Introduction:
There’s been a whole lot of hubbub and kerfuffle about Time Magazine’s triumphal valedictory: The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election. Wherefore the hubbub and kerfuffle? Well, it seems that some people dislike…nay, resent, being openly told that elections are being rigged by powerful forces, the same forces, incidentally, who constantly bemoan and whinge about the unfair influence of money in political campaigns. People resent this, not because this is news. The people who resent what Time is doing by admitting that powerful forces influenced the outcome of the election are the kinds of people who already knew that powerful forces had influenced the election in the first place. Big Tech, Media, the Bureaucracy [call it deep state if you want], Social Justiceers [call them rioters if you want] all coordinated their efforts to extort this country into voting Biden, and/ or committing widespread fraud and then covered it up and then silenced people who wanted to uncover it. This is what people who resent the Time article believe.
Why do they resent it? Because Time is now brazen enough to admit what happened. They, being part of the Mediacracy, the new clerisy, admitted that what happened was essentially a grand extortion scheme. The open admission has caused resentment. Here, I’m going to explain why, but this is going to take a more than a few words, but I promise it’ll all make sense in the end.
The Buffer Class:
Time admits the extortion scheme when the article says this:
“There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans. The pact was formalized in a terse, little-noticed joint statement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO published on Election Day. Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain–inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests–in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital to keep the peace and oppose Trump’s assault on democracy.”
Let me rephrase that: BLM and Antifa threatened to commit even more riots and property damage and burn down more cities and murder more police and set up more treasonous and seditious micronations if Big Business (and small business) didn’t get with the program and help orchestrate Trump’s ouster…and in the end the business owners either gleefully got on board or knuckled under.
In normal circumstances this would be considered extortion. By the way, extortion is a felony. Like the kind you go to prison for. But these aren’t normal circumstances. These are abnormal. Well, at least for America they’re abnormal, they’re pretty normal for most of world history.
Most of world history has shown that the powerful exercise power to gain more power. Most of world history has shown that as the powerful centralize power among themselves they become an increasingly small minority. History has also shown that most nations at most times have been ruled by extremely small minorities, by percentage of the population. Now, why don’t the poor huddled masses huddle together and eat the rich? That seems like such an obvious question. I mean, if the king is a tyrant he can be killed. If the slave master is cruel, he can be killed! Why not rise up? Why not throw off their shackles and take power for yourselves?
Well, powerful people tend to be relatively aware of this possibility – at least the ones who tend to not be throttled in their sleep are aware of it. And so they create a buffer-class. Sometimes it’s called a yeomanry, sometimes it’s called “the middle class”, sometimes it’s the merchants, there are lots of names for this group. But there’s always a group that stands between the serfs and the Sovereigns. It isn’t just the petite noblesse – although they too comprise this group – it needs to be a fairly large group of people and they have to bear arms. That’s why in caste societies there is always a warrior caste. There has to be a group that can use physical violence to restrain hoi polloi.
Why sometimes even slaves are used to control other slaves: note the black African slaves who were armed to suppress the rebelliousness of Irish and Scottish “indentured servants” in the Caribbean.
When the “Buffer Class” becomes too small or too decadent or too indifferent or they turn traitor, that’s when revolutions happen. The French Revolution was not, initially, antimonarchical – the peasantry was frustrated with the Aristocracy who were abusing privileges (debt and the Little Ice Age didn’t help either). The Russian Revolution happened in large part because the franchise was too small – merchants and Aristocrats were not able to take on real meaningful responsibility to reform a society that was cruel, exploitative, and changing.
Rulers need regulators. What’s happened over the past 100 years has been a slow-burn where Progressives have incrementally been removing and replacing Conservatives and even non-Progressive Liberals from positions of power and places in the Buffer Class. We’re now seeing not a coup in progress but a fait accompli. The Progressives have completely overtaken the key positions in the Buffer Class and everyone is either on-board or is kowtowing and mouthing the mantras to save their own skin.
It cannot be overemphasized that “shift” we’re seeing in our culture is not new – it has taken literally a century, at least, to accomplish. But today Media, Academia, Industry and Bureaucracy are all staffed by and run by Progressives. This means that the flow, and instruction, of information is run by Progressives. This means that the flow of wealth is run by Progressives. This means every aspect of your life that can be, rightly or wrongly, controlled by government is run by Progressives. Progressives now have complete power and they intend to wield it.
