical nature of the D.C. swamp: he’s held 9 jobs in 13 years and currently owns the verbose title of: “Special Assistant to the President & Senior Advisor for Congressional Affairs and Strategic Outreach”. 

There are so many “make work” jobs in Washington. Spigots of money froth like the cascades of the Trevi fountain. He spent time as “executive director of the New Democrat Coalition” and another as “political director at Serve America PAC”. Utterly useless. Reminds me of the tens of millions that Kamala’s “consultants” got paid for helping her lose the election. It’s no wonder the Maryland has the highest median income of any state in the country. 

I’m still puzzled by what it would take for Catholics to recognize, en masse, that the Democrat party is not a viable voting option given their stands on abortion, LGBT and trans issues, sex ed and porn in grade schools, deep state targeting of pro-lifers and traditionalist Catholics, etc... I suspect part of it is the Catholic culture at the higher levels understands that the Democrat party is the wing of our government that facilitates our cash cow, in the form of providing millions of dollars to the church in return for settling illegals. 

His own case is probably the same old song: a disaffected fallen-away Catholic who grew up during the disaffected '80s.  And gay. His tweets reveal passion about the wedge issue of the moment: abortion rights after Dobbs, patriotism towards Ukraine, gay rights (it's personal for him, so that might be his own legit belief).  He has a special love for Adam Kinzinger, one of only two people he follows on Bluesky. 

Regardless, my alumni magazine's glad-handing interview with an architect of destruction was eyeopening. Could be ignorance, could be the diocesan culture, could be that I’m just too partisan. 

I looked up a respected old catechism from about 100 years ago, in a less polarized time. It didn't give guidance on Catholic schools providing friendly interviews with Democrats (a much different party back then!)  but it had this to say more generally: 

“And since matters closely connected with the essentials of religion are often the subject of debate, it is the duty of Catholics to vote for such candidates as will act justly in dealing with ecclesiastical questions, and have the interests of the Church at heart. If a Catholic, by giving his vote to a candidate who is hostile to the Church, or by abstaining from voting, makes himself in part responsible for the success of that candidate, he has much to answer for.”

Grey Mirror Substack Excerpt

Interesting perspective and explains why American voters have so little power. From Grey Mirror Substack:

**

Power has a very nice trick. The trick is: it convinces you that it belongs to you. But actually, you belong to it.

What is power, in our country? Let’s call it—Washington. We don’t know what it is. Never assume you know what power is. Power never wants you to know what it is. Respect how good it is at this! But you can usually figure out where it lives.

Fundamentally, if “democracy” means anything, it means a regime in which elections are important. Here are two easy tests for whether a phenomenon is important.

First: if no one told you about it, would you know it existed?

Second: how much more important could it become?

If we only listened to the language of the 2024 election, we would be very convinced—by the arguments of both sides—that something important was happening. This is more true than ever in any recent American election. But suppose we magically had zero access to political news. Could we tell, through our daily lives, that something had happened? What about after 2016, when similarly incendiary rhetoric was used?

Trump and his followers borrow liberally from the language of “regime change.” Yet in fact, across history, when a regime actually changes, everyone’s life changes. If you lived in East Berlin in 1985 and 1995, you did not need a newspaper to know that the regime had changed.

An obvious way to define the importance of an election is to ask what percentage of power over the state it grants. This definition is nice because it is on the unit scale: from 0 to 1. 0 means: no power. 1 means: all the power.

How democratic is your regime? How much power, as a percentage of absolute power, can a realistic political movement capture by realistic political actions?

Who has the rest? Someone always has the rest. Power is conserved. Of course, the idea of American political science is the opposite: we believe in limited government—as if some paranormal power constrained the actions of an otherwise sovereign regime.

If we define law professors in black polyester robes as not part of the government, then we do have limited government. If we define them as spiritually incorruptible, like the Pope, except that his robe is white and theirs is black, then we do have limited government.

However, if we define the judiciary as part of the government then our regime is most definitely unlimited. I’m sorry if you’re learning this for the first time.

If winning gives you 1% of absolute power, the election is 1% of a democratic election. Since winning the 1932 election gave FDR way more than 1% of absolute power, we can’t even say that absolute democracy can be new to American history. Since all our political factions today are FDR respecters, none of them can argue that an absolute election, like that of 1932, is impossible, or illegitimate, or un-American, today. 

