Trump’s Picks; Political Cognitive Dissonance
Donald Trump’s recent nominations for important Cabinet and regulatory government positions have sparked outrage, fear, and sheer disbelief among many progressive Americans who, one year ago, were rooting for Donald Trump to become the Republican candidate for President.
As the old saying goes: Be careful what you wish for because you might get it.
POLITICAL DISSONANCE
More importantly, Mr. Trump’s recent selections seem to be the source of widespread and growing political cognitive dissonance among his progressive critics. They have great faith in government bureaus, after all. That’s why they’re progressives.
Yet—yet!—Mr. Trump appears to be appointing many non-progressives to head up the very sanctuaries and citadels of progressive trust: government regulatory agencies, departments, and diplomatic posts.
This might lead to a situation progressive cannot imagine: Government sanctuaries and citadels unworthy of progressive faith.
What then? What will progressives do? Where will progressives turn?
Surely progressives cannot channel their trust and hope toward private citizens and private businesses and private organizations and private research and private ingenuity?
Making things better and solving human problems through bureaucratic control of everything in the private sphere (abortion excepted), after all, was the very raison d'être for creating the progressive regulatory-administrative-welfare state. At least, from the point of view of progressive activists.
THE REAL PURPOSE OF MODERN GOVERNMENT
And here we start to catch a glimpse of the little lie, the slight-of-hand that is the ultimate cause for the current fracas over Mr. Trump’s appointments:
The real purpose of the progressive regulatory-administrative-welfare state never was about making things better or solving human problems. Invention, innovation, and productive work make things better and solve human problems, after all.
The real purpose of the progressive regulatory-administrative-welfare state, rather, was and remains to market, advocate for, and expand the powers of the progressive regulatory-administrative-welfare state.
And usually that includes tossing taxpayer-funded perks to crony friends, even helping some of them maintain monopolies, which would be impossible without government power and control over entire industries.
The real purpose of the progressive regulatory-administrative-welfare state, in other words, was and remains a political purpose. Its purpose is to expand the ruling power of those who currently hold the power to rule.
SAY IT AIN’T SO!
Here are some examples of what this means, hard as it is for many people to believe or understand:
- The real purpose of the Department of Education and public schools is not about teaching kids. It’s to market, advocate for, and expand the powers of the progressive regulatory-administrative-welfare state.
- The real purpose of the Department of Health and Human Services is not about improving health care or providing human services. It’s to market, advocate for, and expand the powers of the progressive regulatory-administrative-welfare state.
- The real purpose of the Environmental Protection Agency is not about protecting the environment. It’s to market, advocate for, and expand the powers of the progressive regulatory-administrative-welfare state.
- The real purpose of the Food and Drug Administration is not about Americans selecting the foods and medicines they think best or value the most. It’s to market, advocate for, and expand the powers of the progressive regulatory-administrative-welfare state.
- The real purpose of the Department of Labor is not about Americans forming productive business partnerships and improving their own lives by creating value for others. It’s to market, advocate for, and expand the powers of the progressive regulatory-administrative-welfare state.
See a theme?
Every subject marketed by the progressive regulatory-administrative-welfare state—whether it be race, gender, the economy, the income gap, education, housing, health care, social justice, or the global climate, it doesn’t matter!—ends with the same conclusion: expanding the powers of the progressive regulatory-administrative-welfare state.
There are enough examples to fill a book, but here let’s identify just one: Education.
Taxpayer spending on public education has shot upward like a rocket over the last half-century. Even more striking, the bureaus of government education experts and regulators have grown into gigantic armies of bureaucrats. At all levels of government.
Yet, American student learning levels have been mostly flat over those many decades, and in some key areas have gone down.
Yet, anyone who challenges or questions the education bureaus and programs within the progressive regulatory-administrative-welfare state is almost always dismissed by progressives as not caring about kids or learning, etc. That’s how deep progressive faith in government sanctuaries and citadels runs.
WILL UNWAVERING PROGRESSIVE FAITH IN GOVERNMENT, WAIVER?
And that’s the cause for the current political dissonance over Donald Trump’s recent nominations for key Cabinet and regulatory government positions: He seems to be appointing people who do not share the unquestioned progressive faith in government bureaus and programs—people whose purpose is not to market, advocate for, and expand the powers of the progressive regulatory-administrative-welfare state—to head up the progressive regulatory-administrative-welfare state.
Which means the very progressive regulatory-administrative-welfare state that progressives help to build and in which they’ve placed all their faith—even though it’s been clear all along that the real purpose of the progressive regulatory-administrative-welfare state is helping itself, not helping others—might become something unworthy of progressive trust and hope.
And that is a scary prospect, from a progressive point of view.
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