Thread by @jholbo1

Sigh. A good example of the swamp-the-drain strategy working. Not enough indignation bandwidth to keep up with business as usual, GOP-style.

https://twitter.com/NPRinskeep/status/1397712234458009604

Also the latest proof-by-example of Frank Wilhoit's wisdom. Conservatism is the doctrine that, "there must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_M…

The AZ effort is to restore trust. Why would you manage appearances by 'auditing' in a transparently capricious, partisan, thumb-right-there-on-the-scales way? The base is conservative, hence won't be reassured 'the system works' by anything less than the Full Wilhoit Monty.

This is perhaps a good point at which to observe that Wilhoit's comment box bon mot suffers a bit from one-line extraction. In context, the idea is that conservatism is this privilege skew plus: there really isn't any existing alternative to it. Ever has it been so.

I take the philosophy of this passage to be a mix of high idealism with James Burnham-esque cynicism. Burnham is right - elites always run the show - but we have to fight it. americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/02/james-…

By contrast there is a strain in American conservatism that says James Burnham is right but you can't fight City Hall. So you'd better be City Hall. This expresses as the cognitively dissonant mix of pseudo-populism and raging, entitled aristo privilege-asserting that is the GOP.

There 2 two arguments that it's OK to engage in this sort of nonsense - the AZ audit. They are inconsistent arguments but they tend to the same conclusion. 1) it's ok if the audit is seat-of-the-pants, because conservatives are a rag-tag-band of desperados on the run from elites.

2) it's ok if the audit is flagrantly corrupt because that signals that we run this town - we're the conservatives. This is our country, we're the rightful elite, and we do what we want. The law is for the little people.

See also: nationalinterest.org/feature/why-wi…

And @HeerJeet : jeetheer.substack.com/p/racism-and-t…