So here's my serious response, which in my Diogenic way may not be more valuable than my trollish response. Both the right and the left on the scale of policymaking have become completely reactionary; mirrors facing mirrors. I don't think this is random noise, but neither do I think this is a patterned ecosystem.
(There is nothing odd about Fox News being based in NYC. I guarantee-fucking-tee you that half the staff is having drinks with and hate-fucking half the staff at MSNBC and CNN. There is also nothing odd about Tucker Carlson's texts condemning his employer.)
This is pure speculation but, after the recession, big executives learned that there is no punishment waiting for those connected types who get caught with their hands in the cookie jar. "Too big to fail" also means "too big to punish" and as a corollary, "too big to stop". The veil was finally lifted when the entire nation found out the superpacs were pulling the election strings. And although we all already suspected this, the bare naked display demonstrates that they have no concern for exposure. Their force is now bare naked.
Before all of this, the management class, thanks to management consulting agencies, had long been favoring those inept well-to-do city-kitty mediocrities with fancy-pants degrees (look at all the idiots with phds on substack who have nothing to say other than "I have a phd"). None of them believe in anything. Whether they're right or left doesn't matter because that's merely their aesthetic or vibe.
And so, unless the management monopoly can be uh...Robespierre'd...and the SEC suddenly grows teeth and claws, then we're all better off writing stories about chivalry and swords (ahem) in the hopes of inspiring people to believe in things again. Its also better for cardiovascular health as well.
Remember when the Senate unanimously voted to make daylight savings time permanent? And then nothing happened because the house did nothing. That's when I decided it's all theater. How could all of the senators agree that daylight savings time is better than standard time? Some of them must have thought standard time was okay. Some others must have thought the switch was okay. If permanent DST is the way to go, why did the house ignore it?
I worked for cable TV in NYC for twenty years and believe me everyone who works for that business hops jobs and networks and no one really cares about the content all that much. All these places have laid off so many workers over the last few years that I guarantee anyone who actually does care won’t care for long when they need a job.
Re: Becoming worthy. I don't know you in real life, of course, but from your online life I can see that you put a great deal of effort into hitting all eight of these goals. This is extremely commendable.
I don't know whether that will pay off in some way in the broader world off of Substack, but even if it doesn't you're making a positive difference right now. I disagree with you about many topics, but in my mind you're worthy. Thank you for being you.
My friend, you might not know it, but you are FAR worthier than the Con Inc trash that gets published all of the time by so many outlets on the right. I will match your worst article against their best any day, and you will always come out on top. 👍🏻
There are people who will be made political appointees who are below your demonstrated intellectual level. Just because you are doing deliveries doesn't mean you couldn't rise high in the political game. It's a surprisingly small club.
This is a great article, but it's nearly impossible to share in any but the most radically open-minded spaces, because you allowed the default thumbnail to be "Secret Hitler." If someone isn't familiar with the Lomez Problem, like I wasn't, this article looks to be about something entirely different than it is. I only read it because I'm already familiar with your work.
For my part, I’d be curious about who’s secretly Hitler. It’s the kind of thing I’d want to know.
The picture is actually from a game created by some liberals as some kind of political science experiment. What’s ironic is that they anticipated that some people would consider it too serious to treat in a light manner, but wave off those concerns by directing complainants to email various Republican congressmen. I suspect that the smug progressives who play it get a transgressive thrill out of having 30s Voldemort out for game night with the rest of the software development team.
I mean, I clicked on it, so obviously it piqued my curiosity.
But in the context of the advice you give in this very article, to not put off normies, it's not great. Also generally, it doesn't illustrate the article at all, in the way key art should.
It doesn’t put off normies. They say it does, but deep down they find the phenomenon of evil fascinating. They love Breaking Bad and the Sopranos. It’s fun for them to toy around with things they imagine they’re safe from. There’s a reason they’re playing Secret Hitler and not Chutes and Ladders. If I had called the article Hitler McHitler goes Hitlering it would have gotten more views even than it did with just the picture.
I have no love for Hitler- he’s the product of modernism and democracy, a jumped-up corporal who turned the most civilized nation on earth into a showcase for mass murder and misrule, taking the reputation of rightism into the abyss with him. The point of my Secret Hitler thumbnail was to make a subtle joke at my own expense: an idiot would imagine I’m the same sort of bogeyman while presenting to the world as a mild-mannered schoolteacher.
RFK’s site, https://www.mahanow.org, has a nomination form to serve in numerous capacities on different areas to help an incoming Trump Admin. to transform government.
