ideology masquerading as principle

ideology-n. a system of ideas or ways of thinking pertaining to a class or individual esp. as a basis for some economic or political theory or system, regarded as justifying actions and esp. to be maintained irrespective of events. the shorter oxford English dictionary

in an interview in the sunday new york times kevin d. roberts…head wonk at the heritage foundation, maintains the aim is to “institutionalize trumpsim”…this brings up a number of points…it would seem mr. Roberts has already elected don trump to a second term as president…and “trumpism” needs a definition…the first point is still moot and we actually have an answer to the second…the heritage foundation is involved in something called “project 2025” which is a conservative group bent on imposing their values despite what anyone else may think…they have produced a book titled “mandate for leadership: the conservative mandate”…a manifesto for the kulturkampf…a sample of the verbiage runs like this…”reducing the number of federal employees seems an obvious way to reduce the overall expense of the civil service, and many prior administrations have attempted to do just this. presidents bill Clinton and barak obama began their terns, as did ronald reagan and donald trump, by mandating a freeze on the hiring of new federal employees but these efforts did not lead to permanent and substantive reductions in the number of nondefense federal employees”…so the military and its enormous expense are inviolate…that is clear…what is not clear is why “prior administrations” failed to reduce the federal payroll…project 2025 does not stop to consider that you cannot administer a de facto empire with a small government…shades of grover nordquist and his desire to “drown” a shrunken federal government in a bathtub…so long as you are policing an empire you will have bureaucrats…my thoughts are they will simply be those infused with trumpist ardor if mr. Roberts has his way…and what does he see as “substantive”?...he ballparked 50,000 lost jobs and added that he wished the losers no harm and hoped they would thrive in the regular economy as old federal buildings were “repurposed” for commercial activities ( how much empty commercial space is there where you live? Good luck there kev )…”mandate for leadership” has fifteen chapters dealing with separate government agencies involved in regulatory activities and an outline for what to do with each…for health and human services for instance, “protecting, life, conscience, and bodily integrity: the secretary should pursue a robust agenda to protect the fundamental right to life, protect conscience rights [ “health and human services prohibits recipients of health and human services funds from discriminating against institutional and individual health care entities for their participation in, abstention from, or objection to certain medical procedures.” church amendments to the public health service act definition of “conscience rights”], and uphold bodily integrity rooted in biological realities, not ideology.”…no more abortions and none of that transgender nonsense in a “trumpist” America…so in an 800 plus page ideological manifesto they dismiss current administration policy as “ideology”…of course they will call it “conservative principles” or “ faith-based beliefs”…that does not diminish it as ideological warfare on a national scale..

i have not finished perusing this and imagine there will be more overt self-deceit or, perhaps, it is simply an attempt to disguise scrapping what’s left of the constitution as some sort of return to morality…small wonder the fundamentalists are on board…and we will ( for now ) leave out the implications of kev’s stated desire to remove power from the bureaucrats and return it to congress…given the sclerotic state of that group of doctrinaire conspiracy theorists and wholly owned grifter criminals ( what was that twain said about congress? ) that cannot possibly bode well for the bulk of the polity…in fact I cannot see much of anything in these pages aimed at the actual wellbeing of the bulk of the population…a framework for government by the elite for the elite…which wouldn’t be much of a change actually…they simply don’t like the veneer of what passes for democracy in this country.