The Democratic Party as the master of the bureaucracy
The best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray
It sounded right on paper
America achieved independence, a beautiful anti-bureaucratic Constitution was adopted, and the United States of America was born. And the newly emerged government bureaucracy needed the power to govern. Unfortunately, by people’s nature, that power often becomes a drug, turning into an end goal for a bureaucrat or politician and the bureaucracy as a whole. The leader of the American bureaucracy at that time was one of the Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury and the most influential politician after George Washington. And a resolute "statesman,” a supporter of a strong bureaucratic federal government and its complete control of the economy and the entire life of the country.
The Founding Fathers were disgusted with the bureaucracy and the idea of parties defending the interests of separate groups. There is not a word about parties in the Constitution, and, unfortunately, the Founding Fathers did not foresee the possibility of the emergence of a party of bureaucrats, which would:
- Defend the interests of the bureaucracy
- Become an "integrating factor,” bringing together the efforts of many different bureaucracies, forming a common bureaucratic ideology and culture
- Manipulate people by imposing “Urbi et orbi” the will of the bureaucracy in the form of pseudo-religious ideologies...
The US Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787, and as early as 1789, Hamilton created the Federalist Party to fight for power of the federal bureaucracy and his own. In any society, the main struggle is between the desire for bureaucratic organization and market self-organization. The creation of a party of bureaucrats initiated the creation of a party of "marketers.” In 1792, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison formed the Republican Party[1], which so successfully pushed the bureaucracy out of power that by 1824 the Federalist Party lost the people's confidence and collapsed. But the bureaucrats have not gone anywhere as a social force! A holy place is never empty. The construction of a new party, which would serve the bureaucracy instead of the federalists, began immediately.
Predators on the hunt-Fight for spoils
The Republican Party included many different political forces and movements that were united by the struggle against the Federalists. Almost immediately after the collapse of the Federalist Party, the Republican Party split into several factions, the most powerful of which in 1728 appropriated the name "Democratic Party" and became a surrogate for the Federalist Party, taking on the function of protecting the interests of the bureaucracy. The creator and its first leader was a brilliant organizer and a brave warrior, an intelligent lover of power with inexhaustible energy - Andrew Jackson.
Interestingly, bureaucrats have always been quick to build their "fortresses"; the organization is their profession. Their opponents, though, could not find a common language for a long time; in reality, the recent Republican Party was formed only after a quarter century. And so, it has always been in the future - the bureaucrats were ahead of the Republicans in collective action. And today, in the US Congress and the states legislatures, individualists - Republicans vote mostly "at the behest of the personal consciousness or interests,” while collectivists - Democrats mostly "at the behest of the party authorities" like communists in the USSR and Nazis in Hitler's Germany[2].
The name "Democratic Party" had nothing to do with "classical democracy.” Its place was taken by "Jacksonian democracy,” aimed at strengthening the power of President Jackson personally and his bureaucracy to the detriment of the US Congress and the states’ legislatures. It was then that the stubborn attempts of the Democrats to rewrite and/or reinterpret articles of the Constitution that were inconvenient for them began.
However, the electoral tactics have changed dramatically. The Democrats began the fight for the votes of the poorest and most populous part of the nation. Pure demagogy was launched in a modern style - Jackson announced that the Democrats were "fighting for the poor." This was a half-truth—indeed, the Democrats then and today pursued two closely related goals:
- An open goal: to get the poor to vote for them - for this, they manipulated voters, deceived and bribed them, preferring to appeal to the lower level of the lower class - the most poorly educated and people unsuccessful for one reason or another.
- A hidden goal: to have as many poor people as possible. It is precisely this - the desire to increase their electoral base has become the reason that since the formation of the party, the Democrats have been ready to sacrifice the country's economy to their fight for power. After all, if the country is prosperous, many people move from the lower to the middle class, and the middle class prefers to vote Republican. It is this “let there be more poor people” policy that the Obama administration had demonstrated to us for eight years, and the Biden administration has been pursuing it for two years.
