Conservative Idiots, the Good Old Days, Dr Fauci and the Ump, and Judge Sullivan in the Alfred Hitchcock Hour

The image is immortal - the Baseball Manager kicking dirt in the face of an Umpire who he believes has made the wrong call. Often, his beef is that the Ump called exactly the same play against his team but for the other team in the same situation. Dr. Fauci, a keen baseball fan (whose mask has the Washington Nationals on it) would be familiar with this iconic scene of the Greatest American Pastime. That situation is precisely what Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) was getting at when he questioned Fauci about his positions on congregate events AKA gatherings.

Since the good doctor has told us to stay away from bars and not fly (even though he has done the same things recently) and not go to church or funerals, would he also admonish people from attending protests?, he asked. The Doctor would not say yes. The Doctor does not seem to understand that many people cannot understand how the virus apparently may have chosen "favourites" as to which congregations it will infect and which not. In this case, it only affects law-abiding citizens who just want to live and mind their own business but not people who gather to hate on America or do worse. It makes many millions of people feel just like that baseball manager.

________

Will the same Republicans who never predicted Trump would win; made fun of Reagan; believed we would never ever hold the Senate or the House or both or ever win the presidency again after 1996, 2008 or 2016; and never believed the conservative movement might come to win anything; and now counsel despair, surrender and retreat again at every turn, poll or soundbite, possibly take a deep breath and acknowledge that this is actually an historically great time for the GOP by any measure?

From 1930 to 1994, the GOP held the House for 8 years. From 1930 to 1980, it held the Senate for 8 years. After 1980, it held the Senate for 24 years and after 1994, it held the House for 20 years (of which it held both houses for 14 years). It has swept the South for the first time since the Civil War and taken over most state houses and assemblies for the first time since the 1920's. It has held the White House for 24 of the past 40 years. It is an historically good time for the GOP and conservatives.

SO why so much sturm and drang from the usual GOP suspects? The answer is "conservative idiots". A little background. I was once called a conservative idiot by a staffer at the then National PC HQ (who still didn't mind using my services as a volunteer). By that he meant that I put my principles (which I also think means my country, too) before my Party. I wore and still wear that title like a badge of honour.

However, I have discovered a different sort of conservative idiot altogether who should wear that title with shame. That is, the conservative who usually ends up in one of two camps. First, they call for conservative change like Trump has wrought these past few years more relentlessly, prolifically and checklist-like than any president in living memory, including many things that these self same conservative idiots have been telling us for generations needs to happen for the good of the Nation and the People, our allies and our posterity. But then, when it actually does happen, they decide that there's a "nice" way to do conservative change and a nasty way to do it. Or, they turn out to have not really believed in these things after all or thought they could never happen and are shocked and even resentful that an actual officeholder carried it out, get cold feet and turn on him. "It's all great 'on paper' but you really don't think I was SERIOUS about doing THAT?" By contrast, I know I am not the type of idiot who would ever look the gift horse of conservative policy actually becoming law in the mouth and would be too busy dancing in the streets to complain.

The second reason for conservative idiocy is more particular and personal and has to do with of course, the Donald. The Donald is not a real conservative. He never held office. He never went to the right schools or was in the right clubs. He's married to that woman. He's a sex fiend. He has that accent. He's got that hair. I wish he would STOP tweeting! I am SO embarrassed! Even though I never supported him anyway (at least not at any crunch time), I cannot bear the burden of supporting him anymore. No one from that nice thinktank invites me to their gabfests anymore, you know the one with 20 different wines and 100 types of cheese that Roberts always VIP's at? How dare those evangelicals support him, don't they see how unChristian that is?!, etc., etc. For my part, I could care less if my conservative saviour was a golf pro who wore loud pants, a grocer's daughter with funny teeth, a drunken inkstained wretch who fancied red cowboy hats or a second rate actor who used a lot too much brill cream wore ties that were much too wide: if they deliver the goods, I sign the bill of sale with pleasure and back them all the way. I backed Ted Cruz until May, 2016 when he had clearly lost the nomination fight and then backed Trump all the way.

The only thing that is good about conservative idiots is that they are a vanishingly smaller and smaller (although very loud) demographic of the electorate even in the GOP and (and this is another reason they hate Trump, Gingrich and others who have really built what success the practical and conservative movement has had these past 40 years) they have had little to do with or cannot claim the credit for the historic success of the movement they claim to lead.

