By Stephen Combs.
‘We inherited a deadline. We did not inherit a plan’ – Secretary of State Antony Blinken
Yes, Mr. Blinken. You also inherited secure borders, an historic Middle East peace agreement, low inflation, economic prosperity, energy independence, and trepidation in China and Iran.
Understanding why the left remains united when conservatives wither at the sound of imaginary boogeymen under the bed requires only a visit to F.A. Hayek’s classic work on socialism, The Road to Serfdom. Published in 1944, it explains events of today – occurring right now, this week – with more clarity and precision than anything coming out of the Internet press. (The state-friendly legacy media continue to play down the Afghanistan hostage and border crisis stories.)
The socialist left stays united because the retention and growth of power – its only goal – requires absolute loyalty to the cause. Absolute loyalty means that no departure from the script, not even a nuanced interpretation of a minor detail, is tolerated.
That is why Trump’s judicial and cabinet appointments passed with only Republican votes. That is why 19 lily-livered Senate Republicans went along with Biden’s blue-state bailout with your tax dollars.
And it means handing over one’s individual identity to the state in exchange for group identity and classification by race and skin color. This is the party of segregation, the party of grievances, the party of totalitarian rule.
No matter the absurdity of a policy, unquestioned support is demanded. This is how the tribe stays together. If the state dictator in Michigan or New York or Oregon orders her citizens to wear masks outside in the fresh air, the majority, as we are seeing around the country, dutifully comply.
Look around and see for yourself. This, says Hayek, is how the left controls “the lowest common denominator which unites the largest number of people.” By forcing compliance, the dictator (governor, president, head of the National Institutes of Health, local rent control enforcer, Amtrak ticket clerk) “will be able to obtain the support of all the docile and gullible, who have no strong convictions of their own but are prepared to accept a ready-made system of values if it is only drummed into their ears sufficiently loudly and frequently.”
Because Democrats are united and Republican leadership is spineless and malleable, and with no pressure from state media, there have been no firings or resignations among the hapless characters whose botching of our surrender to the Taliban can only be described as a catastrophic failure. As of this writing on Thursday afternoon, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, and the president himself remain locked in place, going nowhere.
They have no shame, and nobody with influence is forcing shame upon them. A constitutional conservative in this situation would have been driven from office by now. A Japanese business executive caught in such scandal would resign for certain, maybe even commit hara-kari. But not this sad crowd. Being a leftist means never having to say you’re sorry.
But some are trying, to force the shame, that is.
“The proper remedy for such a failure, and the gobsmacking dereliction of duty and stain on America’s reputation such a failure represents, remains Blinken’s prompt resignation,” Newsweek opinion editor Josh Hammer writes in Tuesday’s New York Post. Blinken, he says, “doubled down on the well-worn Democratic tactic of blaming Uncle Joe’s predecessor, the nefarious Orange Man.”
And if you weren’t paying attention, our equally-incompetent Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, acknowledges that he doesn’t know how to stop the uncontrolled invasion at our southern border, 212,672 briefly detained in July alone and untold numbers who got away. Thursday night, more than 10,000 illegal immigrants, mostly from Haiti, were milling around under the international bridge in Del Rio, Texas, waiting for their plane tickets, cash, and Medicaid cards. (Helpful suggestion for Mr. Mayorkas: Shut the gate, lock the lock, close the border. Finish the wall.)
The FAA ordered Fox News to stop filming the chaos from its drone. Fox said it will ignore the order, and did get it rescinded.
Mayorkas also welcomes the thousands of unvetted Afghans – most of them labeled “interpreters” but who don’t speak English – like all immigrants, he says, people who “enrich the fabric of our nation.”
Resignations and firings are unlikely, but we’ll see. If Gen. Mark Milley, presently in the eye of this storm, survives this week, he may be home free. The journalistic novelist Bob Woodward and Washington Post colleague Bob Costa’s accusation that Milley went around the chain of command to sabotage President Trump may have legs. But one must remember that Woodward has a wildly vivid imagination and has manufactured some real whoppers over the last 40 years.
Just remember Deep Throat, Woodward’s composite source on Watergate. Remember William Casey, whom Woodward claims he interviewed in 1987 while the former CIA director lay comatose on his deathbed from a stroke. Remember the unsourced, anonymous leaks from the Trump White House, every one of them designed to scuttle a duly elected presidency.
Still, as Dan Bongino noted this week, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. But we must remember that Woodward’s claims are not evidence, a rule of law concept the socialist left does not understand. And let’s hope the truth emerges.
Unless voters snuff it out at the voting station, socialism leading to dictatorship will only continue to grow. We are seeing this today at all levels of government, from local school boards to the White House. The reason for this, as Hayek explains, is that the economic and social planner in charge “will soon be confronted with the alternative of either assuming dictatorial powers or abandoning his plans.” We recall no record of a dictator abandoning his plans with the explanation that socialism doesn’t work.
Central planning prevails only when it becomes dictatorial, for no rational person would choose it.