The liberal regime’s crisis of legitimacy

Of course, Kamala Harris didn’t plagiarize parts of her 2009 book, Smart on Crime. After all, she didn’t write it. Like nearly every other politician, she used a ghostwriter. So why, when conservative activist Christopher Rufo revealed that sections of the book were plagiarized, did Vice President Harris and her allies try to obfuscate rather than just throw the ghostwriter under the bus?

The likely answer is that admitting that Harris didn’t write her book would confirm voters’ impressions that she is lazy and inauthentic—the ultimate empty suit. After all, Harris is only the nominee because she was next in line when President Joe Biden’s incapacity became too much of an electoral hazard.

Harris is an avatar for an unpopular, failing liberal regime suffering from a crisis of legitimacy, which is why the main argument for supporting her is negative: She is not Donald Trump. But, though the former president’s unpopularity when paired with the Democratic political and media machine might be enough to hand her victory, that will not end liberalism’s legitimation crisis.

Defeating Trump will not restore faith in government, the legacy corporate media, higher education (which has been beset by plagiarism scandals of its own), or any of the other institutions governed by contemporary liberalism. Electing Harris will not fix the problem of an incompetent ruling class that lacks a vision of the good with any more depth than a Taco Bell commercial.

Harris epitomizes a ruling class and ideology that is doing well for itself but not for the nation as a whole. The litany of voter complaints about the Biden administration—inflation, crime, borders handed over to the cartels, ideologues pushing race and gender insanity—ring true because they are true.

Likewise, ideologically induced incompetence is manifest throughout the institutions controlled by liberalism. Just look at the University of Michigan’s disastrous diversity, equity, and inclusion programs—when The New York Times exposes a DEI program as a failure that only increased division and ill will on campus, you know it must be bad.

However, these efforts did provide jobs for a herd of otherwise useless administrators of the sort that now constitute much of the secular clerisy that has embedded itself throughout American institutions and culture. Their role in the regime is to certify the ruling class as morally superior because of its commitment to cultural leftism, especially regarding race and sexuality, thereby legitimating its rule. In practice, this is a destructive grift that betrays the common good by giving handouts and special privileges to client groups while simultaneously being used as a weapon against dissenters and critics.

This DEI approach values identity more than excellence. It is intrinsically opposed to the common good because its fundamental approach is to define and divide people based on how their identities fall in an intersectional oppressor/oppressed matrix. Consequently, it treats opposition as illegitimate—even simple disagreement is regarded as a tool of the oppressors. And any victories by those classified as oppressors are considered intrinsically illegitimate, regardless of their democratic and legal bona fides.

This is why, for all its talk about democracy and liberalism, the ruling class increasingly uses illiberal means to maintain powers, often invoking the specter of Trump as justification. They warn that Trump will attack the Constitution, jail his enemies, censor the press, and incite violence, even as they do all of these things themselves and more. Furthermore, though Trump scares them, they also view him as an opportunity, insofar as they believe that he and his political imitators are easier to beat and less effective in office. And so Democrats denounce the threat of “MAGA fascism” even as they boost Trump’s MAGA acolytes in Republican primaries.

Trump’s flaws might buy the ruling class another election cycle in power, but this will only lead Americans to despise the mediocrities who constitute our current elite—as exemplified in the incompetent, reflexively radical diversity pick that is Kamala Harris. But a Trump win will not let our liberal leadership class off the hook for its failures in the many areas of American life and culture its members will still control, such as higher education.

No amount of whining about Trump will preserve the legitimacy of our failed ruling class. That can only be done if they repent of their dreadful leadership and dedicate themselves to virtue and excellence in service to the common good. Sadly, that seems as likely as Kamala Harris actually writing a book on her own.