It’s been an article of faith in many circles of populist conservatism that events of the past few years have been orchestrated by a secret cabal generally referred to as “they” or “the committee” or simply “the elites.” (This is not quite the same as the “Deep State,” though the Deep State would certainly be involved.)

It’s not completely clear what this outfit consists of or who the members are, though all agree that Obama is the key man. Apart from that, names such as Susan Rice, Eric Holder, Valerie Jarrett, and Bill and Hillary have been floated.  There’s not a single piece of evidence that any of them – Obama included – is actually involved.

This committee is theorized as having a master plan to carry out the “transformation of America,” as promised by Obama in 2008. It has connections all over government, and the ability to order whatever actions it finds necessary, and have its orders carried out. Its knowledge is held to be omniscient, its planning always perfect, its actions always totally successful.

It’s easy to picture this as a Bond film fantasy. A round table with glowing monitors at each seat, Obama sitting at the head wearing a Mao jacket and stroking a Persian cat while debate swirls around him. Above the table a giant screen flickers, occasional revealing the visage of George Soros studying them and offering occasional suggestions. Every now and then one or more of them rises to put on a headset that enables them to commune with an AI that holds all data concerning everyone on Earth. A small robot spins in occasionally with box wine for Hillary…

Yeah, that’s how I see it. And – be honest – that’s how you see it too.

It’s hard not have some sympathy with this view. Old boy (and girl, these days) networks do exist and they do exert influence. Obama, ensconced two blocks from the White House, is certainly up to something. And then there’s this, from Letitia James just last week:

We’ve studied their platforms. We’ve identified certain possibilities… fact patterns. We have created contingency plans. So no matter what the next administration throws at us, we’re ready.

Confronted with remarks this demented, it’s no surprise that people might respond with conclusions that are nearly as off-kilter. But all the same, we do need to draw a line. Along with the Bond films, we need to add a big chunk of Idiocracy.

Let’s consider some of the schemes that have played out over the past eight years – assuming that they were initiated by this hypothetical committee, just for the sake of the argument.

Over all, we have the campaign against Donald Trump, which began promisingly, progressed to an evidently crushing victory, and then suffered complete collapse.

A lot of people put considerable effort into tying up Trump during his first term. This was made possible by control of the institutions, cooperation from the media, and considerable assistance from the GOP establishment. A mammoth campaign of cheating in 2020 (2024 results suggest that it may have involved as many as 12-15 million votes) was designed to inflict a humiliating defeat that would not only run Trump out of public life for good but also scare the bejesus out of his following.

Then came two impeachments, intended to taint the Trump brand permanently, followed by a comprehensive program of lawfare targeting every aspect of Trump’s life with the goal of at the very least bankrupting him, but with the hope of giving him a lengthy sentence.

We can presume that this was to be followed by the reelection of the committee’s puppet president, with the hard Left’s transformational wish list -- the Green New Deal, expansion of the Supreme Court, D.C. and Puerto Rican statehood, universal censorship, and formalization of the woke and transgender agendas – going into effect shortly thereafter.

For a couple of years things seemed to be rolling along nicely. Trump was convicted in all the cases that came to trial, and given whopping fines of a magnitude never before seen in American jurisprudence.

But then things started to turn. The lawyers selected were either corrupt, incompetent, or fanatics acting as perfect illustrations of Santayana’s definition: “one who redoubles his efforts as he loses sight of his aim.”  The judges in the New York cases were a pair of clowns, neither of them capable of putting up a convincing juridical front. Arthur Engoron mugged for the cameras and displayed open disdain for the president, expressed through remarks more apt to come from a Vyshinsky or Freisler than any American jurist. Juan Merchan refused to recuse himself despite his daughter raising funds off the case. It was clear enough what these cases were actually about. Members of the public who had never quite grasped what “lawfare” was understood it for the first time.

Tanya Chutkan of the D.C. District court was a bare cut above this, with some sense of judicial responsibility almost despite herself, finding for the defense at several points, though with considerable ill grace. Aileen Cannon, on the other hand, was exactly the kind of judge everybody hopes to get. Although it became clear that she had been skeptical of Jack Smith’s case from the first, she gave no sign of this while peeling the case down layer by layer until it essentially fell apart on its own.

