“No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.”
“If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.”
Resignation letter of Hagan Scotten, Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, when asked by Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove to dismiss federal corruption charges against NYC mayor Eric Adams.
Scotten, a registered Republican, served three combat tours in Iraq and was awarded the Bronze Star twice while serving as troop commander in the Fifth Special Forces Group of the US Army. After leaving military service, Scotten was valedictorian of his Harvard Law class and clerked for Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts before joining the Justice Department. In response to his and the other six resignations from career attorneys ordered to carry out the White House directive, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff said “The fact that those who indicted and prosecuted the case refused to follow a direct command is further proof of the disordered and ulterior motives of the prosecutors. Such individuals have no place at the DOJ.”
This is obviously correct. There is no place in this Justice Department for a patriot and man of honor like Hagan Scotten.
“It was never going to be me.”
You never know what the future holds, but my intention is that this will be the last explicitly political long-form note I’ll be writing for public distribution through Epsilon Theory. I’m not cutting back on my writing. On the contrary, I’ve still got so much to say! But my expectation is that from now on my mainstream Epsilon Theory notes will either be about implementing a new science of semantic analysis or about implementing a new ethos of Make/Protect/Teach. You’ll still be able to find political analysis and its impact on markets in Epsilon Theory Professional, and our Epsilon Theory Forum and weekly Office Hours call will always be a safe place for subscribers (and me) to express our political views. But in my opinion it is now completely counterproductive to speak publicly about politics in the United States.
I know, I know … first they came for the Communists and I did not speak up, then they came for the Socialists and I did not speak up, etc. etc. … there is a strong mythology around ‘speaking up’ in post-WWII western culture, of ‘speaking truth to power’ as loudly and publicly as you can. But I’m here to tell you this only is a myth – a semantic signature of very recent origin – and that at this stage in our descent into the Great Ravine, where we are first surrounded by wolves in human form, it is far more appropriate and effective to follow the advice Jesus gave to his disciples when they found themselves in a similar situation, to be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.
The wise-as-serpents part of that advice means seeing that the United States is now a Great Power but not a Good Power. To be clear, I don’t mean “good” in the sense of doling out foreign aid and research grants lavishly and stupidly and for my pet social activist causes. I mean “good” in the sense of policy goals beyond realpolitik. I mean “good” in the sense of what the Framers of the Constitution called a more perfect Union, where ideas like liberty and justice for all aren’t just side effects of being the biggest bully on the block, but are the direct goals of public policy even at the cost of “efficiency”.
The harmless-as-doves part of that advice means moving our explicit political speech into private channels, and focusing our public political actions on the creation of epistemic communities that can support themselves and each other through the coming storm. We do what humans have done for thousands of years in these situations, which is to rediscover how to speak publicly in code and how to make art as samizdat. That’s the path I believe we must take to Make America Good Again, which is so much harder than making it great ever was.
For the better part of two centuries (I put the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 as my starting point) the United States has tried – sincerely tried as a common goal and as a prominent semantic signature existing through and across political lines – to be both a Great Power and a Good Power. On the Great Power side, both domestically and internationally, we have always made deals with bad guys who are willing to be ‘our guys’ to secure the oil and the money and the guns that secure our national power. AND on the Good Power side, we have always spent a lot of resources both domestically and internationally on public health, human rights and public security without a greater agenda than to do well by doing good. Being a Great Power and being a Good Power are not mutually exclusive, and it’s never been one or the other in American history. In fact, I think you can make a strong argument that the United States is much more effective in the world as a Great Power when it acts as if it is also a Good Power, and that it accomplishes so much more as a Good Power when it acts as if it is also a Great Power.
Trumpism is an embrace of America as a Great Power and a rejection of America as a Good Power, in all its forms, both domestic and internationally. More than that, it is an ideological embrace of America as a Great Power, that this is everything America should be, and an ideological rejection of America as a Good Power, that this is something America should never be.
