Memories

     I can’t help myself about this one, Gentle Reader:

Mem'ries,
Light the corners of my mind...
Misty water-colored memories
Of the way we were

Scattered pictures,
Of the smiles we left behind...
Smiles we gave to one another
For the way we were

     I think that’s enough to establish the flavor clearly. But why? Well, because the redoubtable Glenn “InstaPundit” Reynolds has provided us with a memory over which to chortle nastily:

     It is the season of bed-wetting. For those who follow politics closely – we anxious few – every new poll, whether from the UK or the US, is arriving freighted with apocalyptic significance.

     It’s true that the stakes are high. In five months’ time, we could be standing among the smoking ruins of liberal democracy. The Trump coat of arms will be emblazoned on the dome of the Capitol. The British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, will be making tinny jokes about bulldogs as Vladimir Putin moves tanks to the Finnish border.

     On the other hand, the post-war order may be looking remarkably intact, Britain having voted emphatically to Remain, a liberal Atlanticist with unexciting ideas installed in the Oval Office, and the England football team having returned home from France after three matches of unbearable mediocrity.

     Read every word, Gentle Reader. Immerse yourself in the unsurpassable arrogance. Let the memories of politician, pundit, and celebrity certainty flood through you. You’ll find that you can’t help laughing hysterically.

     Back then – was it really only three and a half years ago? My word – the consensus admitted of no dissent: Donald Trump was not going to be president. The United Kingdom would not exit the European Union. All the “people in the know,” the folks whose ears decades of experience had tuned to the vibrations from the corridors of power, were certain. But why? Whence came their absolute faith in...themselves?

     The answer isn’t hard to find: from the start of the Wilson Administration to the end of the Obama regime, the grip on power of the political / bureaucratic / media elite (a.k.a. the Deep State) had never been seriously threatened. What’s harder to find is an explanation for why those selfsame, perfectly assured mouthpieces for The Way Things Are And Must Be haven’t yet grasped how wrong they were.

     Once upon a time, back when blogging was young, there was a lovely, intelligent lady named Megan McArdle, who went by the Internet moniker of Jane Galt. Miss McArdle promulgated an observation that came to be called Jane Galt’s Law:

The party in power is smug and arrogant.
The party out of power is insane.

     That might seem a trifle overwrought, but it comes closer to capturing the psychological state of the American elite – first before the 2016 presidential election, then afterward – than any more temperate assessment.

     “The party in power” in pre-November-2016 America, nominally the Democrats but what a deeper look reveals as the political / bureaucratic / media elite, was convinced that its grip on the electoral system would be sufficient to prevent upstart Donald Trump from gaining the White House. It had all manner of tools at its disposal. In combination, those tools must have appeared invincible. Their duly Anointed One, Hillary Rodham Clinton, would become the president as they had foreordained. A chastened Donald Trump would return to his real-estate empire, his fantasies of national leadership permanently dispelled. Business as usual would continue without a hitch.

     The elite did not believe its hegemony could be challenged.

     Then came the election. What’s this? Trump has won – and by a commanding Electoral College margin, at that? How can this be? It must be a mistake! The nation would not dare to defy Our will, We Who Are The Ultimate Power. It must be corrected at once!

     The inability to believe was transformed into a refusal to believe: a willful rejection of the reality that had whacked the elite across the chops.

     The elite went from smug and arrogant to insane with the flip of a voting machine lever. Innumerable YouTube video collages testify to their frothing at the mouth. Personages from cable-news opinion-mongers all the way to former presidents girded themselves for war against the Usurper. That war, while it has gone through several stages, has never come near to bringing them what they seek. As of yesterday, they appear to have expended the last of their ammunition.

     They were certain of victory.

     They’re still insane with rage. They’ll remain so until the levers of power are once again secure in their hands. At that point they’ll revert to smugness and arrogance. They’ll contrive further protections against ever again having those levers snatched out of their hands, of course. You’ve probably read about some of their notions: the “National Popular Vote Compact,” the proposal to divide the District of Columbia into 127 states, the enfranchising of convicted felons and illegal aliens, a new “Fairness Doctrine” that would cover cable news and the Internet, and so forth.

     No doubt the elite of the United Kingdom is planning something similar. It’s what elites do.

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     I started this screed in a jovial mood, something akin to Schadenfreude. But I intend to close on a monitory note. Should the elite of the United States manage to re-establish its hegemony, it will take whatever steps are necessary to prevent any future loss of power. Those folks believe that they can do perfectly well without “the consent of the governed,” and they mean to prove it.

     Keep your powder dry.