Continuing our letter series, we pick up with our exchange with Grant Brooks on the lesson of 2016. You can find the first post here, which has links to every letter. As always, be sure to subscribe to Grant’s substack to keep up with his letters and overall good content.
Grant,
I am so glad to hear all is well! Reflecting on 2016 is strange for me as well. Back then I was still a student, and emotionally much younger than I am now. Whereas the election in 2016 was, for me, full of memes and the excitement of annoying my political enemies, the recent 2022 election was much more serious, now that I have a place of my own, bills to pay, and a career to maintain.
Entertainment is a large component of democracy. Some lament this, either seeing in the entertainment “bread and circuses”, while others think themselves above the vulgarity of it, preferring more technical analysis. I, and I imagine you as well, enjoy the show…if it is well done. When I was reading the parliamentary records for my study of Edmund Burke, I gobbled up the rhetoric and controversy! Sharp tongues lashing over the fate of the world hegemon is good stuff. The Republican primary of 2016 was equal to one of Burke’s offensives against Warren Hastings, lacking only in Burke’s vitriol. Yet, as exciting as it may be, and despite the show of rhetoric it provides, the show can fool us into thinking it’s the only show.
Of these other shows, you are right to point out the need for networking. This does not mean, as I have heard so often on the farther edges of the right, establishing fireteams, safe houses, and buying farms for when IT happens. It also does not mean, contrary to the commentariat wing of the right, establishing yet another assemblage of podcasts to be hosted on a paywalled website and led by a charismatic charlatan. Rather, as you pointed out, these networks need to be innocuous. There needs to be infrastructure in place so that when someone like Trump gets in the White House, he is able to achieve what he sets out to do. Out of these networks can come the middle management I talked about.
To contextualize this, a strong school choice bill (perhaps the 45K Plan) will only be successful if there is a large network of good schools ready to receive funding and use it competently. There happens to be such a network, but advertising it would draw the Eye of Sauron. Or, to think of something a bit more specific to Trump, there needs to be a network of lawyers ready to speedily defend executive orders when challenged by the nineth circuit or descend on battle ground states during elections. George W. Bush had such a team of lawyers in 2000, so it can be done. Note that this does not mean there should be a front-facing group of lawyers advertising themselves as “conservative” or “dissident.” Doing so would only paint a target on your back. These networks need to be built out of the public eye, and be well oiled for when it is time to mobilize.
Yet, as important as these networks are, they will work better in conjunction with someone who is capable of mobilizing it. Without a focus, a network has nothing to works towards. A president, or a governor, gives a focus, and a symbolic rallying point around which networks can coalesce. Not all foci or rallying points are equal, and this is why middle management is so important. It is the staffers and lawyers that guide a president or governor in effective actions, and non-profits that, via donations, choose candidates worthy of focusing said networks. Very probably, this middle management class will emerge from these networks, but the rests rest upon the middle management to focus and shape these networks. Not only because the management guides the president or governor, who gives focus to the networks, but because the management, if you permit me to include non-profits in this class, will fund the networks, and with funding comes the ability to shape and mold.
Networks are incredibly important, but it is the middle management that takes magic happen. Because of your fondness for Catholic theology, we could even say that although the horizontal causality between networks and management might be fuzzy, the vertical causality clearly prioritizes the management!
Joking aside, I am interested to hear what you think,
Yours,
Rose