At a rational level that Washington would function just as well, if not better, without any politicians. Certainly, the last days of the Biden administration demonstrate that Washington does not need a President. And the President himself is only one small part of the White House. Washington needs a White House, but only to resolve interagency conflicts. But it could always just flip a coin.

In a sense, America does not have a President. If it had a President, it would have a chief executive of the executive branch. For that, it would have to have an executive branch. In an executive organization, every node in the organizational chart has a goal and a set of resources, including direct reports who can be given goals and resources. This is how a company works. This is how an army works. This is not how Washington works. Until you understand this about Washington, you are in Don Quixote world.

America has no executive branch. It has a procedural branch: the administrative or “deep” state. In this procedural branch, every employee in every agency, from top to bottom, has not goals, but duties. These duties are set by rules and procedures. These rules and procedures are set not by the executive branch, but the legislative branch.

But the legislative branch is elected, too! Yes—elected with a 98% incumbency rate (in the House), and 90% (in the Senate)—then subjected to a seniority-driven committee system mentioned nowhere in the Constitution. 

You might think of our legislative branch as a parliamentary body. Indeed, at its center is a classic parliamentary debating chamber. But if this chamber was literally filled in with concrete, if nothing like what happens there now ever happened anywhere again, the actual work of Capitol Hill could continue undisturbed. This is true, too, of every parliamentary body on Earth. There is no body of statesmen that decides on policy by open debate. There are no statesmen at all. There are politicians. If they debate, it is to pretend. Generally their function is to raise money so they can keep getting elected. And if they do keep getting elected, they rise in the bizarre Venetian seniority system.

Yet the Hill is an extremely functional sovereign bureaucracy. Legislation still works. It can still make serious changes to Washington. Politicians are mostly fundraisers and PR fronts, but Hill staffers do actual, serious governance work. It’s a career that can be a career in itself, but that can also point into the agencies, lobbying, or activism. But—

Not only do the legislators not proactively drive legislation, the staffers do not even generally write it. The role of the Hill, in “our democracy,” is to select, from the vast arena of ideas championed by some lobby or movement, whose language becomes law.

This is Capitol Hill. It actually runs the country. Hardly anyone in America has any real idea what does. It has a 13% approval rating. It is totally impervious to elections. “Our democracy,” folks.

So the Congress is a kind of breakwater against democracy. Behind this wave-barrier is—true sovereignty, which is inherently permanent. Inasmuch as Washington has a center, that center is the Hill. The Hill is the matador. The White House is the cape. Sorry, voters.

Legislation is how anything really serious gets done in DC. Legislation may even be a way to compel an agency to do something it doesn’t want to do. It will at least have to pretend. It may not do it quickly, cheaply, or effectively. It will have to do something.

Moreover, legislation has effectively unlimited power upside. Congress could very easily abolish the Department of Education. Or the Department of State. It won’t, though—not because America needs these agencies but because no such action is in the interest of any legislator, staffer, lobbyist or activist.

Congress dictates not just the budget, personnel and policy of the so-called “executive branch,” but even of the Executive Office of the President (EOP) within it. It’s a wonder the “leader of the free world” can even decide when to take a dump.

While no one in Washington particularly has an incentive to care about saving money—some people still care anyway. The worst thing about Washington is that it’s not just that some of them are good people. Most of them are good people. Washington is made of good people. That’s the most appalling thing about it.

Moreover, because the Republicans still do not see themselves as seeking power, only good government, any spending wins are dead-end wins. 

Ultimately, their mindset is still the mentality of Boxer in Animal Farm: “we must work harder.” I do not agree. Yes, it is always better to work harder. All things being equal. But all things are not equal—and here, I think, we must work smarter.

First of all, the true tiny micro-reality of this trench warfare, as compared to the huge fake macro-realities it is used to sell, is inherently a deception. Yes, you can get a little done. In some areas—like immigration—where large parts of the old government still want to do their old job and know how to do it—you can get a lot done. But…

Taking these micro-victories seriously has a serious cost. The harder a Republican administration fights, and the small more victories it wins, the better it sells the illusion that it is in control of the government—allowing the Congress, which is actually in control of the government, to evade any accountability. It’s actually a beautiful design in a sense.

Republicans and Democrats agree on one thing: elections matter. Do they, though? Suppose you spend the next four years ignoring politics and living your life. Even if the biggest, best plans of the new administration come true—even if DOGE is all Enrico Dandolo and no J. Peter Grace, even if Elon can save two trillion dollars—

Will you notice that anything happened? If not, do elections matter?