On becoming the President in the same 1728, Andrew Jackson proclaimed the "Spoils System" policy in which a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its supporters, friends (cronyism), and relatives (nepotism) as a reward for working towards the victory and as an incentive to keep doing it for the party and the President sharing the "loot" with them.
As long as Jackson was in power, he managed to control his administration, limiting its appetites firmly. But under successive presidents, the flaws of the Spoils System flourished. Unprofessionalism dominated the bureaucracy. The officials who received posts under patronage dutifully served "not the Cause, but the Boss,” easily skating around or breaking the laws. They actively interfered in politics and sought to influence voters so that the post of president would be taken or retained by their “Boss.” Justifiably suspecting they would be removed from power under the next president, they tried to cash in as quickly as possible, and corruption increased multifold.
Stupid French joke
At the beginning of 1830, during the formation of the Democratic Party, the French aristocrat Count Alexis de Tocqueville came to America “on tour.” Having poorly understood the country’s real life, he wrote the book “Democracy in America,” where, under the guise of describing America, he stated his utopian and superficial views on how society should be organized. Thanks to him, the word "democracy" lost its previously unpopular (with people well educated in history) association with the destructive ochlocracy and the power of demagogues, now turned into something like the "political correctness of the 19th century."
At the suggestion of a cheerful Frenchman, in America, democracy began to be used to call everything that the Democratic Party does, in the first place - the subordination of people to the power of bureaucrats. Here's what "democracy by Democrats " was and is:
- Before the Civil War, democracy was considered slavery, and the desire of the Confederates to destroy the country
- After that, the Ku Klux Klan, the Jim Crow segregation laws, then President Johnson's racist welfare that destroyed the life of the black community, political correctness that violated the first amendment of the Constitution, the provocative Critical Race Theory, and the George Floyd riots aimed at to turn white and black Americans against each other.
- The most critical “achievement” of democracy was the involving America in unnecessary wars - the First and Second World Wars, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the connivance of President Carter allowing the Ayatollahs to seize power in Iran, the "color revolutions" against the legitimate authorities of different countries, the bloody "Arab Spring,” etc. As well as pushing to power and supporting criminal regimes in other countries - the bloody dictator Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Pol Pot, who killed almost half of the population of Cambodia, Muslim brothers in Egypt, thieves like Poroshenko in Ukraine, etc.
- Democracy in the economy - created by the Federal Reserve for the seizure of power by the Democrats; the Great Depression, the destruction of the market economy by Franklin Roosevelt, then Obama; the massive loss of American jobs to other countries under Obama, the abundant funding of unnecessary, and often hostile to America, the UN, and NATO, costly and utterly senseless struggle against bureaucracy-invented climate change, destruction of the economy with the help of long-term lockdowns during and after Covid-19 pandemic
- Encouragement of crime via nomination and full support in alliance with Soros "kind to criminals" prosecutors to bills to defund the police because Black Lives Matter and White Lives do not that much
- Today, "democracy" is the insane rule under Joe Biden, skyrocketing gas prices, shortages America hasn't known since the early fifties, illegal immigration, the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan, pushing weapons into Ukraine to profit bureaucrats, and doubling the tax bureaucracy. …
Democrat's Crime
Today, the Democratic Party is a "servant of the state bureaucracy.” But under Jackson, it was the opposite; he took complete control of the federal administration and tried to ensure control of states’ bureaucracies, legislatures and judiciaries, and party (that is, his) control over states’ bureaucracies. The bureaucrats served the democrats. The Democratic Party did best in the Southern States, which, by their slave nature, were more prone to bureaucratic power.
By the middle of the 19th century, the influence of large planters increased in the Democratic Party; it turned into the leading ideologist and defender of slavery. The inversion of power has begun. Whereas under Jackson, the bureaucracy served the Democrats, now the Democrats were increasingly becoming servants of the bureaucracy.
But in the North, things were getting worse for the Democrats. The market-oriented Congress resisted the pressure from the bureaucrats. By 1854, the opponents of bureaucratic democracy could finally unite and form the pro-market Republican Party. A rapid decline in the strength and authority of the Democrats in the Northern states began.