From 1962, The Alfred Hiitchcock Hour tells us and the infamous Federal Hanging Judge Sullivan a parable of justice. Martin Landau plays a top criminal defence lawyer who just got Frank Gorshin off of a horrible murder rap only to be told by him that he is guilty. The tormented Landau wants to report the client to the DA but he is told by his senior partner and by the trial judge that, of course, he can't do it because of double jeopardy and a perjury case would go no where. Meanwhile, he would be reported to the ABA for breaching his solicitor-client confidentiality privileges. The wise and decent judge (who doesn't even break a sweat when told by Landau that he presided over this apparent injustice) also points out that, if you think he should get the chair, the accused would likely have been found criminally insane by the jury anyway and the judge would then send him to an asylum (and it turns out he is insane). Bottom line - the defence lawyer should have done and said nothing (sadly too late for the vigilante-style hit he calls down on his client!).

Now, Landau, the seasoned criminal lawyer, should have figured all of this out in the first act of the show. Similarly, Judge Sullivan should have saved the People, the Justice Department, Sidney Powell, the Appeals Courts and, above all, General Mike Flynn, a lot of trouble by figuring out from the start that, in our system, once the prosecutor decides not to proceed with a matter and no matter how bad the accused may be and even if he has already entered a plea of guilty (which Flynn has resiled against) and even if there was not ample evidence of prosecutorial and police misconduct and abuse of Flynn's rights, he must dismiss. He may rail for hours in open court about how bad Flynn is (although surely not as bad as the many accuseds Judge Sullivan dismissed for that he knew to be terrorists, druglords, mafiosi and other predators) and refer him for a perjury beef and the DOJ staff to the ABA. But then he must do nothing else or simply compound the injustice done to an American Citizen who, until this matter, served his country as dutifully if not more than Judge Sullivan. 

Sadly, it would appear that the esteemed Judge's friends on the Appeal Court prefer to give us a Hitchcockian twist ending and make us and Flynn wait until the last frame of this too longrunning show to get justice. 
--
John M. Farant

The Reagan Consensus - Part 4

The Reagan Consensus and its Other Enemies

The other chief threats to the above are three: the Big "Crisis", State Dependency and Debt.

First, the "Big Crisis". The chief recent examples of this are COVID and Climate Change. But the Opposition has used past crises like the Great Depression, the Cold War and The Great Recession to too much effect to advance their assault on economic liberty and, frankly, our general freedom as well and to expand the state. The most memorable iteration publicly of this Left wing strategy is Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel's infamous assertion that,"You should never let a good crisis go to waste." In other words, the Left will use a mortal or severe usually "unprecedented" emergency to drive through projects that normally the people would never democratically approve in the normal course but can be scared into doing by the crisis or distracted enough and disempowered enough to let happen anyway even if it has nothing to do with the crisis. For example, Social Insurance was inaugurated by the US during the Great Depression even though it had nothing to do with the chief problem of that era - younger (18-35 year old) workers being jobless. Obamacare was introduced and passed in the midst of a recession caused by bad mortgages not high medical bills. Again, the combination of fear and ignorance is irresistible especially when you can depict those on the Right as "heartless" for not agreeing with measures that generally are irrelevant and may even make things worse but seem humane.

Today, the twin examples of this are clearly COVID and Climate Change, although the latter has been around for three decades and the other obviously more acute and recent. They have one thing in common, the use of a crisis to gain more control of and reduce the freedom and choices of people and expand the powers and freedoms of the state. They (as to some degree the other crises also did) have another even more disturbing thing in common - PC wrath. In other words, there appears a "consensus" especially in media and academe and politics that one must feel only one way about the issue (that is, it is urgent and must be dealt with at all costs) or pay the price of being suppressed or even oppressed in the form of firing, shaming or worse. A similar trend is seen in the Race Riots of the past two months. Not just politicians but business and schools and communities are being bullied into complying with the BLM view of the World. There is but one consolation from the last example - it is unlikely to directly affect the Reagan Consensus but it is still a striking and chilling example of the Big Crisis strategy of public advocacy on the Left.

Of COVID or Climate Change, clearly it is Climate Change (as an issue) that has the most potential for damaging the Reagan Consensus. While COVID's impact on economics generally has been historically damaging, it is unlikely to be a factor in the long term. Although, it must be said that the unprecedented assault on civil liberties to defend against a not especially deadly virus could be a useful example for the Left to use to justify future more permanent damage.