I don’t think Trumpism is inherently evil. It’s the pursuit of great power for great power’s sake … good and evil have nothing to do with it. But I absolutely think this is a tragedy, because the pursuit of great power for great power’s sake transforms every American policy, both foreign and domestic, into a protection racket of one form or another.
Hey, that’s a nice country/company/career you’ve got there … be a shame if anything happened to it.
This is the essence of what it means to be a Great Power but not a Good Power.
There’s a lot of conversation today about a looming ‘Constitutional crisis’, about what happens if the President takes over enumerated legislative powers and ignores judicial orders to stop. I think this conversation is really misplaced. Why? Because the Constitution doesn’t matter anymore! I’m completely serious about this. The Constitution is literally just a piece of paper. It only matters if the guy in the White House believes he is bound by the Constitution not just in letter but in spirit. It only matters if the guy in the White House – the guy who the Constitution clearly says can conduct foreign policy and can prosecute its laws – believes that the United States should conduct its foreign policy and prosecute its laws for more than money and resources and power, but also for things like Justice, domestic Tranquility, the general Welfare and the Blessings of Liberty.
It became really obvious to me this week, between the Eric Adams ‘deal’ and the Ukraine ‘deal’, that the United States government is now totally 100% committed to a Great Power strategy both internationally and domestically, that every policy is designed to maximize money and resources and power for the White House and its political apparatus as the embodiment of the United States. Shared values mean little to nothing. Hell, that’s almost a direct quote from our new Defense Secretary. Every European ally is now just another country to leverage for international power. Every American official is now just another instrument to leverage for domestic power. I mean, do you think it’s an accident that DOGE is only ‘investigating’ the personal finances of politicians who oppose Trump? Do you think it’s an accident that DOGE asked today for immediate access to the IRS data systems with visibility into every American’s tax filings?
The President of the United States is committed to a more powerful union rather than a more perfect union, to being a Great Power always and in all ways, and a Good Power never and in no ways. His foreign policies are squarely focused on extracting as much wealth and resources from the world as possible, and his domestic policies are squarely focused on extracting as much power and loyalty from American citizens as possible. I’m not saying that prior Administrations didn’t care about power for power’s sake, both at home and abroad, or that they never used policies like this. I’m saying that with this Administration these are the ONLY policies. I’m saying that this is a full-on embrace of the pursuit of power for power’s sake, where the apparatus of the State and its monopoly on the legitimate use of force is married with the media and technological power of the richest men in the world. I’m saying that we have a word for that marriage of State and Oligarchy in pursuit of power for power’s sake: fascism.
The overwhelming response I am going to get to this note and that word is that I am overreacting. That and a rolling of eyes. I will be told that what Trump is doing is a natural, even healthy corrective to the excesses of the Democratic Deep State in general and the Obama/Biden Administrations specifically. I will be told that the pendulum swung too far in one direction and now maybe it’s swinging a little too far in the other direction, but this is the sort of tough action and tough language and tough love that’s needed to put the country ‘back on the right track’. As for my view that it’s now entirely counterproductive to speak loudly about politics in the United States, I will be told that a) I’m wrong, that in sharp contrast to the speech codes imposed by DEI programs and HR departments over the past few years, we are now ‘free’ to say whatever we like, and that b) anything I’m perceiving in this regard pales in comparison to the free speech restrictions during Covid, where the government conspired with social media and mainstream media to label inconvenient speech as ‘misinformation’ that must be shut down.
Can I just say that you have a point? Can I just say – as someone who got incredible shit from my ‘team’ when I wrote that I thought Covid was probably a lab-leak, when I wrote that the World Health Organization was a lying stooge for China and a humiliation for the world, when I wrote that Fauci was an absolute disaster for public health policy and should be vilified for his illegal and immoral support of gain-of-function research in the Wuhan lab, when I wrote that government-mandated vaccination was an abomination that all free societies should abhor, when I wrote that the New York State prosecution of Donald Trump was a sham and a travesty of justice, when I wrote that Joe Biden was not competent to remain as President much less run for President, when I wrote that Biden’s pardons for his son and family were a stain on the Presidency that would never wash clean – can I just say that you have a point?