And the Democratic Party embarked on a criminal, unconstitutional path - the violent destruction of the country. The Civil War started in 1861 - an attempt by the Democrats in alliance with the planters - slave owners to maintain their power and increase income from the sale of cotton and tobacco. In the South, the Democrats inspired the deadly fight for "freedom of slavery," and in the North, their faction, nicknamed the "copperheads," played the role of "fifth column[3]" spies and saboteurs who interfered with Lincoln and his troops as best they could.
America's New Age
Technological revolution and bureaucracy
In the history of civilization, from time to time, but rather slowly, new products appeared as the results of inventions or the discovery of new countries and the development of transport - caravans, river and sea routes. Sometimes this led to the strengthening of market forces and the temporary limitation of the power of the bureaucracy. Still, in one way or another, over time, the bureaucracy always regained its dominance. This was inevitable because, in any previous era, the number of people involved in market activities was minimal.
The technological revolution in the 19th century radically changed social development and its laws. Mass production emerged, and a wide variety of tools and technologies became available to many; it became possible to use the energy of steam engines everywhere and for various functions. The mass development of production led to the emergence of a mass market. Huge commodity and money flows involved more and more people in the market operation, including workers, farmers, and former slaves.
The main social result of the industrial revolution is the creation of enormous wealth, which automatically ends up in the hands of its creators and entrepreneurs, who ensure the commercialization of goods. Moreover, a significant part of this wealth was invested in new technologies and enterprises, which led to the next steps in the growth of the power of the market and the growth of the wealth beyond the control of the bureaucracy.
Money is a universal resource that provides power. Simply put: "Money is power." The market forces push the bureaucrats out of power and put them under the control of society. Bureaucracy, as a "living social system,” is characterized by the desire for self-preservation. It cannot give up its power and is preparing "counter strikes" to stop the market’s advance at any cost and extend its power to the "new wealth" of the technological revolution. This is achieved by a set of targeted strikes against society, including:
- Ensuring the integrity of the bureaucracy through the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act[4]
- Almost unlimited growth in the number of bureaucrats, their widespread over different areas (geographical, functional), which guarantees:
- The high stability of the power of the bureaucracy against attempts to control and limit it
- Penetration of bureaucracy "into all cracks,” revealing and capturing their share from any sources and flows of wealth or people and groups owing the wealth
- Entanglement of society with many instructions, restrictions, and prohibitions (political correctness, for example)
- Extensive opportunities for personal growth in the hierarchy and receiving various benefits
- Obstruction of commercial activity by a huge number of various restrictions, prohibitions, regulations, and extortion of money for permission to activities that, according to the Constitution, do not require any permissions
- Creation of allies within the "army of the market" that will follow instructions and share profits with bureaucrats, including:
- Pet businesspeople who receive profits at the mercy of the bureaucracy through lucrative government contracts, protection from competitors up to monopolization, etc.
- Managers and bureaucracy of large corporations, often acting against owners and shareholders in their favor and favor of the bureaucracy
- State-owned enterprises such as NASA operating on an anti-market basis
- Creation of allies in the "lower class" - alliance with the left parties and labor unions against the market and the middle class, the creation of the "welfare town behavioral sink[5]" system as a resource for the "Democratic party stormtroopers."
- Using the media to spread the image of the "friendly bureaucracies,” i.e., mostly anti-market leftist ideologies like Marxism
- Provoking internal conflicts in society, which perform three main functions:
- Make the bureaucracy necessary and allow it to grow powerfully under the pretext of the need to control the conflicts it has generated
- Restrict and inhibit the development of market forces, hindering commercial processes and disrupting businesses
- Give bureaucrats the ability to take wealth from people and businesses by creating and raising taxes and skimming commercial flows under the pretense of regulating and protecting them
- Provoking external conflicts (wars of various types) that perform the same functions as internal conflicts but also:
- Ensure the development and strengthening of the military-industrial complex with money allocated by society, and the bureaucracy appropriates a significant part of this money
- Provides the possibility of introducing martial law, which allows for a sharp increase in the power of the bureaucracy and the suppression of forces opposing it within the country
- Provides for international cooperation of allied and hostile bureaucracies, who help each other deal with their peoples by intimidating them with the "image of the enemy."
