Be Careful What You Ask For, Progressives: A Failure of the US to Respond to Coronavirus Would Discredit the Progressive Worldview, Not Trump

The latest leftist/statist/progressive/establishment/”elite” freakout is over Trump’s alleged incompetence at addressing the Coronavirus. This is an illustration of their utter cluelessness, because the responsibility for any failure in addressing a potential pandemic utterly discredits the entire progressive vision.

In that vision, a wise, nay, omniscient, technocratic elite foresees problems, devises elegant solutions, and saves the world. In that vision, elected officials–legislators, but especially the chief executive–are at best irrelevant distractions, but more likely meddling interferers who undermine the brilliant designs of the administrative apparatus.

So if the government fails, it is on the permanent government, not on the hapless sod at the top who vainly pulls the levers of the state machinery, to no avail (because the mandarins are far too sophisticated to respond to the commands of such a boorish boob–they know better!).

We already have a perfect illustration of the disconnect between the vanity of the administrative state and its actual competence. The geniuses from the government who are here to help put infected individuals from a cruise ship on an aircraft . . . that also carried (previously!) non-infected individuals. The response of the State Department is priceless. It should be framed for posterity:

“At the end of the day, the State Department had a decision to make, informed by our inter-agency partners, and we went ahead and made that decision,” Walters said. “And the decision, I think, was the right one in bringing those people home.”

Again with the fucking “inter-agency”! Our overlords to whom we owe utter obeisance.!

But there’s more from M. Walters:

“What I’d say is that the chief of mission, right, through the U.S. embassy, is ultimately the head of all executive branch activities. [Er, mere peasant that I am, I thought from reading the Constitution that the President of the United States is “ultimately the head of all executive branch activities.” Silly me!] So when we are very careful about taking responsibility for the decision, the State Department is – that is the embassy. The State Department was running the aviation mission, and the decision to put the people into that isolation area initially to provide some time for discussion and for onward, afterwards, is a State Department decision.”

Yes, we are in the best of hands. The best of hands! How dare you question them, peasant!

Regardless of what you think about Trump’s competence, it cannot be less than the bureaucracy’s. Yet the better thans insist on demanding we defer to the bureaucracy. Because they know better.

And then, they are shocked–shocked!–when people with a modicum of common sense and who rely on empirical reality choose Trump over them.

Maybe you could be this stupid. And arrogant. If you tried really, really hard.