The Socialist Establishment Threat

The Establishment and its supporters are not at all happy with current events in Washington DC. The discontent is not a partisan issue, since the Capitol is populated mostly by Establishment folk regardless of party affiliation.

Establishment folk like their constituents to be taken care of, be free of risk, remain docile and unquestioning. Any questioning would place front and center the unsustainable national debt, fiat currency, endless wars, gargantuan bureaucracy, and a populace dependent on public assistance and/or public services. Questioning might bring to mind the list of societies that disintegrated under the weight of those same events – from the Roman Empire to Venezuela.

So what appears to be different lately? The difference could be summarized by a couple of memes. One meme implies that government holds the responsibility for an individual’s well being; that government’s job is to do whatever it takes to provide all manner of services, since all services are rights. The other meme implies that government exists only to protect everyone’s life, liberty and property; everything else is each individual’s responsibility.

To be sure, today’s Washington DC is a very long way from returning to the nation the Founding Fathers intended. The military-crony capitalism-welfare state is still here. The national debt is still a distant blur in Congress’ collective mind. The Establishment folk are still sucking up gobs of tax money in salaries and benefits while they prance around “resisting.” It remains to be seen whether the corporation tax cut will result in more jobs or more bonuses. It remains to be seen if the economy grows sufficiently to make up for the tax cuts.

But progress can be seen in the slow shrinkage of the bureaucracy through attrition, efforts to awaken the nation’s dormant manufacturing, and promises in speeches of jobs not public-assistance.  Let’s hope it is not too late for this nation to escape the fate of Rome.  Let’s hope we are are able to fix what we broke, and not make debt and dependency our legacy to our grandchildren.