- Creation of high-cost and very prestigious bureaucratic projects that provide substantial skimming opportunities for the bureaucracy, for example:
- President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act on May 18, 1933, giving this organization (TVA) a status of a federal corporation to tackle essential problems the valley was facing. Shameful for America, the imitation of Stalin's socialist projects ended in complete failure
- Interesting from a technical point of view, projects for the flight to the Moon, the creation of a system of shuttles, the International Space Station, etc. that didn’t justify the expectations and costs
- Fictitious dangers like ozone holes or climate change, providing the possibility of withdrawing massive amounts of money from society in favor of the bureaucracy
- Collaboration with criminals, in particular:
- Formation of the Ku Klux Klan
- Pushing the prohibition as a "test of strength" of bureaucrats in the use of feminism and the birth of organized crime on its basis
- Creating a crime-tolerant atmosphere in welfare towns
- Weakening the police by various restrictions and prohibitions (such as profiling), smear campaigns, budget cuts, etc.
- The adoption by democratic states and cities of laws that reduce the punishment of criminals, the nomination by Democrats of "Soros prosecutors" who actively protect criminals from punishment, etc.
The parties of the bureaucracy
Parties, as groups of people fighting for specific interests and/or achieving certain goals, have been known since antiquity, from Ancient Greece and Rome. In the Middle Ages, the parties were mainly represented by different groups of the aristocracy fighting for power; later, there were parties representing the interests of market groups.
Before the industrial revolution, most of the "common people" were easily controlled by local bureaucracies. Sometimes, there were riots, and aristocrats were slaughtered, but in general, the bureaucrats arrogated to themselves the right to speak on behalf of the people. For example, in Italy, the Guelph party was for the power of the Pope, and the Ghibelline party was for the emperor’s power. In England, the Tories, in Russia - the monarchists were supporters of the unlimited power of the king, etc.
The technological revolution has changed this situation - now large groups of people - employees of agricultural farms, industrial enterprises, construction, transport, and so on, have come under the strong influence of market leaders - "capitalists.” And this, together with the accumulation of money, gave marketers a power that was dangerous for bureaucrats. Numerous free people became literate and learned how to think and understand the world around them, resulting in an unfriendly attitude towards bureaucracy. Realizing this, the bureaucracy started preferring anonymity and putting forward various "parties of statesmen" to fight for their interests. In America, the role of the "voice of the bureaucracy" was assumed by the Democratic Party, which united (explicitly or implicitly) its efforts with smaller "dummy parties" - leftists, socialists, anarchists, etc. who sought to set the workers against the "bourgeois.” For this, the leaders of the "deceptions" were given various privileges, for example, the opportunity to sit in parliaments and receive money.
Post-war splendor
The Southerners lost the Civil War; the Democratic Party, remaining the leader of the South for almost 40 years, was removed from power in the country. The market prevailed over “democracy,” and economic prosperity began!
Shortly before the war, kerosene lighting was invented, and the first oil wells were built. The kerosene lamp, in terms of its social consequences, has become one of the most significant inventions in the history of humanity. It lengthened daylight hours, allowing people and enterprises to work in the evening and at night, equivalent to an increase in social labor productivity by 25-30%[6]. It gave birth to the possibility of the evening reading, education, and self-education of people, which led to the spread of 100% literacy in developed countries, the enormous growth of newspapers and magazines, and the emergence of many publishing houses and writers.
The huge money that the trade in kerosene brought was invested in developing other branches of technology. In the 1880s, an “inventive paradise” situation developed in America, when instead of inventors looking for investors, the latter were looking for something to invest money in[7]. "Oil money" financed the works of Edison, Westinghouse, Bell, Tesla, and a host of other inventors. This has led to very rapid technological progress and the deployment of new industries (electrical, chemical, shipbuilding, automotive, etc.).