By this point, a new election was looming, and with it a dilemma. Rather than a worthwhile candidate, the party had chosen Joe Biden (backstabbing Bernie Sanders in the process), a man known to be suffering from cognitive decline, presumably on the grounds that he’d be easily managed. Unfortunately, Biden was personally belligerent, stubborn, and with an overblown sense of his own toughness.

The issue came to a head earlier this year when Biden’s dementia became undeniable at the exact point that the presidential election was heating up. A debate was “arranged” with Donald Trump in which Biden’s shortcomings were in full view. (There exists a video of Trump’s campaign team watching the “debate” in open-mouthed shock. Lara Trump visibly says “What the f…” at the end.) Slow Joe was eased out immediately afterward.

Then the other Bitcoin dropped. Kamala Harris had been selected as VP as 25th Amendment insurance. A cackling hyena of a woman with not a thought in her head and a command of English rivalled only by the Marx Brothers at their peak, Harris was unfit to lead any ticket anywhere at any time – a fact made evident to the population of the planet in short order.

We can presume that the committee planned an open primary – that’s what was claimed, anyway. But on his way out the door, Biden poison-pilled the party by “endorsing” Harris. Biden’s handlers – whoever they might have been – had no real choice but to go with the worst politician in the U.S. Caught in their own trap, they were committed despite themselves.

At first the DNC chose a combination of the Obama messiah strategy coupled with the Biden 2020 basement strategy. But the difficulty here was that they were mutually exclusive: messiahs must prove their messiahhood by going out among the people. This opened Harris’s weaknesses to public scrutiny.

None of this was helped by Biden himself, who – likely under the guidance of Jill – was blatantly undermining the Harris campaign with a series of remarks culminating in the infamous “garbage” comment. Call him slow, call him over the hill – Joe was going to go down fighting. He’d taken down Cornpop, and he‘d damn well take down Kamala, too.

There was no plan B. No alternatives. No sign of any actual plan at all, apart from the actions of a pack of would-be Machiavellis in way over their heads, reacting to events stupidly and late. For all practical purposes putting in motion the very catastrophe they wanted to avoid. Which came in letters of fire on Nov. 5.

So, is there in fact a “committee”? A camarilla with a master plan stretching across decades and enmeshing the entire society? A secret group with the world’s switches at its fingertips?

I don’t know. And I don’t think it matters much. Because from the record of events, it’s clear that whoever is in charge is an idiot. Obama, you say? Obama never got it clear in his mind that the U.S. was not Indonesia and the White House was not the sultan’s palace. His habit of living like a grandee while ruling with “a phone and pen” accomplished little of substance.

His crew was no better. Recall “Operation Fast and Furious,” which sold weapons to the cartels for the purpose of tracking whose hands they ended up in… with no means of actually doing so. Consider the absolute clown show of COVID, which began with the government appointing as “COVID czar” the very man who had triggered the pandemic in the first place and went downhill from there.

All this pales when we come to Iran. If a “plan” actually exists there, its details beggar the imagination.  Fund the most virulent, America-hating terrorist state in the world to the tune of hundreds of billions? Assure that it develops nuclear weapons? The only way this makes sense is if the committee is chaired by somebody named “Jarrett” who is acting for the home team.

This is, evidently, the best that the American Left has to offer. We could almost hope that such a group exists, because they’d be so simple to beat.

The committee, if it exists, failed to take adequate measure of their man. They had contempt for Trump, contempt for MAGA, and, contempt for America as a whole. In the end, it inevitably turned and bit them.

(As for those crying out, “You don’t understand… it’s part of the plan… They’re looking ahead to 2028… It’s all worked out…” That’ll be covered in part two. Or maybe part thirty-two. Or part seventy-two.)

So much for the Committee mystique – the aura of invincibility and omniscience is gone, and once that goes, there’s no getting it back. Best to drop the idea, particularly in light of the restoration.  Thinking like this tends to paralyze the will, to make all actions seem hopeless, all goals impossible to achieve. Nobody has ever acted with the level of efficiency that is postulated here. Nobody runs the world.

It has been a rough and frightening four years, with many of us wondering if we would soon suffer the same fate as Bannon or the J6 insurgents.  You can’t blame some people for overreacting. But it’s a new dawn, and things are changing. It’s time to put away the thinking of the dark times. As the man said, “Do not take counsel of your fears.” It’s never as bad as it seems, and they’re never as smart as they think they are.

Image: AT via Magic Studio