Note: This is the time of year to be generous to those in need, so if you are looking for a place to give, here is an option. Most certainly know the story, but for those who do not, here is the background.
A feature of a ruling elite in decline is that they no longer respect the rules they have in place to govern their own behavior. Every society has a ruling class and within that ruling class there is competition. Despite what the natural rights proponents argue, there is a natural desire for hierarchy. Some people want to be at the top, while others aim a bit lower. Humans will compete for positions on the status tree in every form of human organization.
That is why ruling elites need rules. These rules are about governing the natural competition that will exist inside the ruling class. These rules also govern how one can enter the ruling class and how one can be expelled. As is true of all human organizations, the first question every ruling class must answer is “who are we?” and the answer to that question is a set of rules that define who is in, how you get in and how you remain in the ruling class.
In a healthy ruling class, as with any healthy human organization, the rules are more of a state of mind than a written set of laws. The early Roman republic had rules and those rules were the spirit that animated the republic. Brutus did not have to be told the rules, with regards to his sons actions in the Tarquinian conspiracy. He stood and watched stoically as his sons were executed for their crimes against the republic, thus making Brutus the ever lasting symbol of republican virtue.
Over time of course, human nature takes over and people begin to nibble away at the spirit of those rules, which inevitably results in some sort of formal codification of the rules, if for nothing else than to make it easier to handle disputes. The spirit of the law gives way to the letter of the law and the enforcement of the rules by the people benefitting from the present interpretation of the rules. It is that last bit that leads to the final phase of every ruling elite.
When the rules are first written down, everyone agrees on the meaning of the text, but over time that comes into dispute. On the one hand, people at the lower end of the status tree seek advantage in any ambiguity. If they can get everyone to agree on some new meaning of a word or phrase, they can maybe arbitrage that ambiguity to their advantage and move up the status tree. On the other hand, the people at the top want to stay at the top, so they soon engage in the same practice.
The fact is, once the ruling elite begins to question their own rules, the ruling elite is dead in spirit, because there is no turning back from this phase. The reason is they no longer have a shared spirit of the rules. The written rules were an effort to recapture that spirit by throwing a net of words over the hole, but that inevitably leads to people looking for holes in the net. Outsiders use the holes to sneak into the elite and insiders use the holes to oust competitors from the elite.
We have a real world example of this happening. The House has dumped Donald Trump’s tax returns into the public. This is probably their final act of spite against Trump, as the Republicans take over next month. Spite is the correct word here. The reason for doing it is they hope something in it will embarrass Trump. This is a remarkable thing in that these people have obsessed over Trump for going on a decade and they have yet to learn that you cannot embarrass Donald Trump.
Putting that aside, it has been a rule in America since the 16th Amendment was passed that a citizen’s relationship with the federal state with regards to his taxes is a private matter, unless a dispute arises about taxes owed. At that point, the matter goes into a court where the necessary evidence is presented. The IRS does not distribute personal tax data and the individual is under no obligation to publish his tax data. In fact, anyone publishing someone’s tax data is breaking the law.
This issue of privacy with regards to tax data is mostly a ruling class privilege, but like all elite privileges, it has been turned into a moral principle. You see, the rich people gaming the tax system do not have to make this public because it is a sacred principle of America that your taxes remain private. Whether this is a good idea is debatable, but for over a century, everyone in power agreed it was a good idea. So much so they ran Nixon off for merely questioning it.
Now, the people releasing Trump’s tax data are not worried about this happening to them if Trump wins the White House in 2024. First of all, the key states have been fortified for democracy, so everyone knows the 2024 result. What they should be concerned with is someone in the system now using this new loophole to leverage their way up the ladder. Normalizing the release of private tax data is a high price to pay for exacting revenge against Trump.
That is the danger of exceptions. They have knock on effects that are not always easy to assess, but they also do something else. Normalizing this sort of gainsaying erodes trust in the rules. If every comma in the law is now up for interpretation, what is the point of having rules? History tells us that the answer to that question is a man on a horse choosing to cross a river. In other words, the rules based society collapses and something or someone replaces it.
In the fullness of time, the historians will look at the Trump business as an example of the steady decline of the American empire. Trump may be cast as the Gracchi brothers, not for what he did but for what he came to represent. The murder of Tiberius Gracchus normalized the use of violence by the elite in defense of power. The grotesque abuse of power by the regime to counter the populist surge represented by Trump has yet to go that far, but there is still time until the next “election.”
If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!
Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that makes coffee. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.
Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.
Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb. Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.
Why exactly are the (((elites))) so spiteful and vicious? For example, why is it necessary for (((them))) not only to destroy Confederate monuments, but give them to “black history” museums for further humiliation and desecration?
The (((elites))) can plunder, but they completely incapable of ruling.
6
I can’t wait for all the hot takes from journalists and pundits who have no understanding of the real estate business or business law for that matter on Trump’s tax return. They will probably be outraged he took depreciation. The only thing we will learn is that Trump exaggerates his wealth which any thinking person who has observed his career already knew.
2
Exactly.
Taxes are so ridiculously complex, not one person in a million could possibly hope to understand Trump’s taxes.
Que the “experts”, who’ll tell the hoi polloi what to think. Half will think “nothing burger”; half will think “this is just as bad as the Big H’s Tax return!”.
Why do this besides pure spite?
It’s a warning to populists, particularly wealthy ones: “Don’t play in our pool, or we will destroy you, and everyone you care about.”