I nominated a friend for Elon Musk’s DOGE. He checks all the boxes—ideologically aligned with Vance, brilliant, experienced negotiator, great personality, successful in life (family, career, sports), independently wealthy, willing to sacrifice for the country. And there is not a thing in his background that would blow up in the administration’s face.
There's a ton of talent available but they're offline and obscure. Anyone clamoring for the job is probably suspect, so we need to find people who are content where they are, and good at what they do.
Honestly some sort of sortition method might be best. To make the list pick a town, remove everyone that's ever voted D, remove everyone that doesn't own property or have a job, and pick ten at random from those that remain. There might be surprising amounts of talent there.
Or do an Apprentice-style deathmatch. Select random groups of 20, have them compete in some way that filters for desired qualities, and give the winners positions.
Any group that discovered a consistent method for revealing and rewarding hidden talent wouldn't win instantly, but over time they'd become unstoppable.
From personal experience, some bigshots do indeed read our work here. I was messaged on Twitter for permission to reprint one of my pieces for The Blaze. I didn't get it for two weeks because it was stuck in the Message Requests folder that I never check due to it usually being porn-bots.
I said sure, of course, and he said he was still interested in reprinting it. It never happened, but it was a little shocking and an honor to get that attention.
If I read you correctly, you're saying that a barstool is no place to look for a wife and Harvard is no place to look for a loyal staffer; the exceptions making the rule.
Lower the bar. Politics is a game played by weirdos. Rational people stick to games where there is less faith requirement.
Morton Blackwell founded the Leadership Institute many years ago based on the theory that it's much easier to train a real conservative in the skills of governance than it is to turn a natural politician (or reporter, or bureaucrat) into a true conservative.
Blackwell's definition of a true conservative is obsolete, unless he has evolved with the times. (It's over a quarter century since I took one of his courses.) But the principle is valid. Principle and willingness to work first. Train for competence.
For example, I'd appoint you to work in the Department of Education in a heartbeat. But I wouldn't make you cabinet secretary without evidence of mastery of bureaucrat fu. I suspect you need practice. In terms of raw intellect, you are well above many who have risen high in terms of political appointments. (I'll say more in a private message.) But I don't know based on your posts what your skills are for managing others and dealing with bureaucratic rules, so some testing/practice is in order.
Merit. The Lomez Challenge, simple hire based on merit; superior quality or worth; excellence.
Hey it worked in the past, no matter if you were building a railroad or a train station. It works today, no matter if you're building a spaceship or a nation. Yes you'll make mistakes, maybe hire a lawyer who says she'll release the Kraken to find she has a brine shrimp, so the answer is to fire and replace quickly if you find their merit was a myth.
If Elon can find an hire guys able to catch a multistory rocket out of the air I suspect President Trump can find adequate spear throwers as well as a few needed spear catchers.
There were so many of those people. I recall Mary Katherine Ham with her blacklist, all the NeverTrump cucks, etc. The one thing they shared was a serene obliviousness to how really out of touch they were. It reminds me of the character Fouquer from Cheech and Chong’s The Corsican Brothers, furiously denouncing the rebels for turning his beloved filthy peasants against him.
One hunting ground for talented individuals with the right stuff could come from the waves of people from Silicon Valley that took off to sweeter conservative climes powered by stock options and real estate gains. Some left because the atmosphere for raising children became poisonous, others saw no way to coexist in an environment that was clearly corrupt. Others left because rampant meritocracy devolved into cultish slavery. I ran away to save my kids and bought a gentleman’s ranch. Best thing I ever did!
Informal networks of contacts would be a viable solution to finding candidates and having that initial exploratory conversation.
Just an idea. Really enjoyed reading your piece. Thank you for taking my mind off the election.
12 hrs ago·edited 12 hrs agoLiked by Librarian of Celaeno
Why is government pay too low to attract aspiring young professionals for political appointments? Increase the pay scale by 10 times to attract the actual best and brightest instead of ideologically driven semi-volunteers and corrupt influence peddlers.
The same goes for Congress where pay could be raised a hundred times. These people decide on a $5 trillion dollar budget. .But no, the system wants corruption.
So here's my serious response, which in my Diogenic way may not be more valuable than my trollish response. Both the right and the left on the scale of policymaking have become completely reactionary; mirrors facing mirrors. I don't think this is random noise, but neither do I think this is a patterned ecosystem.
(There is nothing odd about Fox News being based in NYC. I guarantee-fucking-tee you that half the staff is having drinks with and hate-fucking half the staff at MSNBC and CNN. There is also nothing odd about Tucker Carlson's texts condemning his employer.)
