The Coolant System
No. 40: January 8, 2021
Dear Friends,
Several times now since the November election I have written something to the effect of, “and that’s the last I’ll say about that.” I’ve been desiring not to talk about politics; after all, one of the guiding convictions of The Square Inch is that the vast majority of what makes up life is not political. Politics dominating our lives—not to mention this newsletter—is a major problem to overcome.
But I guess today is not that day. Events conspire against me.
This 42-year-old man was beaten to death on Wednesday with a fire extinguisher while in the line of duty. Trying to hold back a mob. Inside the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.
This is Ashli Babbit. She was shot dead by Capitol police as she tried to breach Congressional chambers.
Three others have died from various medical complications related to the riot, bringing the body count to five. Sixty Capitol Police personnel suffered injuries. There are so many thoughts and angles that one hardly knows where to begin. So I’ll start here, with this Tweet on Wednesday:
I wasn’t only trying to be snarky. I was making a serious point. Our system of government is a web of interrelated laws, norms, customs, procedures that are intentionally designed as a coolant system. Our founders understood overheated passions and the dangers of what they called “factions,” i.e., mobs. They worried a great deal about power-hungry, rabble-rousing, demagogic leaders whipping people into a frenzy and grabbing (or retaining) power through force.
So they carefully crafted a system to balance power, to slow change, to put roadblocks in front of would-be tyrants, while providing just enough sensitivity to the electorate that citizens could, in fact, change things. That process is called an “election,” and it, too, has built-in safeguards so that the majority cannot simply lord it over the minority: the Electoral College. A properly functioning system of elections, in the context of our Constitution, laws, statutes, and other institutional norms is the coolant system of our Republic.
Yet, here we are. A power-hungry, rabble-rousing, demagogic leader just whipped people into a frenzy in front of our very eyes with the aim of retaining his power. The crowd, at his direction, made its way down to the Capitol, where Congress was in the middle of doing the business of Constitutional governance. There, they stormed through the barricades with the aim of… who knows what? At least some of them wanted to find and execute the Vice President for Treason, since he had, earlier in the day, declined to commit an act of sedition to help the sitting President. Mind you, this was being done by people who style themselves “Patriots.” Probably the best write-up of the day’s events is this one by the indispensable Jim Geraghty.
From the wide vantage point of our history, Wednesday, January 6, 2021 is a day of infamy. What our Founders arguably most feared actually happened; it was not virtual reality or fantasy—which is where a lot of the participants live in their headspace, and what a number of Congressmen and Senators thought it was: performative theater that wouldn’t result in anything. No, it really happened, and five people are dead. It was a real insurrection. A failed and futile one, yes; but fatal, nonetheless.
I will let others sort out the needed repercussions. There is excellent commentary to be found. A lot of it is very angry and overheated in its own way, as people are understandably incensed. That’s why I think Yuval Levin’s piece, “Trump’s Rebellion Against Reality” is the best thing to read: level-headed, calm, and incredibly wise and insightful.
For my part, I think the President’s continued refusal to abide by the election results, endlessly repeating wild (and, nearly without exception, debunked) conspiracies, stoking anger at our lawfully elected representatives, and seeking to subvert our very system of government is obviously impeachable, and I will not object if Congress decides to do just that.
The System Overheated
The alarming problem we have here is that our coolant system worked. We had an election, and a highly scrutinized one at that. The results were close, and the President lost a narrow contest almost as narrowly as he won it four years ago. He challenged the results in many courts (another critical piece of “coolant” infrastructure!) and his challenges were found to be meritless—in most cases his legal team didn’t even allege fraud. The procedure then continued as designed by the Founders: States certified their Electoral College votes; the Electoral College met and voted; and on Wednesday Congress convened and read the results, officially making Joe Biden the new President.
So why and how did everything overheat? There are so many possible answers that books can and will be written on the subject. But let me rehearse a few of my own thoughts. The bottom line is that a large part of the population doesn’t believe in the coolant system anymore. They have been encouraged to not believe in it, and incentivized to not believe in it. Not by fringe people, but very influential and powerful people, not least the President of the United States.
Do you remember awhile back when I wrote about that Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma? It’s about how social media companies, like Dr. Frankenstein, have created something of a monster: algorithms designed to hook you and keep you engaged. Computer systems that curate your online content perfectly to suit your tastes and interests. This is why if you click on an ad for something, you’ll start seeing that ad everywhere you go on the World Wide Web. It’s a handy thing, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with this technology: if I like chess and baseball, I like it when YouTube doesn’t bother suggesting backgammon and cricket videos.
There is a plot line in that film you might remember. A teenage boy starts watching videos of a political radical of some sort—kind of a mishmash of both Antifa and right wing tropes. He gets hooked, and further and further down the rabbit hole he goes, until he finds himself…at a violent political riot. So, yes. That wasn’t very far-fetched, was it? Do you know why Ashli Babbit was trying to storm the Capitol? She was a devotee of an online conspiracy theory called “QAnon,” and she believed that the events of January 6th were going to be an apocalypse of some great world-historical event, and she was going to help bring it about.
