I’m not sure who Frederick Alexander is, but he’s written an intriguing article at The Gadfly (click below to read for free)
Alexander lists five types of “progressives”, and although their characteristics are distinct, he avers that their natures interlock to reinforce “progressivism”, which he sees, as most of us do, as performative wokeness that serves as a form of virtue signaling. And yes, two of the subspecies really believe the ideology. I’ll give the five types (indented), but it’s fun to try to think of examples of each one. I have omitted some of the descriptions in the interest of space.
The True Believers are the rarest and most dangerous type. Usually found in university admin or HR, they genuinely think that questioning any aspect of progressive orthodoxy constitutes harm. The moment they make eye contact with reality, their pupils dilate, and they assume a glazed, faraway look like someone’s talking to them through an earpiece only they can hear.
It’s the Tavistock clinician who dismissed parents’ concerns about rushing children into transition as “transphobia”. It’s the university administrator who considers “women” a radioactive word and the niqab an expression of female empowerment. It’s the civil servant who enforces unisex toilets because questions of “dignity” matter more than safeguarding.
The Careerists know it’s all nonsense but have mortgages. They privately roll their eyes at the latest pronoun updates but champion them in the board meeting with the enthusiasm of a North Korean newsreader.
Examples include the BBC editor who knows “pregnant people” is absurd but issues the apology on behalf of the female presenter who corrected the autocue to “women”. It’s the museum curator who rewrites exhibition labels to acknowledge “problematic legacies” to satisfy the demands of the True Believer, who controls the money.
The Cowards are everywhere. They know exactly what’s happening, hate it, but will never say so out loud. They’re the sort who’ll text you “100% agree!” after you’ve been fired but somehow missed every opportunity to back you up before the True Believer called you in about your unconscious bias.
When Kathleen Stock was hounded out of Sussex University, the Coward thought it was outrageous right up to the moment they realised they could be next. Then they recalibrated the events in their mind and took a different view.
. . .The Opportunists don’t care either way but have spotted the angles. Young, ambitious, and morally vacant, they add a dozen causes to their personal website and say things like “centring marginalised voices” without meaning a word of it.
The Opportunist will launch a DEI consultancy today and charge an HR True Believer ten grand tomorrow to tell a roomful of Careerists they’re racists. Or they’ll be the author who went from wellness influencer to decolonisation expert in 18 months and set up a podcast in between. It’s the academic who discovered that adding “queer theory” to their research proposal tripled their funding chances.
. . .The Fanatics think they’re True Believers except they dial it up to eleven. Pronouns and watermelon emojis in the bio, sure. But they also believe in decolonising logic and think the world is going to end tomorrow if we don’t do what they tell us. Every cause connects to every other cause, and all causes connect back to the same enemy.
It’s the student activist who screams at a Jewish classmate for three hours about Zionism, then files a complaint claiming she felt unsafe. It’s the protester who glues himself to a motorway, causes an ambulance delay, then calls the criticism “ableist”. The Fanatic cannot maintain eye contact except when talking about Palestine, at which point his eyes fix unblinkingly on yours, daring you to push back on his claims of genocide.
I could name a specimen of each of these, but will refrain on the grounds that you wouldn’t know most of them. Fanatics, though, include Robin DiAngelo, and True Believers the many biologists who assert that sex is a spectrum. (Some of the latter could be “careerists” as well, knowing that they can sell books and write articles, advancing themselves, by supporting nonsense.
Then, in an analysis that I like a lot, Alexander explains why these types are self-reinforcing, advancing “progressivism” as a whole (I hate calling it that; how about “wokeness”?):
Identifying these types isn’t an exact science, and they overlap to various degrees. The crucial thing to understand is that they need each other.
True Believers provide the moral authority, write the policies, and enforce the rules with genuine conviction. They absorb the ideology and give it form. Without them, it would all feel like a game of pretend (which it is).
Careerists provide the manpower. They actually implement the nonsense without stopping to think much about what any of it means.
Cowards provide the silence and the illusion of consensus, allowing the system to expand unopposed.
The Opportunists provide the raw energy, finding new ways to monetise moral exhibitionism because they see progressive orthodoxy as a business opportunity. Celebrity activists – indeed the whole entertainment industry – fall into this category.
Fanatics provide the threat. They’re the enforcers who make the Careerists think twice about cracking a joke since every joke has a victim. The Coward looks at them and thinks at least I’m not that person in an effort to assuage the sense of disgust at their own lack of integrity.
The system rewards all of them. True Believers get authority. Careerists get promotions. Cowards keep their heads down and Opportunists get book deals. Fanatics get the attention they crave, which is why we’re forever seeing clips of them in our social feeds waving Palestinian flags or throwing soup at Van Gogh.
What they all get – every single one – is protection from consequences.
Why? Because progressive orthodoxy is sustained by particular incentives. It’s got nothing to do with the strength of the ideas, most of which are obviously terrible when examined under daylight. It’s about the incentives that come with compliance and the costs that come with dissent.
In the end, Alexander still thinks the ideology is doomed to disappear:
The good news is that every protection racket collapses eventually – and progressivism will be no exception. The lawsuits will become too expensive, the backlash too loud to ignore. Those politicians who told us that men can be women will explain with a frown that these were “challenging times” rather than a gruesome display of moral cowardice. Pronouns in bios will become so mortifyingly embarrassing that those who had them will pretend, even to themselves, that they never dreamt of anything so silly.