The term “elite” only makes sense in the narrow definition of those at the top of the hierarchy. In the sense of being better suited for rule, our “elites” are anything but. Arnold Toynbee’s observation that creative minorities (true elites) become replaced by dominant minorities (elites in name only) applies here
6
At this point, I think all normal people are not even enraged, or surprised by what the people in charge are doing with Trump. It’s starting to edge into creepy/obsessional territory. Adam Schiff parading around with Trump’s personal information comes off now more like some rebuffed stalker who’s built a shrine to the girl who refused to go out on a date with him. The bug eyes don’t help the impression, either. I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow Schiff announced his intention to aloe up Trump’s skin so he can wear his orange carcass as a suit, a la Buffalo Bill or Ed Gein.
The weirdest part of all is that they think the “alt right” “white supremacist’s” “normal white people” still like Trump and are somehow hurt by this theater. Even the Idiocracy types who who wear the red hats and go to his rallies seem to have mostly abandoned the Trump Train, but that has more to do with his NFTs than Adam Schiff making secret recordings of Melania Trump’s snoring at night.
As for everyone else, even those who don’t like Trump, the exigencies of the bad economy are getting too great for this to satisfy all but the most fanatical (or wealthy) of them. Answering “Hey, I can barely afford to feed my family” with “Here’s a carbon copy of Trump’s 1040” isn’t cutting it anymore. We’ve said it a million times, but here’s a million and one: things can’t keep going like this without something really, really bad happening, and soon.
10
I have my fingers crossed for mass assassinations.
2
Our political and media classes are filled with second- or third-rate people: attention whores, status chasers, Hooters girls, and welfare queens. All the intelligent people are in other fields. So we get the Adam Schiffs and Lindsay Grahams. I suspect anyone who runs for office is some kind of psycho. I hate to say that about Blake Masters or Matt Gaetz or Ron DeSantis, but maybe it’s true.
We are a long way from the Serious Men in Charge we saw in The Hunt for Red October or Thirteen Days. People should look at our political class like Venezuelans or Bulgarians look at theirs. Just a bunch of corrupt freaks. Sorry Boomers. What a shame.
I should have written “better” rather than “intelligent” people
If we haven’t had our “Gracchus” moment, we’ve come right up to that line. And it’s not just Trump. Over the past several years, the elite have shown that they will destroy (or, at least, do their best) the life or business of anyone who even mildly opposes them.
They’ve absolutely proven that they will destroy the life of any normal person. The Jan. 6 demonstrators are proof of that. But they’ve also moved up the ladder to attack politicians and business people.
They destroyed the career of Steve King. They have done their best to destroy Trump, a billionaire. When Musk, another billionaire, tried to make Twitter a bit more free, businesses pulled out immediately and he has been the subject of never-ending media attacks.
It’s now crystal clear that anyone – even the rich and supposedly powerful – who opposes the elite will have their business or career attacked and probably destroyed, they will be sued and they will be smeared publicly with no ability to push back.
The only line that the elite haven’t crossed for the wealthy and/or public figures is violence and arrest. Since they’ve already crossed that line for average people, it’s not hard to believe that they’ll move up the scale as well. And why wouldn’t they. There’s no group that even comes close to the power of the elite, much less that could fight back.
The elite has complete power at the moment, and we know what complete power does to people. The elite also feel completely sure of their moral superiority. That combination will lead them to cross the line sooner or later, or to just rig the system so completely as to not need to cross the line.
Why kill a competing politician when you simply don’t let him win. Why put Musk in jail when you can simply take his business away and keep him from having a public microphone. There are many forms of violence and way to kill a man.
7
The only line that the elite haven’t crossed for the wealthy and/or public figures is violence and arrest.
Roger Stone might disagree.
As for violence, well, only for the inconvenient, so far. There are an awful lot of “suicides” going around.
1
Sort like what happened to Jack Ma in China. You don’t hear much about him anymore, after the CCP decided that he got too big for his britches.
The difference of course is that the CCP is run by Han Chinese – for the party members benefit of course but also the benefit of the Han Chinese people. The Han Chinese people have greatly benefitted, at least materially, from CCP rule, and are willing to overlook the police state, at least for now.
Our Western elite either believe they have no people, or are part of an alien people that has a long history of violence against our people.
There are almost no benefits to us in the current arrangement. They believe we need to be stomped out to the last one and made extinct. I don’t believe it’s an exaggeration to say “they hate you, and want you dead”. It seems like an untenable situation, but who knows how long it will last.
I suspect that if we were to set our timeline against the Roman one, we are in the Gracchi reforms era. Trump is the Elder and…God help us, Don Jr. is the Younger.
‘Tis the time of year for predictions, so if this does in fact set us up for a Red Caesar (Marius) then a Blue Caesar (Sulla) and back to Red (Julius) then at least we’ll get a return of the proscriptions list.
The only possible hereditary successor to Trump is Barron, and that’s if meme magic can turn him into the man 4-chan wishes him to be. Only the Trump/Melania genes can hope to create the Kwisatz Haderach.
The rest have the resolve of a limp dish rag.
Written rules, written law, the observable truth – nothing is sacred anymore – everything is open to interpretation now. Thus men can categorically be women and vis versa. It’s just getting embarrassing now, but the real problem is the power these turds hold and their increasing desire and willingness to wield it.
95% of the population couldn’t give two s**** over Trump’s tax returns. The insane obsession of the elites and average lefty with Trump is something to behold. The only other thing that seems to comes close is Ukraine – again which probably 99% couldn’t give two s**** about, but which, according to turtlehead, is America’s number one priority, bar none.