Climate Change programs of Carbon Emission control and management have already cost the World's major economies (except of course Russia, China, India, Brazil and most of the so-called "developing countries" like world class ocean polluter, Vietnam) trillions, the lost opportunity of which cannot be measured, millions of jobs and 1000's of businesses actual or potential for little apparent proven benefit. But the most important result has been the restriction of people's freedom to make their pwn lifetstyle and business and financial choices thus undermining the genius of the Reagan Consensus and its proven ability to grow economies and lift people out of poverty and generally improve the Standard of Living. All of these schemes, even the tortured and proven failures, the Carbon Pricing systems, have expanded state power and reach and presumption into our lives and business in a way we would never normally tolerate if we were not convinced by the Opposition that the Earth was going to fry in 12 years (as AOC, Greta and others with greater pretensions than them have told us as they told us 20 years ago).

This use of Climate Change must be fought and contained before it does the kind of damage its policy thrust can do, especially, the United States, which has led the Reagan Consensus since at least 1981. How to do it? First, you fight it with the best weapon you have that the other side claims they own - the Science. Keep pointing out that the Earth has not significantly warmed since 1997. That the "Hockey Stick" is a fraud. That many fine climatologists are on your side in this regard. This is important above all because it attacks the fear and ignorance on this matter that is so crucial to the Opposition succeeding on this issue.

However, as we have seen in the past, the Opposition's friends in the Media and Academia will suppress or bully sources contrary to the "Cult" of Climate Change. For example, despite predicting in 2003 that Manhattan would be underwater by 2012 in his movie An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore is still celebrated as a CC Hero even as he lives in a house that creates more Carbon Emission than a whole village. You are liable to be labelled a crackpot for trying to fight this only by attacking what the Press practically has made it Style Guide material not to dispute..

What is also needed is an approach which at once solves the "problem" posed by Climate Change but also builds on the Reagan Consensus. This should never mean selling out to the imperative of Climate Change or even admitting it is anthropogenically caused. It means proposing a solution that reinforces the free markets that are the core of the Consensus but at the same time proposing an idea that the moderate non-partisan voter will perceive as constructive. Indeed, this approach would truly help to reduce pollution in general not just carbon emissions. It is a proposal to reduce or eliminate income taxes in favour of consumption taxes. The conservative does not have to worry about what to call it but can use whatever moniker they think will curry favour with the average voter, the Press and even the Green Lobby. Call it the Carbon Tax, the  Pollution Tax, the Garbage Tax or the BBQ tax. It only matters that conservatives be seen to fight the "crisis" at hand while at the same time not just protecting the Consensus but adding to it. 

The Boon from such tax reform (which to help with another danger to the Consensus, the Debt, should be as revenue-neutral as possible) would be as incalculable and myriad as the damage from CC programs have, to this point, been. Such an approach does not just protect one's freedom but expand it. For, after all, most of us have no choice but to earn a living but we can choose whether or not to buy most things except the staples. A world of consumption tax leaves the consumer free to expand their income and whether to invest it (without tax) or spend it on some extra bauble and pay the (relatively high) tax for doing so.

A country that goes to such a model (as only too few and relatively small nations have shown) would become a magnet for capital and see its economy roar, per capita income explode, innnovation blossom and its jobless disappear. All of the benefits of the Consensus thus would be trebled. And, yes, it would be just by dint of its great prosperity (studies show the richest nations are the freest and the cleanest) but also due to its punishing polluting activity via taxation be much cleaner still than  before.

By this strategy, the conservative statesperson both sees off one of the most pervasively dangerous and damaging enemies of the Reagan Consensus and takes that Consensus to new heights. As in the old phrase, we can make chicken salad out of the chicken doodoo of politics and the issues of the day. A way to compound this virtuous effect - recall it was Reagan and Mulroney who got rid of Acid Rain and call for any surplus revenues from the Consumption Taxes to be paid towards building new plant for water and sewage treatment. We can be the Green (blue) Party in reality (as opposed to the radical marxist one that talks a good game but hasn't cleaned a damn thing in its whole existence) that cleaned up our harbours, lakes and rivers and conserved them for generations to come. Thus we also demonstrate we know that money is not everything but it can help with the rest.

This approach can also work with COVID - for instance, tax holidays and suspending (in a lovely intersection of two Crises) the Ontario Hydro "Feed-in" contracts for renewable energy that have so damaged the economy in the name of CC. Whenever an Emmanuel says that a Crisis is too good a thing to waste, we need to agree and then propose the urgently needed conservative ideas for expanding freedom and the Consensus that the Crisis demands!