This is pure speculation but, after the recession, big executives learned that there is no punishment waiting for those connected types who get caught with their hands in the cookie jar. "Too big to fail" also means "too big to punish" and as a corollary, "too big to stop". The veil was finally lifted when the entire nation found out the superpacs were pulling the election strings. And although we all already suspected this, the bare naked display demonstrates that they have no concern for exposure. Their force is now bare naked.
Before all of this, the management class, thanks to management consulting agencies, had long been favoring those inept well-to-do city-kitty mediocrities with fancy-pants degrees (look at all the idiots with phds on substack who have nothing to say other than "I have a phd"). None of them believe in anything. Whether they're right or left doesn't matter because that's merely their aesthetic or vibe.
And so, unless the management monopoly can be uh...Robespierre'd...and the SEC suddenly grows teeth and claws, then we're all better off writing stories about chivalry and swords (ahem) in the hopes of inspiring people to believe in things again. Its also better for cardiovascular health as well.
Remember when the Senate unanimously voted to make daylight savings time permanent? And then nothing happened because the house did nothing. That's when I decided it's all theater. How could all of the senators agree that daylight savings time is better than standard time? Some of them must have thought standard time was okay. Some others must have thought the switch was okay. If permanent DST is the way to go, why did the house ignore it?
I worked for cable TV in NYC for twenty years and believe me everyone who works for that business hops jobs and networks and no one really cares about the content all that much. All these places have laid off so many workers over the last few years that I guarantee anyone who actually does care won’t care for long when they need a job.
This is absolutely ridiculous. No one with a rapier should have that much difficulty against a messer. Literally just spam the stab attack.
All his kills were with the dagger. So much for a swordsman.
Re: Becoming worthy. I don't know you in real life, of course, but from your online life I can see that you put a great deal of effort into hitting all eight of these goals. This is extremely commendable.
I don't know whether that will pay off in some way in the broader world off of Substack, but even if it doesn't you're making a positive difference right now. I disagree with you about many topics, but in my mind you're worthy. Thank you for being you.
That’s very kind.
My friend, you might not know it, but you are FAR worthier than the Con Inc trash that gets published all of the time by so many outlets on the right. I will match your worst article against their best any day, and you will always come out on top. 👍🏻
There are people who will be made political appointees who are below your demonstrated intellectual level. Just because you are doing deliveries doesn't mean you couldn't rise high in the political game. It's a surprisingly small club.
This is a great article, but it's nearly impossible to share in any but the most radically open-minded spaces, because you allowed the default thumbnail to be "Secret Hitler." If someone isn't familiar with the Lomez Problem, like I wasn't, this article looks to be about something entirely different than it is. I only read it because I'm already familiar with your work.
For my part, I’d be curious about who’s secretly Hitler. It’s the kind of thing I’d want to know.
The picture is actually from a game created by some liberals as some kind of political science experiment. What’s ironic is that they anticipated that some people would consider it too serious to treat in a light manner, but wave off those concerns by directing complainants to email various Republican congressmen. I suspect that the smug progressives who play it get a transgressive thrill out of having 30s Voldemort out for game night with the rest of the software development team.
https://www.secrethitler.com/
I mean, I clicked on it, so obviously it piqued my curiosity.
But in the context of the advice you give in this very article, to not put off normies, it's not great. Also generally, it doesn't illustrate the article at all, in the way key art should.
It doesn’t put off normies. They say it does, but deep down they find the phenomenon of evil fascinating. They love Breaking Bad and the Sopranos. It’s fun for them to toy around with things they imagine they’re safe from. There’s a reason they’re playing Secret Hitler and not Chutes and Ladders. If I had called the article Hitler McHitler goes Hitlering it would have gotten more views even than it did with just the picture.
I have no love for Hitler- he’s the product of modernism and democracy, a jumped-up corporal who turned the most civilized nation on earth into a showcase for mass murder and misrule, taking the reputation of rightism into the abyss with him. The point of my Secret Hitler thumbnail was to make a subtle joke at my own expense: an idiot would imagine I’m the same sort of bogeyman while presenting to the world as a mild-mannered schoolteacher.
RFK’s site, https://www.mahanow.org, has a nomination form to serve in numerous capacities on different areas to help an incoming Trump Admin. to transform government.
I nominated a friend for Elon Musk’s DOGE. He checks all the boxes—ideologically aligned with Vance, brilliant, experienced negotiator, great personality, successful in life (family, career, sports), independently wealthy, willing to sacrifice for the country. And there is not a thing in his background that would blow up in the administration’s face.
Visit the website (https://www.mahanow.org) and start nominating worthy candidates.
I restacked it for those who might be able to serve.
There's a ton of talent available but they're offline and obscure. Anyone clamoring for the job is probably suspect, so we need to find people who are content where they are, and good at what they do.
