In Politics, You Can Never Admit You Were Wrong
It was pretty cute: all of George Soros’ prosecutors had a get-together to celebrate their abolition of bail. But the media asked a few embarrassing questions. In a year when killings are up, especially in Democrat-run cities.
What are these prosecutors thinking, celebrating no-bail in the middle of a crime wave?
A drugged-out petty criminal dies of a drug overdose while resisting arrest and under police restraint, and every nice liberal lady puts up a Black Lives Matter yard sign.
A teenager shoots a couple of rioters in self-defense, and President Biden calls him a white supremacist.
What the heck?
The New York Times sells a new narrative of the United States as founded on slavery: the 1619 Project. Even Greek tycoon Taki is nonplussed.
Imagine a European country today in which a newspaper of its most populous city launches a totally mendacious project reinterpreting its past.
Yes, even math is racist.
What is going on here?
What is going on is that the left’s over/under politics of blaming the middle class for everything that goes wrong with the underclass and solving every problem with a gubmint program has failed. The left’s politics has Made Things Worse.
But our liberal friends can’t admit it.
The fact that black males commit over 50 percent of the murders in the U.S. is not because of white supremacy. It is because of the liberal politics that makes blacks into helpless victims that can’t help themselves. It is because over/under politics that enslaves blacks on the liberal plantation instead of encouraging them to get their butts into the middle class, has failed.
But our liberal friends can’t admit it.
The fact that blacks do very poorly at math in gubmint inner-city schools is not because math is racist. It is because the schools suck, black inner-city families suck, and fatherless boys suck. It is because wise administrative government by the educated class sucks.
But our liberal friends can’t admit it.
In the best of all possible worlds the ruling class would admit to all the world that its religion -- that over/under politics is the royal road to justice -- is a lie and a false religion. And it would admit to all the world that administrative government by the best and brightest is a failure and the best and brightest are to blame.
But in politics you can never admit that you have failed. If you are president of the United States you cannot say, on December 8, 1941, “oh, gee guys, I guess our intelligence services failed us; better luck next time.” Instead, you must say: “December 7, 1941 – a Date That Will Live. In Infamy.”
When a politician admits he made a mistake then it is time to resign.
That is because politics is all about, and only about, leading your people against the enemy. Because there is no politics without an enemy. And if you are not leading your people against the enemy, you might as well resign and let someone else step forward, Neville Chamberlain.
Therefore, if blacks are still in the basement a century and a half after the Civil War, and half a century after the Civil Rights Act, the political class is never going to admit that its policies have failed. Not, it’s the enemy wot done it.
Yes, but what enemy? Hmm, let me think about it for a moment. Yeah, I know, white supremacists! There’s your enemy and we will never solve the problem of racism until the white supremacists are defeated and their tiki-torches are smashed to pieces!
In politics, whatever the issue, "we" are never to blame. It is always the enemy. And the fact that things are going from bad to worse does not mean we should give up and try something else. No, it means that we should redouble our efforts, increase government spending, reduce more bail, cancel more conservatives, and push on to the final victory.
Do you know what I am learning from all this? I am learning that politics is suitable for only a few things: when there really is an enemy and he is really going to kill us and rape all our women. In that case, never mind who's made a mistake and who is to blame; it is "once more unto the breach, dear friends" and that is all.
But everything else is not so urgent. And there is time to think about what might work and what might not. There is time to think about mistakes and how to fix them and who is to blame. And one thing is for sure: it won't help to treat the other guy as an enemy.
That is the way of the world outside the world of politics. It is a world without an enemy.
I wonder what the United States would be like if we had less politics.
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: sarahmirk
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