More on the Debt and Dependency tomorrow.

 

The Reagan Consensus - Part 3

The Reagan Consensus and the Trojan Horse -

There are several threats to the Consensus that are substantive.

The first I discussed before - the Trojan Horse. The Opposition knows that it cannot get up on its hinds and hope to gain and hold power by attacking the Consensus head-on. This was proven by the disastrous Labour-Corbyn leadership and campaign of last December. So, like Biden and to some extent Trudeau, they pretend to be "moderate". But, as pointed out before, the biggest threat comes from the unelected - whether in the form of a Black Lives Matter, a CNN or a Brookings. They all have one thing in common - they masquerade their otherwise unpalatable agenda by calling themselves "disinterested, objective non-partisans".

The worst and most dangerous example of this change to the Consensus camouflaged as "legitimate discussion of progressive change" comes from something that Davos and other of its minions and peers are promoting ever more aggressively - something called "corporate governance". It represents the dawning realization of the Opposition that the best way to undermine and at least "control" Capitalism without appearing to touch the red lines of the Consensus is from within. 

What is the meaning of "corporate governance" in this context? Well, as the Davos official suggested in referring to it recently, it means weighing "short term profits against long term". It sounds good doesn't it? How many times have the gurus of finance told us that short term investment usually results in long term disaster? But, what they really mean by this will ultimately mean no or less profits in both the short and long term. All this is done in the name of "Social Justice", Climate Change, COVID or other of the latest cause celebre of the Left. But it's all just cover for their most important objective - their controlling people and shaming capitalists into reaching that goal.

How would it work? Normally, the "stakeholders" in a company are the owners or shareholders, the executives, the workers, the customer and the corporate entity, itself.  In other words, the people and entities that actually take part in the company financially in some way. The Capitalist system assumes that these natural interested parties will thereby run the company, work for it or buy or sell to it and operate according to their interests and the interest of the company at all times. If they do not, particularly if the Directors of the company fail in this regard or workers illegally strike, the law could be used to punish the malfeasant. Good business under the Rule of Law thus creates untold benefits for all.

The Davos Corporate Governance or "Reset of Capitalism" scheme would open this up to people and institutions that don't necessarily have any skin in the game of the company - governments, interest groups, the general public who may not even buy a single thing from the company, etc. Worse, the new stakeholders would not necessarily act on the interests of the company but according to the nebulous concept of "the public interest" that could theoretically change depending on who last had the microphone at the latest "stakeholders' " meeting. The result  would be that, as the Davos flack freely admits, profit would no longer be the first consideration of the company. 

If such a system took hold - two things would happen: (1) the laws would have to be changed so that stockholders in the company would no longer be allowed to sue if the New Age Agenda enforced on the Directors of the company led to ruin and malfeasance; and (2) many companies would be less profitable and maybe even go bankrupt and many more companies would not be formed as entrepreneurs fleed the jurisdiction that adopted this approach or simply refused to incorporate (although, one has to imagine that attempts would be made to have this apply to private companies, too) creating jobless and hurting consumer choice, price and service. 

Another ironic result of this approach is that many companies that could have done some real good for their communities (as they do already) beyond "simply" investing millions and employing thousands, would be far less able to do so or not be able to do this at all as they were stifled by such a disastrous concept. But the threat is real and dangerous precisely because of how it is dressed up with touchy feely titles like "corporate citizenship" and how it goes for everyone's apparent dislike of profits (especially, those made by others not ourselves). In other words, if Smith was right that, when people act in their own interest in the market, they are being directed by an invisible hand guiding them to a public interest as well, then this scheme would once and for all kill that blessing of free enterprise and multiply the curse of the reverse happening - people purporting to act in the "public interest" being guided by an invisible (and sometimes all too visible) hand of some private interest they did not know, most likely the megalomaniacal, the rent-seeker and the corrupt.

Certainly, like with other regulatory schemes, this, too, could easily be "captured" by big business and used by them to dominate their markets and exclude up and coming competitors that could not afford to support the new system. This in turn would be to the loss of consumers in increasingly monopolistic markets. It is also reminiscent of the ironic result of so-called anti pollution laws - they gave a license to companies and individuals to pollute by abolishing the right of individuals or companies to sue if their property was polluted by someone in return for compliance with regulation and fines from the authority. Similarly, in return for effectively surrendering control over the management of their companies, directors and executives will be able to compromise the interests of the shareholders without fear of lawsuit and maybe even get a gong from an organization like Davos for doing it!

