Thank goodness the U.S. Supreme Court seems to be ready to reverse Roe v. Wade. Because now, for the first time since January 6, 2021, it’s okay to protest again. And it’s okay to dox the home addresses of Supreme Court justices. And it’s okay to cry to the heavens that the world is coming to an end if the states get to set their own abortion laws.

It must be really cool to be the ruling class and set the agenda: who is a racist and who is a victim; who is a protester and who is an armed insurrectionist; who is a hater and who is an activist.

As Nazi Carl Schmitt wrote, politics is all about deciding who is a friend and who is an enemy.

Imagine: if you are former President Obama you get to call for increased government power to control the insurrectionist speech of Trump supporters one week, and the inviolable right of protesters to protest the end of a Supreme Court ukase on abortion the next. It all depends on the enemy and whose dox is being gored

I almost get the feeling that any ruling class is okay with a bit of rioting and destruction -- so long as it’s righteously committed by its supporters. You see this even in the Stamp Act riots in North America in 1765. They didn’t fall out of a clear blue sky. The printed media of the time and local politicians like Patrick Henry were full of invective against the injustice and the “despotism” of burdening good honest North Americans with direct taxes. Anyway, the rioters only destroyed the homes of the tax agents. Mostly peaceful.

In other words, my nickel says that most political violence down the ages is done with a nod and a wink from the higher-ups, the patricians if you like.

After all, the whole idea of the state is that it has a monopoly on violence. What’s the point of a monopoly if you don’t take advantage of it from time to time, just a little?

So if you hear about activists peacefully protesting for justice, you are not exactly taking 80 to 1 odds on Rich Strike when you assume that the activists in question are lefties and approved by the ruling class, the educated, the media, and the university: indeed the entire Cathedral. Hey, activists gotta activist.

What I don’t get is why the ruling class got itself into its current bind with double-digit inflation and the Fed having to crank up interest rates after two years of pedal-to-the-metal spending.

What is better for the political support of a political party? Control of the streets, or control of inflation? A ruling class can have a bit of fun any time gazing indulgently at its supporters enjoying a spot of rioting in the streets. But when inflation starts running riot then all bets are off, aren’t they, Jimmy Carter?

If I were running the ruling class, I would have started the Biden administration the way that Bill Clinton started his first term in office. Remember? Ole Bill had campaigned on the “worst economy in the last 50 years” and promised a gorgeous menu of goodies. But when he got into office in January 1993 all of a sudden, he looked at the numbers -- Oh No! -- and tearfully told us that he couldn’t offer all those goodies. No, he’d have to raise taxes. Then, when it was time to run for reelection, then it would be time to dangle all kinds of goodies in front of the voters.

Why not? Why not announce in February 2021 that the eeevil Donald Trump had sold out the nation to the Russians, and totally botched the response to COVID and printed money like you wouldn’t believe and so we were going to have to get COVID under our belt and get America back to work before “tackling” climate change. Of course, we’d still fight systemic racism to the last white oppressor, but, behind the curtain, we wouldn’t be shoveling trillions at DEI administrators.

But the Biden people didn’t do that. And now they are reduced to sending their rioters into the street in the hope that ordinary moms forget all about the price of meat and ordinary truckers forget about the price of diesel.

I think that before the Department of Homeland Security sets up a Disinformation Governance Board, or the Department of Justice sets up an Office of Environmental Justice, the Department of the Treasury needs to set up an Office of Inflation Equity, whose job will be to replenish the savings accounts of ordinary workers impoverished by government inflation using monies automatically deducted from the salaries and pensions of inflation-protected government bureaucrats and elected politicians and NGO activists using a formula agreed upon by “equity” experts from a monthly analysis of the “lived experience” of ordinary workers.

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: Ted Eytan