Trying to save the country by making the government smaller, better, etc, is a lot like trying to go to space in a balloon. You can get really technical about it. With a big Mylar envelope and a lot of other space-tier gear, you can get to like 100,000 feet. The sky is pretty black up there! It’s almost like you’re in space.

In terms of your lungs, you’re in space. In terms of gravity, you’re on earth. What we normally mean by space is orbit. Orbit is not about altitude. Space is not a function of being really high up.

Making the government smaller is great. Making the government better is great. You do have a beautiful view of the stars.

But actually, space is a function of going really fast. Also, power is a function of being in charge of the government. Right now, they are in charge. 

The solution is obvious: capture Congress. Legally, of course. Make elections matter.

Congress is a pretty attractive startup target. First, it actually runs the country. It has all the power everyone thinks the President has. The Senate can even overrule the Supreme Court (by “packing” it).

What it chooses to do with that power is mostly just to delegate it to the agencies in vague language mixed with micromanagement—in the twisted, opaque, and not always pretty nexus of money and influence from which the Hill makes its “laws.” Congress is America’s seawall against democracy.

When enough of its incumbents win enough elections, our patriotic Congresspersons protect the whole noxious nexus of the “administrative state” from being swept away by one great wave of populist revulsion. This regime’s results are revolting indeed. Sadly, the people are almost as revolting. That’s why, in the 21st century, neither oligarchy nor democracy is a viable structure of government.

The solution is: teach Americans that the fundamental problem of their situation is not that their government is doing this, that or the other thing wrong—though it is—but just that they have almost no power over it.

Washington is not accountable to the voters, or to anyone else either. Even if it was accountable to the Jews—I can’t even tell you what a vast improvement that would be. At least someone would be in charge. Unfortunately, there are no “Elders of Zion.” It’s all up to you, dear American voter. If you can learn how to vote to take power, not to use power, you will win. Otherwise, you will lose.

Your problem is not inflation, abortion, immigration, or even fentanyl. Your problem is that you don’t have enough power. You’re not voting against fentanyl. You are voting for power. You are voting for the power to beat fentanyl—as well as inflation, abortion, immigration, and whatever else needs beating (but nothing that doesn’t).

The irony of our politics is that progressive ideas fit perfectly with progressive power. Every progressive idea makes progressives more powerful. If the real world changes so that the exact opposite idea is the powerful idea, progressives will change their mind.

On February 1, 2020, insouciance toward Covid was a progressive idea. On March 1, 2020, paranoia toward Covid was a progressive idea. What changed was not anything new we learned scientifically—but just that President Trump came out as insouciant. Suddenly, the only way to rebel was to be paranoid. So, instead of going to Chinatown to lick doorknobs, we all had to mask up. If Trump had gone the other way and talked about our precious bodily fluids, America and the world would have followed the Swedish model.

Progressives do not believe in the American system of government, only in power. Conservatives do not believe in power, only in the American system of government. Therefore, progressives always win and conservatives always lose. And as for the American system of government—how’s that working out for you, conservatives? Is it the best system of government in history, or the worst? Or, in some strange way, both?

Fascinating Look at the Powers That Be

Reading interesting book on the Greek debt crisis but a symbol of so much more (i.e. describing the deep state) called, “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis. Some excerpts. 

On Larry Summers, a kingpin of the universe and Epstein isle visitor: 

"[Summers] said ‘There are two kinds of politicians: insiders and outsiders. The outsiders prioritize their freedom to speak their version of the truth. The price of their freedom is that they are ignored by the insiders, who make the important decisions. The insiders, for their part, follow a sacrosanct rule: never turn against other insiders and never talk to outsiders about what insiders say or do. Their reward? Access to inside information and a chance, though no guarantee, of influencing powerful people and outcomes.’"

Explains the establishment hatred of Trump: he says what he wants (outsider) but he's also an insider (as only the president can be). 

He goes on to explain how black box non-transparency is knit less of conspiracy than this: 

When a large-scale crisis hits, it is tempting to attribute it to a conspiracy between the powerful...If our sharply diminished circumstances can be blamed on a conspiracy, then it is one whose members do not even know that they are part of it. That which feels to many like a conspiracy of the powerful is simply the emergent property of any network of super black boxes.

The keys to such power networks are exclusion and opacity.