Conservatives need to be on their guard against these types of schemes and always call them out for what they are - the back door to undoing the Consensus of economics, finance and governance that has been the basis for the incredible progress, prosperity and freedom of the human race in the past 40 years. The best way of doing this is public governance. Make it clear that the biggest threat to our welfare and liberty comes not from rapacious companies but from an overweaning state. I say we conservatives put forward our own set of "governors' governance" rules that would check any intrusion into the markets such as the corporate governance scheme and check their "freedom" to intervene in the economy.

This could be achieved by statutory rules restricting spending, taxation and debt to certain levels (such as those set by the EU for "convergence" by its members albeit hardly observed) and forbidding baseline budgeting. Regulations of any sort would be closely audited for their true cost benefit by outside audit and cut at least three for every one made. The government would be expelled from the remaining areas of the economy they "manage" like dairy, poultry, telecomms, airlines and banking here in Canada. Outdated practices and procedures, waste fraud and abuse and other monopolistic and corrupt practices in government everywhere would be stamped out. 

Above all, the state would be shrunk in size gradually in proportion to the GNP. The smaller the government, the less chance of corruption, waste and the threat of megalomaniacs perpetrating insidious and calamitous ideas like "corporate governance." A Grand Bargain could be offered to Davos-wannabe business and entrepreneurs - in return for you staying away from these bossy schemes and giving up the bribery (e.g.: subsidies) that so often comes with them, we'll get rid of the corporate tax (which only consumers pay anyway) and streamline regulation. With the resultant savings, you can visit pompous but hopefully feckless gabfests like Davos all you want and donate to the causes of your choice with all the munificence you desire (and we'll let you deduct that, too! seriously, is there any better example of Rube Goldberg than Corporate Governance as a way to save the World? One big company or entrepreneur's 100% charity write-off will do far more to save the World than CG ever will for a whole nation)...

Expanding the freedom to choose of the millions while limiting the freedom of the ideologue few and the state to dominate us with their siren song causes all the while building on the Consensus - now that's a real plan for a better future for us all.

But there are other threats to the Consensus and I will deal with them tomorrow.

The Reagan Consensus Part Two

Or:  The Enemies of the Reagan Consensus and Why We Should Not be Afraid of Them -

The enemies of the Reagan Consensus ( established since at least 1990, I say) are nothing if not absurd but sometimes sublime. The absurd both in substance and in form has to be shallow, demagogic, dissonant Joe Biden. He is the less apparently noxious specimen of the "moderate" Left. They only attack the Consensus if they know it is "unpopular" and only in incremental steps that can be dangerous only if you let it go so far.

 Perfect example: Biden announced that, while Trump's reduction in the US corporate tax rate from 35% (where by the way it had been even during Reagan's time) to 21% was "disastrous", it would be just right, Goldilocks, if it was at, say..., 28%. Notice that is so arbitrary as to literally be a trial lawyer's "splitting of the difference" to settle a fact that only 3 years ago was the "consensus": that the US should have a 35% corporate tax rate. This tells us one narrow thing and one broad thing. The narrow is that the so-called policy "ratchet" that Thatcher warned about can actually work in our favour and was in fact what the Reagan Consensus did - to change the way we are required to look at major areas of economic, financial and government policy fundamentally and hopefully forever (more on that later).

The broad thing it teaches us is that our opposition works with fear. It uses it to try to get its way on a wide range of issues from Climate Change to Gun  Control to COVID. But those who fearmonger are themselves the captive of fear. This leads to my first point about why the New Consensus will last long - its enemies are generally afraid to challenge it as they still perceive it is too unpopular to do so. As long as we mount a decent defence of the Consensus and remind people why they like it 24/7, we've nothing to fear from our fearful opponents for the most part.

That brings us to the more sublime enemies of the Consensus whose insidious, subtle attack on it is far more dangerous to us in the long run. They often come from academia or the media or the "expert class", the fabulously wealthy or, worst of all, the PONGO class. Above all, they present themselves as "apolitical" to cover for some pretty far out ideas. Examples include Bill Gates, Arletty, the French economist, the editorial boards and producers of most media as well as most of the pertinent and even impertinent faculties of most major colleges. The most recent example - the plaintive cry, in scheduling the World Economic Forum in Davos, in 2021, for a "Reset" of world economic and government policies. Translation - the general adoption of their pet unpopular socialistic and post-capitalist policies for controlling us more under the cover of COVID.

