In a recent edition, I wrote about how most people most of the time choose to believe in the existence of certain eternal rules that powerful figures must obey, and how they continue to believe in these rules even as powerful figures break them over and over again.
As if proving my point, a reader replied with a commonly held opinion that holds that Donald Trump’s attacks on Social Security are going to be a bridge too far for his own supporters. The cracks are showing, this reader said. If even a fraction of magaland breaks away, it’s over.
I think it’s important to challenge this conventional wisdom, because it allows people to believe that politics in America is like an act of God. With it, they can indulge the idea that outcomes are not the product of blood, sweat and tears. Instead, outcomes just … happen, as they are “supposed to” in this exceptional country, this shining city on the hill.
In the case of Social Security, what’s supposed to happen is that any attempt by a Republican to change the safety-net program will be met with instant political death. They touched the proverbial third rail.
But that’s not happening. The regime is damaging Social Security, on purpose, by cutting thousands of staffers, implementing phony “anti-fraud” measures, and by generally rendering it dysfunctional.
In time, the regime will argue that the only solution to the “shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud” in Social Security, as Trump said in the State of the Union address, is to privatize it.
Former Director of the Social Security Administration Martin O’Malley said as much: “What they’re trying to do, even as they threaten to close offices, is to jam them up and give people the worst possible experience they can have. Then after wrecking it, they can rob it.”
In other words, the regime is breaking certain eternal rules that most people most of the time choose to believe will constrain powerful figures all by themselves. The political reaction is still taking shape, but whatever it is, it should not be rooted in the mistaken belief that certain eternal rules will constrain powerful figures all by themselves.
I’m going to challenge the conventional wisdom another way by saying that everyone overestimates the willingness of Americans to “rise up in protest” of the regime's attacks on Social Security. At the same time, we underestimate the willingness of Americans to just accept what's going on if it unfolds slowly enough and under cover of enough lies.
We are already seeing a preview of this with Signalgate. That’s the story about the country’s highest-level national security officials talking about war plans on an unsecure messaging platform, compromising military operations and government secrets. It wasn’t one of the most stunning breaches. It was the most stunning breach.
The public reaction was fearsome, with three quarters of Americans saying the debacle was serious and deserving of accountability. Even a majority of Republicans said as much, according to a CBS News poll.
One week later, however, and the regime is now saying “case closed.”
Classified information about airstrikes in Yemen was shared on Signal. A respected journalist was “accidentally” included. Jeffrey Goldberg published some of the texts, proving their sensitive nature.
The truth was in plain sight, but even so, no one has been held responsible and no one will be. The regime lied with so much force, consistency and ruthlessness that the press corps has dropped it, and as a consequence of that, everyone else is going to drop it, too.
You could say Signalgate and Social Security are too different to compare. One is about abstractions, like government secrets and national security. The other is about something that’s as concrete as it gets. You could say there’s no way people are going to drop it if those monthly checks don’t come on time or if elders are on the streets.
But remember the conventional wisdom: that the regime’s attacks on Social Security are going to be a bridge too far even for Trump’s supporters and that once a fraction of them break away, it’s over.
That presumes something that the liberal opposition should never presume, which is that Trump supporters will blame him. Fact is, they will blame whatever he tells them to. If those checks do not come on time, if grandma is forced to live on the streets, it’s not going to be his fault. It’s the fault of fraud or incompetence or inefficiancy – or a deep state that’s trying to stop Trump from making America great again.
Liberals presume that Trump voters will lose faith the moment they encounter hardship as a result of his actions. It will be the reverse, almost certainly. Their faith will deepen, as their suffering deepens.
And Trump voters will get behind him even more, to their own detriment, if he faces public protest over Social Security. He could crack down on demonstrators in the name of “national security” and fighting “terrorism.” He has has already said that a tell-all book written by a former administration official was “designed to sow chaos and distrust” in the government. Such crimes are now being cited as reason for deporting virtually anyone to a Salvadoran prison.
Liberals tend to put Trump voters at the center of American politics, because that’s what the Washington press corps does. But in doing so, liberals make themselves dependent on the continuation of certain eternal rules working in their favor, even when they no longer apply.
The regime is only three months old, but it is already sparking a major political reaction. Whatever it becomes, it should be on its own terms, not terms that were defined during a political age different from ours.