I think that a common theme among my conservative correspondents is: “is this the end of free elections?” Will our Democratic friends be fixing all the presidential elections from here on out? Will I have to bow to the liberal mob if I want a job? And so on.

I guess that I have a more optimistic outlook on things. But why, I asked myself? Here are a few.

First, I concur with Crane Brinton in The Anatomy of Revolution. He writes that a Reign of Terror is a sign that the prophecy of the revolution -- that heaven on earth was right around the corner -- was failing.

Second, I go with Gaetano Mosca in The Ruling Class. He writes that a good ruling class, one that is likely to stick around, is one that has a “political formula” that resonates with the masses. But our ruling class’s political formula right now seems to be the “oppressed peoples, allies, white oppressors” narrative that even showed up in the Snowflake Penguins incident. The Snowflakes at the South Pole had just been to Allyship training!

Key detail: the publisher had been hosting "antiracist and allyship" trainings since June. Once this ideological framework is established, emotional blackmail and censorship demands are its natural consequences.

It's not for "diversity"—it's for control.https://t.co/3mSNeEgFa0

— Christopher F. Rufo вљ”пёЏ (@realchrisrufo) November 25, 2020

Just between you and me -- and don’t tell the nice liberal lady with the Hate Has No Home Here yard-sign -- I think that the “oppressed peoples, allies, white oppressors” political formula  is a cruelly exclusive doctrine that cuts out the great middle of America. No ruling class with half a brain would go for a political formula like that.

Third, there is the Reds Under the Bed conspiracy theory. Back in the day, it took five lost presidential elections in a row -- 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, 1948 -- before the Republican Tailgunner Joe started nosing around looking for a conspiracy of Commies in the State Department. Now I regard it as perfectly natural and physical that you start wondering about whether Da Fix Is In after you lose five presidential elections in a row. But our Democratic friends started with the conspiracy stuff upon losing one election! And then decided to steal the next election! Come on, fellahs! Don’t you think that in 2024 the American people will be absolutely sick of Donald Trump and decide it is Time for a Change? Are you dumb or something? Or is there something we don’t know that is liable to surface during a second Trump administration, so you chaps have to get rid of him now before it is too late?

See, the reason I have been reading Mosca’s Ruling Class is, first, that I think that Curtis Yarvin is as smart as paint, and second, that I desperately want to believe that our corrupt and declining ruling class really is on the way out.

Let’s use Mosca’s ruling-class analysis to evaluate our ruling class.

First, a ruling class has to have a “political formula,” something not like “all whites are racist.” But in fact, the ruling classes across the developed world do not believe in their separate nations; they are globalists. Joe Biden’s  political formula is to save the planet from climate change and fight systemic racism: completely out of sync with the average American.

Second, a ruling class has to develop a good system of “juridical defense.” Yeah. What’s that when it’s at home? Mosca means “public opinion, religion, law and the whole social mechanism that enforces observance” of the general “moral sense” of society. I’d say that right now, with the cancel culture and Defund the Police, our ruling class’s “juridical defense” system is in the ditch, completely out of sync with the “moral sense” of the average American.

Third, to keep itself up to the mark, and refresh its membership, the ruling class needs to be open to aspirants from the lower classes. Anyone around here think that our current ruling class believes it has anything to learn from the lower classes, excepting only its favored Little Darlings that tick all the right boxes on the DIE front? I’d say that right now, the one group the ruling class does not want to invite into its inner sanctum is ordinary unspecial Americans.

See why I am not discouraged? Our ruling class is a bunch of losers, and they can’t even get the basics right. So it’s not a question of If, but When.

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.

Image credit: Pixabay public domain