Many people tried to create something new, and many developments were effective. Inventions would easily find investors and were implemented much faster than today. Companies were created incredibly quickly; factories were built, sales were established, and so on. Here are a few typical examples of this all-American outbreak of invention:
- 1869 - patent of the brothers Hyatt for celluloid, 1872 - industrial production
- 1876, February - Bell's patent for the telephone, March - the first workable sample, August - 800 devices in use, January 1877 - the first central telephone exchange in New York
- 1879 - the beginning of Edison's work on electric lighting, in the mid-eighties – it’s a mass introduction – building power plants, producing fittings, lamps, etc.
- 1884 – Parsons’ patent for a steam turbine, 1889 - about 300 of these turbines are used to generate electricity; 1894 - the first ship with steam turbines and the beginning of the mass construction of such ships
- 1885 - machine gun designed by the American inventor Maxim. 1887 - adopted in England. By the end of the century, it was adopted by all major armies worldwide
- 1886 - the first patent for the production of aluminum by electrolysis. 1890 - the plant produced 40 tons and soon began to produce 450 tons per year. Aluminum prices have fallen dozens of times; its widespread introduction has already started
- 1888 - Tesla, Ferraris, and Dolivo-Dobrovolsky discovered the phenomenon of a rotating magnetic field based on multi-phase current systems. 1889 – the start of mass production of AC electric motors
Interestingly, a similar technological surge was also in Europe, but they spent more on military needs, and such an intense outbreak of innovation did not occur. America has taken the lead as the world's technological leader, and it seems like forever (unless bureaucrats like Biden and Co. stop it).
The Democratic Party as a servant of the bureaucracy
Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act
As a result of the economic takeoff in America, there was a lot of money and real products. The bureaucracy is always ready to take away wealth from its creators and spread it around, especially in their favor. And it went on the offensive with the help of her faithful servants - the Democratic Party. The worst blow to the country and its future came from Ohio Democratic Senator George Pendleton. Pendleton was an implacable opponent of Lincoln, an agent of Southern influence during the war, and the leader of the Democrats' fight against adopting the 13th Amendment[8] to the U.S. constitution. He drafted the Civil Service Reform Act, passed by Congress in 1883. The thoroughly rotten, corrupt Spoils system was replaced by the progressive Merit system, which gave rise to new principles for the formation of the federal bureaucracy, which subsequently spread to other bureaucratic systems:
1) Civil workers must be admitted through open competitive examinations depending on their business and professional qualities, education, qualifications, skills and abilities, length of work, etc.
2) It was forbidden to appoint, promote and dismiss an employee for political reasons
3) The political neutrality of the civil service was prescribed
It would seem - everything was okay. But…
"The devil is in the details"
Who had the right to decide - what is merit, and who had this merit[9]? Not the President, Congress, or even the immediate superior of some bureaucrat, but the bureaucratic Civil Service Commission, which was entrusted with monitoring the implementation of the Pendleton Act. That is, now only the bureaucracy itself was permitted to judge the suitability of a bureaucrat’s merit! For clerks striving to get their first positions or seasoned bureaucrats eager for a high post, only merits before the bureaucracy were important. And they could be kicked out only if, somehow, they inflicted harm to their gangs, for example, stole a lot and didn’t share the loot, or told the truth about their affairs ... No need to care about laws and morality - if anything - “they will cover their own.” This law made the bureaucracy untouchable and, therefore, omnipotent.
