I loved writing this article.
...actually, not: I was pretty frustrated and angry when I did.
I feel like I'm losing my mind: WTH IS WRONG WITH EVERYONE?!
My very surface observation here is that the intellectual classes have had a collective psychosis. They're off their (Pfizer-mandated?) meds.
Not only does the anger and vitriol feel coordinated, but it’s undeniably performative: Clearly, they cannot genuinely be this upset over such trifling matters. This little spring cleaning, having already annoyed absolutely everyone in the world of Anglo-American intelligentsia, is but mere a trickle. If shrinking the federal workforce by some single-digit percentages is “taking a torch to the American state,” I would like to know in which segment of the dictionary Messrs. Luce, Edsall, and Wolf intend to find the appropriate words for any actual (and urgently needed) reduction of America’s government.
...opened his FT article with the powerful sentence, “Civilised societies depend on institutions.” At a high enough level, that’s right—although his continuation, “the most important institutions are those of the state,” is laughable. Moreover, he’s wrong about which institutions, and on which side of “civilized” we find him and these other unsavory characters in legacy media, politics, and the state bureaucracy.