The More Things Change…:
The new status quo represents a change in the Buffer Class. A century ago the Federal Bureaucracy was significantly smaller and less powerful (read: invasive). But Progressives were already making significant efforts to expand and grow government in the antebellum teens. Today the Federal Government employs over 9 million people. That’s 6% of the national workforce. There are now about 5 million people who are public school teachers and college faculty. That’s another 4%ish of the total workforce. That means that just between teachers and Federal employees, Progressives have 10% of the workforce population – and arguably the most directly influential 10%. But Media and Industry have changed as well. Most media (setting aside the internet for now) come from an increasingly small number of sources. Industry as well has changed. Small Businesses are being replaced by Big Box Stores. While this may come with economic advantages, it also comes at a cost. Now entire industries can be used to influence politics and public perception and purchasing habits and even behaviors through the whims of just a few powerful people.
This evidences a shift in who the Buffer Class is. For a long time the Buffer Class was comprised of White, Male, Protestant, Householders – mainly agrarian householders. And this isn’t unique to America. It was the Roman Freeman-Farmer that composed the backbone of the Republic – only when the virtues of this class were corroded and their power given to an expansive and corrupt central Imperial machine did Rome lose that human capital necessary to continue its empire. The fear of losing a broad-based middle class is one that wise people have always had. A nation is built on self-sufficient, virtuous, patriotic taxpayers who have strong incentives to preserve what is good and defend what’s theirs. Oliver Goldsmith, in his poem The Deserted Village (1770) said this:
But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
A time there was, ere England’s griefs began,
When every rood of ground maintained its man;
For him light labour spread her wholesome store,
Just gave what life required, but gave no more:
His best companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
But times are altered; trade’s unfeeling train
Usurp the land and dispossess the swain;
It’s no secret that a change in the Buffer Class is a revolution – after a fashion. And the Buffer Class in America has changed. America has industrialized. We’re no longer a nation of 40-acre farmers. Nor are we a mixed nation wherein the Middle-Class (economically) are largely self-employed and who therefore have the economic wherewithal to resist pressures from Progressive elites to change our political tune. Pressure can be applied – and it is. Some of this was inevitable; some we did to ourselves. But the “why” it happened is less important than the consequences of what has happened and what it forebodes.
The New Model Federalism:
Christians have a lot more in common with Progressives, especially Woke Progressives, than we often realize. Perhaps the biggest thing in common is a shared view of the purpose of Government. Both Christians and Progressives believe that the purpose of Government is to “commend the righteous and punish the wicked”. Which, as you may or may not have noticed, is a far cry from the Enlightenment view espoused by the Founders that “Government exists to secure the rights of the governed.” I mean…not according to the Bible.
So how did the Enlightenment, coming out of a deeply theonomistic (leaning) Europe come to the Classic Liberal political theories? Because Enlightenment thinkers wanted to avoid Wars of Religion. Thus Classical Liberalism, a view of Government based upon God-given Rights and not God’s revealed right took hold.
But Classical Liberalism, was always tenuous at best. It’s like talking on a pretend telephone with a 3-year-old. We all know that your thumb and pinkie have no real relationship to the sound being transmitted, but it’s a game that benefits everyone and so it’s OK. Parents get to adore their replicants and children get to enjoy playtime and the manipulation of adults. But there’s nothing in the digits that makes it real. It is a game, that is, it only makes sense and works until we decide it doesn’t. Once either or both parties decide that Thumbkin and Pinkie have no real bearing on the transmission of sound waves it’s all over.
Similarly, government-to-secure-rights, instead of government-to-do-good only works until we decide it doesn’t. There’s no native force in Classical Liberalism. To put it another way, it isn’t a durable idea – it’s exceedingly fragile because it’s a compromise masquerading as an axiom. And compromises make bad axiomata.
Consider then that there is a new Buffer Class and a New Model Federalism and they both centralize on Progressivism. What does this mean? We don’t know yet. But we’re going to find out soon and very soon.