**

Many decent Greek bank employees were worried sick by what they were observing and doing. But when they got their hands on evidence or information foreshadowing terrible developments, they faced Summers’s dilemma: leak it to outsiders and become irrelevant; keep it to themselves and become complicit; or embrace their power by exchanging it for other information held by someone else in the know, resulting in an impromptu two-person alliance that turbocharges both individuals’ power within the broader network of insiders. As further sensitive information is exchanged, this two-person alliance forges links with other such alliances. The result is a network of power within other pre-existing networks, involving participants who conspire de facto without being conscious conspirators.

Whenever a journalist refuses to slant their story in the politician’s favour, they risk losing a valuable source and being excluded from that network. This is how networks of power control the flow of information: through co-opting outsiders and excluding those who refuse to play ball. They evolve organically and are guided by a supra-intentional drive that no individual can control...

Once caught in this web of power it takes an heroic disposition to turn whistle-blower, especially when one cannot hear oneself think amid the cacophony of so much money-making. And those few who do break ranks end up like shooting stars, quickly forgotten by a distracted world.

He describes how to fight it, first saying to recognize we may be unwitting members of the network: 

Secondly, and this is the genius of Wikileaks, if we can get inside the network, like Theseus entering the labyrinth, and disrupt the information flow; if we can put the fear of uncontrollable information leaking in the mind of as many of its members as possible, then the unaccountable, malfunctioning networks of power will collapse under their own weight and irrelevance. Thirdly, by resisting any tendency to substitute old closed networks with new ones.

The backlash, as we've seen with Trump, is fierce and explains why the DoJ/FBI doubled-down rather than backed down when their lies were exposed:                

Insiders, I had written in 2012, would react aggressively to anyone who dared open up their super black box to the outsiders’ gaze: ‘None of this will be easy. The networks will respond violently, as they are already doing. They will turn more authoritarian, more closed, more fragmented. They will become increasingly preoccupied with their own “security” and monopoly of information, less trusting of common people.’

On the crisis in 2015:

...the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the Greek government organized the world’s greatest bankruptcy cover-up. How do you cover up a bankruptcy? By throwing good money after bad. And who financed this cover-up? Common people, ‘outsiders’ from all over the globe.

I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don’t listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People – powerful people – listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: they don’t criticize other insiders. I had been warned.

Election Day/Month/Year

Election Day! The day (or week or month) we find out whether we’ll continue to be led by Obama and thugs or if we get a 4-year sabbatical. 

I think it says a lot when we think about who Obama has chosen or favored. Everyone he does is braindead-stupid, which suggests they would need to lean on him for his power and influence. First there was Biden as the VP pick back in ’08. In ’20 he favored Kamala in the primaries. Then this year he wanted Walz to be picked as VP over a guy who actually has an IQ above 100 (Shapiro). It can’t be accidental that he picks figureheads, “empty suits”. 

Political analyst Mark Halperin is center-left but even he can see it. Halperin is furious at his media for covering up Biden’s senility and letting Kamala be the candidate, saying it was very counterproductive. 

**

We went to the polls after, we thought, the pre-work crowds but around 9:30 to 10am it was jam packed. Never seen our voting station that crowded. Usually we’re out in 2-5 minutes and this time it took over 30. Not bad, of course, compared to places like Arizona. 

Meanwhile, this news is kind of surreal. ICE agents told they can’t wear uniforms or badges to vote today, per internal email obtained by journalist Ben Bergquam.  Seems they don’t want to intimidate all the illegal aliens voting.

I suspect Trump will win the American citizen vote but that might not be enough for him. 

It's almost sort of a catch-22: if the country was healthy enough to elect Trump this time then we wouldn't need him.  

For all our famed American “rugged individualism” we are incredibly interdependent and not just with regard to economics. Our freedoms depend on other people and certainly not on the Constitution or law.  If we’ve learned nothing over the past decade or two it’s that the government feels comfortable censoring our speech and limiting freedom via either third parties or direct edicts. We’re only an executive order or two away from tyranny so the Constitution can’t save us and neither can Trump --but he can at least delay the inevitable. 

**

The common thread of the past two decades can be summed up in one phrase: the weaponization of previously neutral instruments. Anything that can be weaponized/politicized has been, including the dollar, the judicial system, search engines, voting and medical systems. 

It’s hard to think of a single public-facing entity that hasn’t been weaponized. 

**

Quotable: 

"A time could come when, whether we want it or not, we'll have to live without churches, just as Christians lived without them in the first three centuries. May God preserve us from living to that time! But our task right now, for modern  Christians, is to think through and work out a form of life in the Church under any conditions, even when they take our churches away from us. After all, this could happen, sooner or later."

—Archbishop Theodosius (Snigirev)