The Pendleton Act has become perhaps the most harmful law in American history. Based on Merit System. in the federal administration and other bureaucratic departments, unconstitutional, illegal (simply criminal, mafia-type) centers of power arose and became dominant, competing with constitutional power structures (executive, legislative and judicial) and governing the country in their interests. This is what today is called "shadow power" or "deep state.” The power of organized political crime and socialism in a slightly disguised way! Great America today slavishly follows the path blazed by the Russian Communists and the German Nazis. God Save America…
The creation of merit systems assumed that the bureaucracy, independent of politicians and parties, would be professional and apolitical, indifferent to who was in power - Republicans or Democrats. That every clerk will only care about the benefit of the state and not of a party or personal interests. In reality, everything turned out to be much worse. The bureaucracy and each of its clerks only care about their benefit. And therefore, the bureaucracy is not apolitical but "above-political.” That is, the bureaucracy does not serve politicians; it forces politicians to serve itself and selects the most convenient ones, those whom it can successfully manipulate, for this. And it is no coincidence that such people in the majority are Democrats. Although, as history has shown, excellent "agents of the bureaucracy,” corrupt officials, and thieves are sometimes forged from some members of the Republican Party.
Puppeteers
In the 21st century, the bureaucracy has invented new tricks in its constant quest for power. Inflating the essentially petty Watergate case, they took revenge on their enemy - President Richard Nixon, who helped Truman purge the bureaucracy and deprived them of huge profits by stopping the Vietnam War. Later, with the help of their billionaire puppet Ross Pero, the Democrats ousted President Bush Sr. from power and then used the 9/11 terrorist attack to force President Bush Jr. to do what the bureaucrats needed - to start wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And they created an extensive conspiracy against President Trump, including destroying the economy, instigating BLM riots in democratic cities, allowing illegal migrants to vote, manipulating the vote count, etc.
But the most impressive trick was the instant "recolor" of the party. Democrats have always been the leaders of racism and racial segregation – suddenly, everything changed magically! They achieved the election of the first black president - Barack Obama. Obama has served as an attorney for a small law firm and has held mid-level positions with various foundations and projects. From 1997 to 2004, he was an Illinois state senator and became a US senator in 2004. He did nothing outstanding in none of the positions - neither bad nor good—a worthy man, an average representative of the "Washington swamp,” a petty politician.
Politics is a challenging profession. People with unique qualities are usually promoted to the highest level in it, the main of which is the talent for solving non-trivial tasks, extensive experience in real leadership of people in difficult conditions (like military leaders), and/or large projects (like state governors and successful businesspeople like Hoover, Reagan, and Trump). A strong President must have a well-established "team" and big money to ensure their independence from the presidential bureaucracy.
Barack Obama had neither the experience of large-scale leadership, his team, nor his money. And no special merits or achievements other than skin color and a charming smile helped him immensely in the elections. Most Americans were proud - "we have outlived racism"! And the bureaucrats were also pleased – from the first step, the new President became their puppet[10], providing the opportunity to carry out the decisions that the bureaucrats needed, although harmful to the country. For example, the revival of the lucrative Cold War with Russia, the instigation of coups and civil wars in different parts of the world, and the introduction of many new rules and restrictions that allowed bureaucrats to rob businesses. And, of course, the strengthening of the electoral positions of the Democrats due to the general deterioration in the situation of the “prisoners of Welfare towns.”
Naturally, under Obama, there were “handlers” who did not allow him to act arbitrarily; for example, Valerie Jarrett, who introduced the young and charming Barack into high bureaucratic circles, made him a senator first of the state and then of the country, contributed to his nomination for President and all eight years of power "looked after" him. There were also “gray cardinals[11]” who manipulated him, for example, Vice President Joe Biden, an old experienced, and untalented bureaucrat, about whom Obama himself said that there was not a case that Joe could not fail. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - hostess of a bureaucratic brothel. However, these are just guesses; the bureaucracy is always very opaque, and there must have been other, little-known influential personalities ...
Who wins the fight between the scum and the villains?
As we mentioned, the most unexpected result of introducing the bureaucratic Merit System was the change in the relationship between the bureaucracy and the Democratic Party. Andrew Jackson managed in his time to put the power of the party and himself personally above the power of all administrations – as, in the former USSR, the Communist Party was above all authorities and laws. The Pendleton Act turned the relationship between the bureaucracy and the Democratic Party upside down, made the bureaucracy much stronger, and forced the Democrats to serve the bureaucrats. Franklin Roosevelt managed to return the leadership to the party for a while. After his death and the crashing of the bureaucracy delivered by Truman, the bureaucracy and the Democratic Party merged into a peculiar and harmful parasitic growth on the country’s body.