Some friends of mine can attest that I have been warning for two months that somebody is going to get killed. The rhetoric from political, media, and even religious figures, from the President himself to talk radio jocks to evangelicals like Eric “Fight To The Death” Metaxas has been so hysterical, so irresponsible, so entirely detached from reality that I have been convinced that some nut case somewhere is going to shoot somebody. Sadly, my gut feeling was pretty much in the ballpark. I didn’t think it was going to be a whole crowd of them storming the Capitol.
Every single day I have friends who post absolute garbage. Yesterday’s was the one about how two of the rioters were “false flag” Antifa members (this reflex, that only the “other side” is capable of violence, is so very illuminating). It’s a lie peddled by fabulist Lin Wood; it has been thoroughly debunked; and yet the person who posted it hasn’t a clue. I have watched this radicalization happen in real time for a very long time on social media. How would a person know that a theory has been debunked when truth never pierces their media consumption bubble? I’m not just blaming technology; people ultimately choose what they consume. But social media has introduced major challenges. Remember its promise? It would bring the world together in the palm of your hand! Instead, it has helped sort us into increasingly insular tribes. And when you hear cries of rage about Facebook or Twitter trying to “fact check” things, they are trying, however badly, to address a very serious problem.
There always has been “fringes” and weird conspiratorial subcultures. There aren’t any fringes anymore. It’s fair to say that when the President of the United States is fully convinced of conspiracy theories, and so is a very large percentage of his political constituency, then we have a very grave problem on our hands. Tim Alberta is a reporter who has spent the last nine months on the ground talking to President Trump’s supporters. He became very alarmed at what he was hearing. He was witnessing the very kind of radicalization that I’m talking about here. You need to read his reflections in the aftermath of the January 6th insurrection.
Last month I posted this Tweet thread:
The tongue is also a fire. “I won in a landslide.” “This is a fraud perpetrated on the American people.” “I’m just ‘asking questions.’” “The people deserve to be heard.” Leaders stoked uncertainty and fear then sought to overturn an election because of all the uncertainty and fear they themselves created. We are a sick nation.
If you’ve read this far and your mind is full of whattabouts, I’d encourage you to engage in some self-examination. Whattabout? Whattabout? Whattabout? You name it: the media, the radical left, Antifa, Black Lives Matter, the summer riots, who blamed who for what, who didn’t say what back when, and on and on and on it goes in what amounts to a death spiral for our society. I take a back seat to nobody in my concern about the relentless march of progressivism in this country; but that concern, Lord willing, will never lead me to turn a blind eye to conspiratorial rot, political idolatry, and assaults on our foundational institutions.
I’ve been known to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands. That Republic has a brilliant, biblically-inspired coolant system that allows me to fight resolutely for what I believe without the heat of sinful malice, anger, rage, paranoia, slander, and murder.
January 6th, 2021 was a day self-styled “Patriots” fought for neither God nor country.
Miscellany
It all begs the question, doesn’t it? Was the election rigged? Sigh. I’ve come to realize that a great many people are impervious to dialogue on this question, but I’ll briefly explain a few reasons why I believe the election results. People doubt elections because election procedures and processes are a giant mystery to them. Hucksters and con artists very easily fill in those blanks with literally anything they want: pallets of fake ballots, hacked voting machines, the ghost of Hugo Chavez, you name it.
The reality is that our electoral system is pretty fine-tuned and not at all a mystery to people in the industry. You can’t fill that big “mystery” warehouse of your mind with whatever you wish. We know the demographics and voting history of every single precinct and county in this massive country. We know the granular details. You know who I follow on election nights? People like Henry Olsen, Dave Wasserman, or Sean Trende. These guys spend their lives following and analyzing election results. They crunch the numbers in real time, seeing what percentages of various precincts each candidate is receiving, making projections, and so forth. They know the history and voting patterns like the backs of their hands. They know “unusual” election results instinctively and intuitively. It is simply impossible for some clandestine conspiracy to flood some precinct or county with tens of thousands of votes for a single candidate and not have it noticed. Period. That could be done, by the way, in the old days with only paper ballots and no Internet. Our system is actually way more secure.
And that’s the other problem. Ballots have to have a pedigree. They have to get “reported” from somewhere. A particular precinct. The system has no place for a ballot to “appear” in the system out of thin air. The only way for it to appear is to be reported by a particular precinct. Which, again, guys like Olsen, Wasserman, and Trende, and hundreds of other are scrutinizing.
Just add in to all this that, as I’ve said before, Ockham’s Razor is all you really need. The President lost because he alienated more people than he inspired. That’s why down-ballot races somehow favored Republicans even in an election that was supposed to be “rigged” against them. If you’re still unconvinced, watch this press conference with Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling, who will exasperatedly and painstakingly debunk your every theory.
It was a dark week for the United States of America, and I’m sorry for the heavy content. Let me ask you a question: when was the last time you actually listened to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address? It takes three minutes of your time, and it is well-worth it. The nation of which he speaks is still worth fighting for and preserving, even when—especially when—an election doesn’t go our way.
Very nicely done, Brian! My question, as I'm sure is yours and many others, how can we fix it?
Thank you for the level-headed commentary on what has to be one of the all-time dark days in our generation.