Richard Fernadez recently asked the questions, “Suppose we got it all wrong and the real crazies are the TV people in nice suits and $300 haircuts?” and as Glenn Reynolds noted in a recent NY Post column, “It wasn’t farmers and factory workers who came up with the idiotic COVID responses — nor was it they who originated the more or less criminal idea of conducting “gain of function” research on making dangerous viruses more dangerous.” The reality is that much of what was tried by the experts failed miserably but then if these same experts had studied past pandemics, they would have known that this would end in failure. Shutting down schools and businesses lead to economic catastrophe for millions with which we are still struggling with. The data for those whose mantra is follow the science is becoming overwhelming including increase suicide, mental illness, economic dislocation, and even more premature deaths now and into the future. We failed to stop the infection and the vaccine that we were told was a game changer proved to be a complete failure in stopping the transmission, but many lost their jobs because of vaccine mandates being enforced, a vaccine mandates for a vaccine that didn’t even stop the transmission.
The same brilliant people who gave us the covid lockdowns also gave us the brilliant idea that if we take police off the street, cut funding for police protection, and allow criminal back to the street or not prosecute crimes just as shoplifting would have no impact on crime was equally stupid. Glenn Reynolds added, “It hasn’t been landscapers and auto mechanics championing the notion that a child in the single-digit age range can make a lifetime choice about his or her genitalia or maintaining that even criticizing that idea is itself a species of “violence…Ordinary Americans haven’t been claiming the way to promote free speech is to censor people or the way to end racism is to classify everyone by race and consequently treat them differently…It’s not the working class that wants to “save the planet” by blocking traffic, starting forest fires or banning pickup trucks or gas stoves (though private jets remain surprisingly free from criticism).” We are being told that a hot July was sign of climate disaster even though it has been known to get hot in the summer. I mean, Arizona reaches 110 degrees in the summertime is hardly news or sign of climate apocalypse, but our so-call experts are tying to tell us that we need to rid ourselves of pickup trucks and gas grills to save the planet or for that matter eat bug instead of steak or chicken.
What does a society succeed if the elites and “intellectuals or brains of society” are plain nuts. Glenn Reynolds noted, “Exactly how important is open to question — in his recent book “How Innovation Works,” Matt Ridley argues that most 19th- and 20th-century innovations actually came from tradespeople and industry, not academics doing abstract research — but important enough.” And while society needs intellectuals or thinkers, they also need doers who are willing to take risks to move society forward. Reynolds observed, “Communism and Nazism started as intellectual movements; so did such fads as eugenics and lobotomies…The Tuskegee Experiment wasn’t the product of racist Klansmen but of the curiosity of credentialed public-health experts… Ideas can be dangerous; playing with them can be like gain-of-function research with viruses — if they escape into the general environment, disaster can ensue.”
A century ago, many of the people running our government, along with running our economy, many of our universities and media were varied and not necessarily the same class. I remember meeting a long-time reporter in Kansas City who got his start in the circulation department. I questioned him, “The circulation department?” He smiled and responded, “I started as a paperboy.” He lived in an era in which he learned the basic in writing in High school and spent his life perfecting his craft. Today much of the media, academics, politicians, and even much of our business class are members of the same class. For many in the media, their willingness to follow the narrative as oppose to challenge comes from the reality is that many of them know the powerful officials and hold similar views and attitudes.
We have a leadership class that really can be at times be classified as “bat shit crazy.” Reynolds concluded, “The result is that any crazy idea can flourish if it’s stylish. And it’s gotten more dangerous, probably because social media allow so much self-herding behavior by elites. Dissent is instantly ostracized before it even has a chance to be considered…A decade ago, the crazy ideas I listed earlier would have been seen as beyond the pale of civilized political discussion. Now they’re all endorsed by leading American institutions…That’s the hallmark of dysfunctional politics, and dysfunctional politics is what we have.” Listen to the debate and what you will hear that much of the stupid ideas put into effect didn’t come from the Middle class, the workers or even MAGA but from the leadership class.
The Donelson Files 