In these internecine bureaucratic wars, who wins doesn't matter to us. Unfortunately, we lose in any case!
Caste of bureaucratic aristocracy
A remarkable result of the Pendleton Act was the rapid formation of an elite of rulers - the "caste of the bureaucracy[12]".
America returned to what the founding fathers flatly rejected - to the power of the aristocratic elite. As a result, bureaucratic power, officially unrecognized by anyone, has great potential to manipulate legal authorities in several main ways:
- Facilitating the selection of bureaucracy-favored presidents, members of Congress, governors, mayors, district attorneys, and the appointment of judges loyal to the bureaucracy.
- Passing off the actions it needs as national priorities and thus dragging the country into wars, worsening the economy, and costly projects like a senseless struggle against climate change (possibly more beneficial than harmful)
- Preparing information for representatives of legitimate authorities and distorting it in its interests. For example, some information is declared forbidden for disclosure, allegedly from the point of view of national security. The other part is opened to the public in a tendentiously edited form. People get a half-truth that is worse than a gross lie.
- Distorting the decisions made by the legitimate authorities and implementing them in a way that is desirable for the bureaucracy
- Masking the role and the very existence of the "caste of bureaucrats" and the "deep state,” diverting attention from them with the chatter of conspiracy theorists about the conspiracies of the Jesuits, Freemasons, Elders of Zion, Zurich gnomes, Little Green Men, etc.
Both are worse
The question arises - what is better, the Spoils system or the bureaucratic Merit System?
Both systems are inadequate, but society cannot exist without bureaucracy. The choice must be made not between good and evil but between two types of evil, settling for the less harmful and dangerous option, choosing the evil that is easier to correct.
The Spoils System is essentially close to the situation in a commercial company - the company’s owner hires workers and demands that his orders be carried out. The company is his property; he cannot allow it to be harmed, even for ideological reasons. Yes, he often hires "his people" - relatives or friends, but not those who will damage the business. So, he gets rid of brawlers, idlers, parasites, fools, pests, and even relatives, striving to build a workable team.
A good president treats his country like a business owner. With all its shortcomings, the Spoils system allowed presidents to appoint their supporters to high posts and purge the most obvious corrupt officials, power-hungry scoundrels, fools, and loafers. The presidents remained the masters of the bureaucracy, keeping it from getting too far.
The bureaucratic Merit System turns power upside down - presidents have become almost powerless in front of their bureaucracy. And this is repeated at all levels of government. This is a typical "power of the crowd" about which one of the founders of psychology Gustave Le Bon brilliantly wrote in the famous book "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind 1895"[13].
The power of the mob is not a democracy at all; people are controlled by some formal or informal, sometimes simply criminal leaders (demagogues) or small elite groups, whose opinions and instructions are conveyed unofficially to all bureaucrats and are their action guide. The bureaucratic Merit System provides advantages to typical mob leaders - manipulators and demagogues; those who strive for power often ignore immediate duties while just "earning points" and moving up the hierarchical ladder. This often leads to sharp contradictions and inconsistency of actions between different departments or within "gangs" of one department.
Yes, both systems are far from ideal. But the harm of the Spoils System is relatively moderate, and it is much easier to mitigate it than the harm from the bureaucratic Merit System, which acts in its own interests and is protected from almost any attempt at external influence.
Is the bureaucracy invincible?
The Pendleton Act meant the complete dominance of the bureaucracy over the power of presidents, whether Democrats or Republicans. There is at least one surprising exception to this general rule. After the death of the leader of the bureaucracy, Franklin Roosevelt, President Harry Truman managed to purge the bureaucratic elite and significantly weaken the power of the bureaucrats over the country.
In less than a year, Roosevelt's leading "people" resigned - his assistant G. Hopkins, former Vice President, Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace, Secretary of State E. Stettinius, Secretary of the Interior G. Icks, Secretary of Agriculture C. Anderson, Secretary of the Treasury G. Morgenthau, and many other "useful idiots," as Stalin called the "foreign bureaucrats" serving him.