But can I also say that ALL of this is different in degree and essence from what is happening today, that this is not a pendulum overshooting a bit as it swings back through center? Can I also say that this semantic signature of a ‘pendulum’ is as flawed for the right as the semantic signature of ‘speaking truth to power’ is for the left? This is neither a swing from left to right nor a resistance of the left to the right. This is not a left or right thing at all. This is a power thing.
This is the road to serfdom.
In 1944, Friedrich Hayek published The Road to Serfdom, his magisterial work on how free societies become unfree, how both Socialism and Fascism – the reds and the browns – end up in the same totalitarian place. In 1945, Look Magazine and General Motors (!) partnered to publish a Cartoon version of The Road to Serfdom, and I’ve been using those cartoons to illustrate my points about the path to totalitarianism ever since.
There’s a problem with the cartoon version of Hayek’s book. By emphasizing the Nazi salute in the cartoon illustrations, it makes it look like Hayek is focused pretty exclusively on Nazi Germany, and when I use the cartoons it makes it look like I’m equating Trump to Hitler. Not true and not true! In 1945, Hayek was trying to say that England under Socialist rule would become a totalitarian state, not that Clement Attlee was awkshually Hitler. Eighty years later, I am trying to say that the United States under MAGA rule will become a totalitarian state, not that Donald Trump is awkshually Hitler. Sigh. For a lot of people who read this note, this explanation won’t matter. They’ll say Hitler, Hitler, TDS, TDS and that’ll be that. I hope it will make a difference to you.
The first six cartoon steps in The Road to Serfdom are pretty straightforward and don’t need a lot of explication. Where Hayek talks about ‘war’, maybe insert ‘Covid’. This is a historical rhyme, not a historical mirror.
It’s with Cartoon 7 that things start to really hit home for me.
“In an unsuccessful effort to educate the people to uniform views, “planners” establish a giant propaganda machine — which coming dictator will find handy.”
My friends, if you thought the Twitter Files were bad, and god knows they were … you ain’t seen nothing yet.
In 2018 I wrote a note titled We’re on Number 9, with the message that we were well on our way to #10.
Today we’re well past #10.
We’re at #11, as every Democratic donor lines up to say what a smart and swell guy that Elon is. Hell, Steve effin’ Bannon gives more pushback to Elon than the Mark Cubans of the world.
And we’re going to be at #12 in a heartbeat, with immigrants, regardless of whether they’re illegal or legal, and federal employees, regardless of their role or competence, providing our new negative aim and scapegoat minorities.
From there … well, we’ll hit the depths of the Great Ravine in Cartoons #14-18 pretty soon after that. Honestly, I think that these are weakest of Hayek’s projections. I think our version of the end-state here, what I’ve called the Human Hive, will look pretty different from this. I think it’ll be just as much a killer of our autonomy of mind, but I think it’ll have more of a smiley-face.
Like I say, the dominant reaction to this note will be that I’m overreacting. But hear me out.
I saw Covid coming before pretty much anyone else. I got a lot of ‘you’re overreacting’ and a lot of eye-rolling over that.
I saw inflation coming before pretty much anyone else. I got a lot of ‘you’re overreacting’ and a lot of eye-rolling over that.
I saw Russia’s invasion of Ukraine before pretty much everyone else. I got a lot of ‘you’re overreacting’ and a lot of eye-rolling over that.
I saw Wall Street emasculating Bitcoin into just another regulated ‘product’ before pretty much everyone else. I got a lot of ‘you’re overreacting’ and a lot of eye-rolling over that.
I see what’s happening today — that the United States is a Great Power but not a Good Power, that the American State and the American Oligarchy are now unified as one in the pursuit of power for power’s sake, that this union leads inexorably towards an illiberal, totalitarian society — as clearly as I’ve ever seen anything in my life.