I’m the Man in the Box:
The resentment at Time being so very open about the fact that the Progressive Powers coordinated to sway the election comes from the fact that it marks a sea change in the Media’s way of dealing with the populace at-large. Media elites used to talk in euphemisms and work hard-ish at pretending they were unbiased arbiters of the truth – indeed many if not most of the useful idiots in journalism probably believe that still.
But that’s not what they are. And Media has seen that Progressives are the new Buffer Class and that the New Model Federalism is ripe to bring in Utopia through a Government which desires to do good and not secure rights. And if you don’t like this, then tough. In fact, the very nakedness of the corruption that this article demonstrates is a way of giving American Conservatives, and particularly American Conservatives who are former members of the Buffer Class (No Longer Only White or Male, Middle Class, Protestant, Householders), two middle fingers. It’s a way of saying, “yeah, we conspired to extort the nation through riots and murder, and you can’t do anything about it!” Any complaints we have about the unAmericaness or injustice or moral evil of the new status quo will just cause us to get swatted with a newspaper. Alice in Chains wrote:
I'm the man in the box
Buried in my shit
Won't you come and save me?
Save me
Feed my eyes, can you sew them shut?
Jesus Christ, deny your maker
He who tries, will be wasted
Feed my eyes now you've sewn them shut
I'm the dog who gets beat
Shove my nose in shit
Won't you come and save me
Save me
Feed my eyes, can you sew them shut?
Jesus Christ, deny your maker
He who tries, will be wasted
Feed my eyes now you've sewn them shut
This song is all about the powerful using media to both propagandize and punish. If you choose to rebel (perhaps rage?) against the machine you’ll be a beaten hound with your nose shoved in your own filth. People realize that this is what’s happening. Former members of the Buffer Class are being treated like bad dogs. We need to know who the master is. Like Buck facing the man in the red sweater we need to learn that a dog is no match against a man with a club. And I have a feeling that a lot of Middle Class, Protestant, Householders are going to have to take quite a beating before they learn that a dog is no match for a man with a club. And once the fangs start flashing and the truncheon starts falling there are 3 possible outcomes.
One: The dog is broken. This happens most of the time.
Two: The dog dies. This happens some of the time.
Three: The man in the red sweater drops the club. This happens exceedingly rarely.
What would these three scenarios look like in our world?
One: Conservatives recede into the shadows and promise to keep quiet and not commit any thoughtcrimes. Maybe Christians will be left alone – maybe not – maybe Christianity exists as a persecuted but substantially weakened body. They wait for Progressivism to fail and the miserable masses to rise up – à la Soviet Poland.
Two: Conservatism and Christianity (though not the same they are both enemies of Progressivism) are entirely evicted from the public square. Churches are closed and pastors imprisoned. The Church goes entirely underground. As does Conservatism – à la China.
Three: A coalition of the disenfranchised band together and the states return to a confederacy, or there is civil war, or there is a revolution. None of these options is desirable…or likely.
Conclusion:
It is tragic, but true, that it is hard to envision a near-future (the next 20 years) where there is not a significant increase in political violence. It is hard to imagine a near future where America does not become even more of a police state. It is hard to see a near future for America where there is a rapid overthrow of the Buffer Class or a removal of Progressives and the dominance of Progressivism in the big 4 institutions that drive our culture: Media; Academia; Industry; and Bureaucracy.
The elites will become more and more open about what they’re doing and their vilification of conservatives and their admission of and justification for their tactics and strategies. It is doubtful that the “public safety” language will ever be dropped entirely. As much as the O’Briens of the world love stomping on faces, useful idiots are, indeed, useful.
But, as dark as this seems, this may be the perfect place for the real gospel of Jesus Christ to be proclaimed. Police States are always recognized by the people who inhabit them for what they are. Sooner or later most people catch wise and tire of lies. Yes, they go through the motions and shout their way through the Two Minutes Hate, but they don’t really love Big Brother and they know, and resent that they’re viewed and treated as men to put in boxes and dogs to beat. To them, to those who will see the lies for what they are, the gospel will have tremendous appeal.
I think that American Christianity’s finest hour may be ahead of her. But it won’t look like the compromising, soy latte slurping, skinny jean wearing, hipster, self-help, narcissism we’re used to see pack churches and fill stadiums. It will be a gospel of forgiveness of sin through the death, burial, and resurrection of the God-Man who is Truth, Life, And Love incarnate.