Moldbug: The genius of the New Deal design

This is an abbreviated post. The original can be found here.

The genius of New Deal "liberal democracy" is that while it's somewhat liberal, it's not at all democratic. It is in fact designed specifically to resist democracy. When democracy breaks out, we tend to call it "politics" and recognize it as a bad thing, like the Founders. See the earlier post on "Improper political influence over government decision-making".

The Republic of the Founders was unfortunately vulnerable to democracy. The modern civil service state abolished the Republic while maintaining trappings such as praising "democracy". Augustus did similarly to the Roman Republic.

Today only the White House is political, and the White House has little domestic influence. Congress has 98% reelection rates, is part of the Iron Triangle, and then there's the press (commonly recognized as the Fourth Estate), the universities, and the foundations.

It follows that attempting to fix government by "democratic" means is likely to be about as effective as marching through a wall.