Jeffrey Tucker on government reform

Headline (possible paywall):

Reform in Government Is the World’s Biggest Challenge

What is your sense so far of Trump 2.0? Everyone has an answer these days. It’s likely quite intense, too.

 

That is because the arrival of Trump in Washington for a second time has engaged the public as civic spectators more than ever before. We have information systems in place that give us real-time access. We can watch the cabinet meetings, the press conferences, the events, even as they happen, and through many different sources. This is access without precedent.

 

One thing has become clear: reforming the government is even harder than we had believed.

 

The first 100 days were for the ages. The appointments have been smart and high level. Many executive orders have been inspiring. The expectations for great progress have been extremely high. It seemed as if most issues were going to be solved in public health, the budget, waste and fraud, transparency, cover-ups from the previous administration, and so much more.

 

That was then. Now matters are different. There is a perception extant that everything has stalled. The appointees themselves have faced countless internal battles. The court blockages are overwhelming. The bureaucracies and the industries that control them are clearly trying to outlast the political appointees in this administration.

 

This is what they have done for a full century. The real rulers of Washington have typically not been the temporary office holders but rather the deeper stakeholders, i.e. the permanent state which largely ignores elections.

Above, in that last quoted paragraph, Tucker refers to the saner definition of the "deep state." There are all sorts of wild-eyed, paranoid definitions of the term, but the idea of the deep state as merely that bureaucratically "permanent" aspect of government that (1) outlasts transient presidents, (2) has its own agenda, and (3) possesses a massive inertia—that definition of the term strikes me as plausible and commonsensical, almost to the point of being trivial. Government bureaucrats are, after all, a reality, and with their decades-long terms of service, they do indeed outlast any given president, even the two-termers. It also stands to reason that this mass of bureaucrats is aware of itself as a mass of bureaucrats, which means (4) the members of this deep state possess a certain self-protectiveness: they don't want to see anything violent or extreme done to the bureaucracy of which they are a part. So, as with all institutions big and small, the deep state keeps self-preservation high on the list of its priorities. This puts it at odds with any president who wants to reform it.

At this point in history, the deep state has had centuries, in the US at least—maybe longer in places like Europe and Russia—to develop a vast coat of armor around itself. The job of dismantling this armor, merely to have the opportunity of piercing the flesh beneath—is a labor of generations. Can it even be done? I have no clue. This isn't the Death Star from "Star Wars," killable with a single torpedo that pierces the thing's core.

But Tucker offers a word of hope:

Just watching the unfolding of events in real time, and witnessing the sheer perfidy and malevolent wiliness of the legacy establishment, one is stunned and in awe of the power of that which the good guys are confronting. No wonder so many generations of reformers have simply given up!

 

Meanwhile, the mainstream media has taken great joy in documenting the inability of Trump’s appointees to control the bureaucracy and the industries that have captured them. It’s as if all the usual suspects are cheering for the establishment over the idealists.

 

And let’s face it. The reformers in government now are in the several dozens but the agencies and the industries that direct them number in the millions controlling hundreds of billions if not trillions. The reformers are doing their best but they inhabit a world built and run by someone and something else.

 

As a result, they are outgunned at every turn. For now.

 

I have no doubt about the sincerity of DOGE and MAHA and MAGA. But we should not be naive about the prospects in Washington. There is more going on in these systems, something the rest of us cannot fathom, something that the appointees cannot control.

 

We should resist the cynical conclusion that all of public life and the debates we have are for naught, that the real powers are in hiding and will forever be in control. Surely not, not in the long run. The long run requires not just a change in the elected regime but a complete revolution in public opinion that can demand change from the outside.

Is this realistic? I guess only time will tell. Read the rest.