Insular Ignorance

I’m not one to cite many historical parallels because this is an unprecedented age. The collapse of an empire meant something entirely different when the population was minuscule and most people lived in agricultural communities with no dependence on electricity or running water.

For instance, comparing Roman coin debasement to the digitized central banking upon which our endlessly complicated food network is dependent doesn’t make much sense. Still, other comparisons are unsettlingly germane.

What’s striking is the insular ignorance of the capitol’s elite to what’s going on around them. In hindsight, the signs were everywhere just as they are right now. The past two elections are clear examples that hypothetical historians would be sure to include in 101 textbooks.

In 2016, fraud was avoided because they were so blind to sentiment in the provinces that they believed Hillary would win in a landslide. The result left many in shock. They then embarked on a campaign to have the election overturned on fraudulent pretexts that wrecked their credibility with much of the general public.

By 2020, this has escalated into blatant fraud that’s created an unprecedented crisis in the legitimacy of the system with nearly half of the electorate. Many more see that it’s fraud but desperately wanted the outcome so they simply accept it. Either way, the illusion of a republic is over.

Also gone is the notion that being American confers basic human rights. It’s now well understood that one can have his life destroyed for voicing reasonable opinions. The draconian measures brought against a non-crisis in public health have made everyone aware that the government can put the population on house arrest and destroy businesses without any due process.

These aren’t the talking points of marginalized dissidents. It’s the source of anger for normal people who keep the country functioning. The last thing anyone in DC should be giddy about is a “return to former glory.” However, hindsight is no cure for fatal ignorance.

The Washington Post came out with an article last week gushing about how that’s precisely what they’re doing. It reads like a parody. Somehow they think that Trump’s departure no longer makes them “the swamp” or the “deep state.” Meanwhile, the amount of Americans who see them as precisely that has increased exponentially since Trump began his first campaign.

Washington's establishment wants to get back to normal. Normal, as in a respect for experience and expertise. Normal, as in civility and bipartisan cooperation. Normal, as in not wanting to punch someone in the face. https://t.co/7HeohT09Yu

— Roxanne Roberts (@_RoxanneRoberts) November 23, 2020

The author anticipates a resurgence in DC’s lavish social scene once bipartisanship is back. In this regard, as well, it really does seem like something out of Roman decline. These people can’t seem to grasp that nothing is going back to normal any better than why their behavior made them so despised in the first place.

This crisis in credibility will inevitably lead to more coercion, but America was always rooted in the fantasy of freedom and the efficacy of a vote. If a future Edward Gibbon exists, this will be a definitive feature of his final volume of The History of the Decline and Fall of the USA.