How do we respond? The only way to win is not to play the game. We keep our own counsel when they approach us, because they will approach us. We refuse to engage in their tests of loyalty and their offers of power and money. Privately, we find our pack and we act through our pack, as wise as serpents, to make America good again. Publicly, we become as harmless as doves before it’s obvious that we need to be as harmless as doves, because once it’s obvious it’s too late. And if we do find ourselves ‘leveraged’ by the White House and its allies, we resign. We quit like Hagan Scotten quit. Like a human being.
The Road to Serfdom is not an endless road, but the painful truth is that its path and duration, what I call the Great Ravine, is not up to us to choose. While we walk this road the only thing we can save is our souls, and we do it with one simple sentence: It was never going to be me.
Well said. I agree totally with your prescription of an indirect approach of make,protect and teach that provides a counterpunch at a reduced scale rather than direct confrontation. My thinking his that your diagnosis may be a bit in the extreme. But I cannot argue with your track record of being on the right side of many major issues in the past 12 years. The turning of ET away from the recent focus on politics is past due. Let’s focus on on things at a more local level where our own packs can make a difference.
Thank you Ben. One of the great things about being an Epsilon Theory subscriber is your eloquence and ability to “see around corners “. This work challenges me and any preconceived notions I have. I.e. it forces one to think more broadly.
And that’s what I want.
I think that we would have been down a very similar path no matter what the election result was in the USA. The path to serfdom is in all countries, it’s details vary but the goal is the same. In Canada there is little to see of value to individual or individual thought in the current structures that govern our life. Our laws are more explicit, the city where I live anything that is said that someone finds distasteful can invite a visit from a bylaw officer and a fine. Dinner parties now consist of determining which side is entertaining so all the guests can adhere to the correct conversation, no matter what that may be. My Jewish friends are already following the serpent and dove path, hiding their true nature inside their homes along with their fear. This is my country. Trump is trying to change the role of America in the world and no matter what the end result is none of this is going to be pretty. But the political alternative, presented to you in America at the election is also what has created the current dystopia in Canada. I think it was Hayek that said Fascism and Socialism are one and the same. The intellectual infrastructure and social underpinnings of my 7 decades are now gone. My history is almost completely erased and is being replaced. My view is no matter if it is Trump or Harris or Polievre or Carney (Trudeau) your advice is well taken and should be considered by all. None will be better than the other. Serpent and Dove is the lifestyle I am already forced to live in my home in Canada and have for at least the past 4 or 5 years. Best of luck to all of us.
I’m still trying to find time to sit and write out more coherent thoughts about this particular Note as it seems to have sparked a number of things in me (and doubtless others too), but the one overarching thing I immediately thought of was this:
Trump is unique not just because his script is different, but because he also frequently reads the stage direction out loud.
One of the chapters in my upcoming book discusses precisely this - the metatheatricality is one of the most effective ways to make powerful symbols spread. At once it makes them both less alienating to those to whom they would otherwise be foreign and more powerful to those who might otherwise be hesitant, wondering if everyone knew just how significant that symbol was.
And it’s sort of what has gotten me about this whole affair. It isn’t that Trump is the first to act as if the constitution were just a piece of paper. It’s that he’s saying very loudly that this is what he is doing, and no one in any position of power or influence is doing anything to call his bluff. The metatheatricality is the dare, and no one has risen to it. That’s why this feels different to me, and has me a bit uneasy.
How could they at this point? Who could do it with a straight face?
Sassoon and Scotten aren’t power brokers but they’re not nobodies either.
I think that Adams going down is a real possibility and I think that it could be a wake-up call.
There is still hope.
Surprised that Ben doesn’t reference Leo Strauss’ “Persecution and the Art of Writing”, where Strauss (a contemporary of Hayek, although they seemingly never really co-mingled) writes: “Persecution, then, gives rise to a peculiar technique of writing, and therewith to a peculiar type of literature, in which the truth about all crucial things is presented exclusively between the lines.” Machiavelli’s the Prince comes to mind.