Honestly some sort of sortition method might be best. To make the list pick a town, remove everyone that's ever voted D, remove everyone that doesn't own property or have a job, and pick ten at random from those that remain. There might be surprising amounts of talent there.
Or do an Apprentice-style deathmatch. Select random groups of 20, have them compete in some way that filters for desired qualities, and give the winners positions.
Any group that discovered a consistent method for revealing and rewarding hidden talent wouldn't win instantly, but over time they'd become unstoppable.
From personal experience, some bigshots do indeed read our work here. I was messaged on Twitter for permission to reprint one of my pieces for The Blaze. I didn't get it for two weeks because it was stuck in the Message Requests folder that I never check due to it usually being porn-bots.
I said sure, of course, and he said he was still interested in reprinting it. It never happened, but it was a little shocking and an honor to get that attention.
That’s great; I’m sure it will happen again.
If I read you correctly, you're saying that a barstool is no place to look for a wife and Harvard is no place to look for a loyal staffer; the exceptions making the rule.
Being charitable, I’d say they’re at least not the only places.
Lower the bar. Politics is a game played by weirdos. Rational people stick to games where there is less faith requirement.
Morton Blackwell founded the Leadership Institute many years ago based on the theory that it's much easier to train a real conservative in the skills of governance than it is to turn a natural politician (or reporter, or bureaucrat) into a true conservative.
Blackwell's definition of a true conservative is obsolete, unless he has evolved with the times. (It's over a quarter century since I took one of his courses.) But the principle is valid. Principle and willingness to work first. Train for competence.
For example, I'd appoint you to work in the Department of Education in a heartbeat. But I wouldn't make you cabinet secretary without evidence of mastery of bureaucrat fu. I suspect you need practice. In terms of raw intellect, you are well above many who have risen high in terms of political appointments. (I'll say more in a private message.) But I don't know based on your posts what your skills are for managing others and dealing with bureaucratic rules, so some testing/practice is in order.
Biggest of books? OK Max. ;-)
Merit. The Lomez Challenge, simple hire based on merit; superior quality or worth; excellence.
Hey it worked in the past, no matter if you were building a railroad or a train station. It works today, no matter if you're building a spaceship or a nation. Yes you'll make mistakes, maybe hire a lawyer who says she'll release the Kraken to find she has a brine shrimp, so the answer is to fire and replace quickly if you find their merit was a myth.
If Elon can find an hire guys able to catch a multistory rocket out of the air I suspect President Trump can find adequate spear throwers as well as a few needed spear catchers.
An important article. May it spread far and wide.
Thank you very much. As it happens, Lomez told me he liked it.
I recall Jonah Goldberg recommending a little light purging back in 2016, to cleanse the Right after Trump lost.
Looking for the actual tweet, I could not find it, but thus:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170821095305/https://newsadvance.com/opinion/columnists/goldberg_jonah/conservatives-must-purge-the-alt-right/article_c8dc17ac-8451-11e7-99af-7f9df6f0c25a.html
For an alternative view of the problem,
https://amgreatness.com/2016/10/22/seven-degrees-jonah-goldberg/
There were so many of those people. I recall Mary Katherine Ham with her blacklist, all the NeverTrump cucks, etc. The one thing they shared was a serene obliviousness to how really out of touch they were. It reminds me of the character Fouquer from Cheech and Chong’s The Corsican Brothers, furiously denouncing the rebels for turning his beloved filthy peasants against him.
I think this is actually Kevin Williamson
https://clip.cafe/cheech-andamp-chongs-the-corsican-brothers-1984/believe-me-you-werent-a-woman-i-could-kiss-you-that/
One hunting ground for talented individuals with the right stuff could come from the waves of people from Silicon Valley that took off to sweeter conservative climes powered by stock options and real estate gains. Some left because the atmosphere for raising children became poisonous, others saw no way to coexist in an environment that was clearly corrupt. Others left because rampant meritocracy devolved into cultish slavery. I ran away to save my kids and bought a gentleman’s ranch. Best thing I ever did!
Informal networks of contacts would be a viable solution to finding candidates and having that initial exploratory conversation.
Just an idea. Really enjoyed reading your piece. Thank you for taking my mind off the election.
Thank you. It would be great to develop a sideline teaching Classics to rich tech people to help them broaden, should they need it.
Why is government pay too low to attract aspiring young professionals for political appointments? Increase the pay scale by 10 times to attract the actual best and brightest instead of ideologically driven semi-volunteers and corrupt influence peddlers.
The same goes for Congress where pay could be raised a hundred times. These people decide on a $5 trillion dollar budget. .But no, the system wants corruption.
Really enjoyed this - very thought provoking