Their greater threat comes from the fact that they are not accountable to anyone but themselves (and sometimes, in light of their lifestyles of unchecked capitalism, conspicuous consumption and garish carbon emissions, not even themselves). The "Fear Factor" therefore of being timorous about implementing or even proposing radical changes is non-existent (witness how much more socialist an ex-politician, even one who was supposed to be a conservative, becomes once they leave office). It is also harder to fight this element of the opposition as it is ever more exclusive in admitting or tolerating those of a truly different political attitude into or in their precincts and indeed have exiled many who have transgressed against their evermore detailed PC code.

How to fight them? Well, one way is to keep the pressure on the elected and remind them how dangerous it will be politically to go against the Consensus. We need to campaign for, organize for and ultimately run as candidates who will guard and build on the Consensus. But candidates can come and go and ask you to :"read their lips"!

That is why another method is to fight for our causes and to organize our own forums and that is historically at a great peak compared to other eras. Before the 1950's, there were no conservative magazines. Before the 1960's, there were no conservative politicians. Before the 1970's, there were no conservative thinktanks. Before the 1980's, there was no conservative radio and before the 1990's, no conservative TV. We now have a great network of all these elements on our side although still outnumbered by the Left, especially in academia and the media. Worse, all these too can be ephemeral and thus may not always guard against the Left's threat to the Consensus (witness the apostasy of the likes of Bolton, Crystal and Kasich).

The real answer is Insulation. No, I am not talking about installing asbestos around Donald Trump. I am saying that the Consensus has survived as long as it has because it has certain in-built conditions and developments many of which no one, including Reagan, could have predicted that have ensured we never go back to confiscatory taxes, nationalization, wage and price controls and other extreme regulation and even re-regulation. These include:

1. Low inflation. Ironically, the excuse the governments used for controls was due to a phenomenon they helped to stoke through profligate fiscal policy. The Great Moderation removed this issue and thus the premise for intervening in the first place. It never came back even as taxes were slashed which many of the same "experts" said would also ramp up inflation. It also has undermined the rationale for related reregulations (for example, when energy was deregulated, the price of oil and gas went down);

2. The coming of the Computer Age. This sector has been critical to the renovation of the Rustbelt economies, to prosperity and improvement of the standard of living generally and for the most part has never been broadly regulated. Indeed, it has only known the New Consensus economically. As long as this is the case for it and most every other sector that depends on it (which is now practically every sector and industry and activity), the New Consensus will abide with this massive ally;

3. The same can be said for Telecomms and Social Media (also like Computing, areas of the economy that arguably would not be what they are today or even exist at all but for the New Consensus). Our lives have been changed and liberated irretrievably and in a good way that will be hard if not impossible and painful for a state to undo (yes, I'm going to use the cliche - the GENIE IS OUT OF THE BOTTLE!);

4. The collapse of the Soviet Union and thus the end of a huge and pervasive moral, intellectual and even material support for the enemies of the New Consensus around the World;

5. The crushing of poverty, disease and starvation worldwide mainly sue to the capitalistic and innovative forces unleashed by the New Consensus. In turn, this has also ushered in an extended period of peace; and,

6. The lack of a world crisis that invites the so-called "resetting" of the Consensus. And no, the "Great Recession" and COVID and Climate Change did not and will not do it. They are all materially and existentially far less threatening than the Great Depression, the World Wars and the Cold War that were all used to one degree or another to justify the Old Consensus, that is state intervention. Deep down even the most publicly committed to trying to alter the Consensus know that these are only perceived threats at best that will not compel people to return to the Old Consensus that not only is proven not to work BUT does not even have a relevant application to whole parts of our lives today.

There are many more reasons for the "immunity"of the New Consensus to the "virus" of its' enemies efforts to kill it. But over all, while many of us long for the "Good Old Days" or rail at "Social Injustice" as if it were invented in 2001 or 2017, we still live lives that are incomparably better, safer and more enjoyable and agreeable than any we had before the new Consensus was built. That is why our politicians will always (except incrementally which must still be definitely fought hard) back off substantively changing it as long as we stand up to them and get the right people to protect the Consensus and the freedoms it has given us all.

In short, Reagan's warning, that we can lose in a generation the freedom and prosperity it took centuries to build, still holds. Complacency and not improving (for instance, deregulating MORE areas of the economy and real tax reform) is not an option for us no matter how comfortable we are.  But, as long as we remain diligent, we're never going to go back to truly "Big Government" anymore than we are going back to platform shoes, bellbottom pants and disco.