PS: free download of Strauss’ text here
I think Ben’s note hits a lot of the issues I’ve been wrestling with. With the Trump strategy of flooding the zone, I’ve been trying to ask myself how much this story matters for all of the outrage headlines that have gone around the past few weeks.
The disregard for separation of powers issues have been a big one, where the guardrails have been pushed to (past?) their breaking point have been a big one, and the other is this kind of imperialist direction in regard to foreign affairs. The reason (IMO) the whole Gaza Riviera idea caught the world off guard is nobody has seen such “What’s in it for me?” being asked in such an explicit way regarding international relations in our lifetimes.
I always love your writing and thinking Ben. If you will forgive two objections:
See also his very prescient take on US politics and the move to extremism of the GOP in 2013: De-Americanizing the World | Noam Chomsky
Thanks for the note Ben. Thought provoking as usual.
I would think that this is well explained in the exploration of your ideas around epimorphic and epimemetic shifts in communication.
The metatheatricality feels something like the Emperor himself being the one to call out his own nakedness to the crowd. The Emperor could never have done so in the past in the absence of the epimemetic changes, and he knows this very well, creating a first to market advantage because instinctively realized it much earlier than most. In the past the people would’ve still collectively laughed and ridiculed the naked Emperor. But now the new epimemetics makes it a virtual impossibility that anyone can rise to the dare. Not merely because of lack of willingness but because they know they are doomed to fail. The crowd will simply see them as being even more naked than the Emperor.
There is so much to say about epistemic complexity in almost every thread these days. I fear the below can be seen as pedantic, but I don’t think it is, rather I think it is important, and I’m seeing it everywhere all the time. Hell I usually think it was ET that taught me this lesson!
How do we know what we think we know when we discuss the reactions of others? Simply picking on Ben in this instance, but who are these respondents and where does he experience their reactions? I experience people doing this all the time…“why is such and such group in a rage about issue Y?” Do we come to believe that other people are upset because headlines say so? Or because lots of social media commentators say a thing? Value judgements rooted in this kind of epistemology are badly flawed and should be treated with a lot of skepticism. And I think we will find a lot fewer reasons to get upset when we do so! Maybe I’m wrong but I suspect few people who speak to Ben in the real world will convey the opinion that he is calling here the ‘overwhelming response’.
I literally had to explain epistemic complexity to my poor mom the other day because she wanted to know ‘why everyone in my generation is upset over plastic straws’.
In Bonfire of Mandarins thread @drrms posted a bit about cycles that is relevant here also. I felt the ‘pendulum’ part of this note strawmanned a much better, and important, cyclical argument, which is about the widening gyre. Widening gyres are themselves part of a natural cycle. But the left/right swings of the pendulum are much too quick of an oscillation to be the cyclical forces that matter the most in the context of cultural decay. The left/right swings should be viewed as more akin to noise on this longer timescale.
Here’s a specific example. Ben of course clearly made the point that his critiques of the left were easy to find throughout the Biden admin, and I certainly agree, so that is not my critique. But in the same vein as above, I think it’s a notable mistake of timescale to identify Hayek’s Step 1 with something as recent as covid, and it contributes to a sense of a recency or high frequency bias which strawmans the natural/cyclical argument.
It is not especially useful to argue over when Step 1 actually occurred or what it was (in fact the persistent and natural desire we feel to try to diagnose exactly when the prior steps occurred is another control mechanism of the structure, as it wastes our action). I only feel that Step 1 must be seen as having been much longer ago than covid. When does a collection of sticks become a pile? It’s not generally interesting to argue over too much, but if there are 1,000 sticks and someone says “oh now it is a pile” I would have to disagree.
I also think the question of whether ‘national planning’ is really the ‘Step 1’ cue is interesting (I’ll have to ponder this more). Again, not to be pedantic, but I find it an interesting question because I think Rusty’s ideas on epimemetics also have created a sizeable shift in the nature of the triggers in these early steps relative to our experience of totalitarianism from the 20th century. Which then would beg the question of what are potential concomitant changes in the later stages.