How voluntary was this exit? We can only guess; there are no documents. But, knowing the rules of the "games of the bureaucracy,” we can confidently assume that under Roosevelt, a significant part of the highest bureaucracy went too far, imagined itself above the laws, and stained itself with corruption and aiding Stalin. And for Truman to receive a resignation, it was enough just to hint to high-ranking scoundrels of the opportunity to stand investigation. But Truman did not stop there. In 1946, he gave permanent status to the Commission for the Investigation of Un-American Activities, and in 1947, he introduced a test of government employees for loyalty to America. Interestingly, in cleaning up the bureaucratic swamp, he was actively assisted by two uncompromising enemies of the bureaucracy - former president Herbert Hoover and a young congressman, future president Richard Nixon.
It's a pity that President Trump did not have such a great opportunity ... He found himself in a terrible situation; he could not expel all wreckers of market development. But Republican lawmakers are making serious efforts to make it easier for the government to fire bureaucrats for poor performance or behavior contrary to federal rules[14].
Other parts to read:
Democratic Party of Bureaucrats – Part 1
Democratic Party of Bureaucrats – Part 3
Democratic Party of War - Part 4
Democratic Party of Discord - Part 5
[1] An amazing example of the falsification of history. Liberal historians defiantly refer to Jefferson’ party as the "Democratic-Republican Party". And the ideas of the great President Jefferson are called "Jeffersonian Democracy." But there has never been such a democracy, instead, there was republicanism! The Democrats wanted a strong federal bureaucratic government, and the Republicans, under Jefferson, fought against it with all their might. Who spawned the lies about the Democratic-Republican Party and Jeffersonian Democracy??? Try to guess, look for who benefited from it!
[2] It was called “Party discipline”.
[3] "The Fifth Column" is the name of General Franco's agents operating in the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939. Politicians and journalists often refer it to those organizations that operate inside the country in favor of its obvious enemies.
[4] See more below.
[5] The "Behavioral sink" effect was discovered by ethologist J. Calhoun in a series of experimental "rat utopias" – enclosed spaces in which rats were given unlimited access to food and water, enabling unfettered population growth. And in all cases, this utopia led to the emergence of various perversions and developmental disorders, up to a complete societal collapse.
[6] It seems that in terms of its impact on civilization, this invention is comparable only to the use of fire and steam engine.
[7] The same situation in the early 1990s in the information industry gave rise to the Internet boom.
[8] Abolition of Slavery (1865): Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
[9] The word "merit" is perceived quite positively since people assume that the merit system rewards people according to their merits, as a rule, to society. The bureaucrats and Democrats excelled in the skill to use words that cover their actions and intentions that are opposite to the meaning of these words. For example, call the bill that injects almost a trillion dollars into an economy struggling with unprecedented inflation caused by recently injected multiple trillions the “Inflation Reduction Act”.
[10] A similar situation with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The lack of experience, his team, and money turned an intelligent and charming person, a wonderful artist Zelensky, like Obama, into a puppet of the bureaucrats and oligarchs who promoted him.
[11] Grey Cardinal - exerts power behind the scenes, without drawing attention to himself or herself
[12] The caste is an informal community that jointly seeks the implementation of its own interests, ensures its own stability and self-protection, selects its members according to its own criteria (often according to the hereditary dynastic principle), and educates its members in a special way. Typical ruling castes are aristocracies and nobility from ancient states to modern England.
[13] There is a report by various authors that this book was constantly on the table of Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Roosevelt and some other dictators. Even if some reports are not true, their very existence is highly symbolic.
[14] On July 29, 2022, a group of five conservative Republicans introduced legislation to make the federal government an at-will employer, eviscerating civil service protections, and abolishing the Merit Systems Protection Board. This bill will probably pass if the choice of reason prevails in November 2022. This would be the most crucial step in the development of the country in the direction set by the Constitution.
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