That Look Of Indifference

     You’ll find it on many a face in our political Establishment. To what are they indifferent? Why, to you, of course:

     How many Americans support this war for democracy? This war for democracy that Americans for some reason can’t vote on? Why don’t we have a national referendum on all this as long as we’re leveling a country on behalf of democracy? It might be nice to try democracy here, but no. It’s all so grotesque. It defies imagination, really.

     But imagine if you were watching all of this, the spectacle from your home in East Palestine, Ohio, a home that is still stinking of chemicals you can’t identify. Here you have the president of the United States, personally visiting a corrupt foreign autocrat to announce a half a billion dollars more in your tax dollars to go to Ukraine. Meanwhile, you’re stuck in some lost and forgotten part of Ohio, the state that helped build this country, have a mushroom cloud over your city. The animals are dying. The water is glowing,

     And yet, for more than two weeks after all of this started with the famous train derailment, FEMA and the Biden administration have refused to provide any kind of financial assistance to you. East Palestine still hasn’t even gotten a visit, a token visit, from Joe Biden’s token transportation secretary, Mayor Pete, and after two weeks, people in East Palestine are starting to notice.

     Who has visited East Palestine? Donald Trump. The man the Establishmentarians were one and all unanimous in hating. The man they resolved to expunge from the White House. The man who asked “What’s the point of NATO?” – a highly relevant question, three decades after the fall of the Soviet Union. But the Establishmentarians were desperate to see it erased from the public discourse. Its answer is inimical to their interests.

     But let’s get back to that mask of indifference. They’re indifferent to you because they’ve achieved a state of…well, I really shouldn’t call it grace, but anyway, a state in which they are convinced that you can no longer remove them from their places at the levers of national power. The past two elections have established that, in their minds at least. And so they can concentrate on what matters to them personally: the care and feeding of those who maintain them in power and luxury.

     Many a Web commentator has said that “There’s no voting our way out of this.” I’ve come to believe it, but it’s far more important for my Gentle Readers to understand that the Establishment believes it. It’s the end state they’ve long desired: a “democracy” in which voting can change nothing. And by their words and deeds, they demonstrate their faith in it regularly.

     The United States Treasury, to which I most painfully wrote a check this very morning – take it from me, self-employment is a mixed blessing – exists to fund only those undertakings that benefit the Establishment. The money came from you, and owing to deficit spending from generations to come as well, but it is yours no longer. It will be spent on matters of at best no importance to you. Some of the expenditures will be for things intended to reduce you to penury and de facto serfdom. Think about that as you fill out your Form 1040 this year.