Well, I’m not so sure he’s right here, but one can hope. The Democratic Party has been influenced too long by “progressivism,” and that shows no signs of disappearing. Indeed, it’s growing, to the point where Nate Silver lists Gavin Newsom and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the two top Democratic candidates for President. (Remember, though, that it’s early days.) AOC is clearly a progressive, a combination of Fanatic and Careerist, while Gavin Newsom used to be progressive but, starting to realize he can’t win the Presidency that way, has been moving towards the center. He’s clearly a combination of Careerist and Opportunist.
In the meantime, have fun by listing below individuals falling into the five classes given above.
I think he’s left out one group, in a similar context referred to as “useful idiots.” They’d be the ones who go along because the platitudes sound nice, but they don’t bother to think too hard about it.
I was thinking the same thing. It could also be called the “stupid” category. Those who go along with the crowd without thinking. I have certainly known a few of those. One when gently challenged became wide-eyed in astonishment that I would even question her mindless dogma. She had never thought about it.
“[P]rogressive orthodoxy is sustained by particular incentives. It’s got nothing to do with the strength of the ideas, most of which are obviously terrible when examined under daylight.”
Wrong. And stupid.
Once again, I have to come to the defense of some great progressive policies.
In favor of some kind of universal health care program along the lines of what most European countries have? That’s a progressive goal. “Obviously terrible”? Nope.
Expanding the social safety set? That’s a progressive goal. “Obviously terrible”? Nope.
In favor of ramping up green energy initiatives with the goal of some day killing our reliance of fossil fuels? That’s a progressive goal. “Obviously terrible”? Nope.
In favor of a much higher minimum wage ($20)? That’s a progressive goal. “Obviously terrible”? Nope.
WAY higher taxes on the wealthy, maybe on par with the top level of the 1950s? That’s a progressive goal. “Obviously terrible”? Nope.
In favor of ending the drug war and legalizing cannabis, cocaine, and heroin? Yes, that’s been my view for years, though I know it leaves most conservatives and squishy (moderate) Democrats squeamish. “Obviously terrible”? Nope, nope, nope.
As for all the culture war stuff, I pay almost zero attention to it, though I can say that “pregnant people” irks me to no end.
I was going to cite the same examples. What the author is attacking is not progressivism but cancel culture by ideological purists. Not the same thing.
No it’s not the same. However many on the right tar everyone with the same brush.
Thanks to Barry Lyons for bringing out that some of the most widely accepted progressive goals, like universal health care on the model of what most European countries have, are far from “obviously terrible”. Is ramping up green energy initiatives, for example, “obviously terrible”? This is not to deny the existence of reasonable disagreement about many progressive policies, but it’s a bit offhand to say “most” progressive policies are obviously terrible.
The long-range goals of Progressivism—goodness, virtue, well-being, and equality (or is it equity?)—are indeed unexceptionable. Just like the aspirational goals of an earlier pop-Left phenomenon in the late 1940s, built around individuals who looked at the contemporary version of the Russian Empire as the “Progressive and Peace-loving USSR” and “the Bolshevik experiment”. This earlier group named itself “the Progressive Party”; it later disbanded, after its 1948 presidential nominee, Henry A. Wallace, apologized for his connection and disassociated himself from it. It is diagnostic that today, nearly 80 years later, groupuscules which blame Russia’s aggression against Ukraine on the US and NATO still throw around the word “Peace” as much as possible—still gesturing toward an unexceptionable long-range goal.
Like the others, I am agreeable to these points. But clearly the article is about the current far left progressivism which has left those issues behind.
I agree. No one at my cozy university is organizing encampments or shouting into megaphones or posterizing the walls for social welfare, higher taxes on the wealthy, better wages for workers, or green energy. Instead the cause du jour is another zombie-like resuscitation of the old BDI campaigns, this time with extra apartheid sprinkled on top.
https://www.sfufacultyforpalestine.ca/pacbiapartheid-free-campaign
The above discussion illustrates why we should use the word “woke” rather than “progressive” to describe the stuff that Alexander attacks. Wokeness is one distinct strand of left-wing thought, but is not synonymous with left-wing thought.
You confuse progressive liberals with illiberal progressives. Progressive liberals in the 19th and 20th centuries encouraged Enlightenment values. 21st century illiberal progressives discourage Enlightenment values and preach identity politics. The points you raise are not the ideas Frederick Alexander calls terrible. You are not addressing his objections. Your comment is a red herring.
By the way, there is one flaw in the call to raise the minimum wage. Experienced workers earn more than minimum wage, but their wages are less than they would be if unions still held sway. Thus when politicians reply to demands to increase wages by saying “Let’s raise the minimum wage!” they are putting on an act. They don’t address the demands of the experienced workers.
I may well be wrong, but I’d suggest these are more humanist and are in line with Enlightenment goals. However, progressives (or progressists!) attempt to embed them by force and coercion. In addition, they make them sacred, shutting down any discourse – preventing both reversion and, worse, likely evolution and improvement.
There will be, as in most things societal and human, some overlap. Different groups may well agree on particular ideas. Reasoning, implementation, and outcome are where things diverge.
Free and universal health care for example: humanists will see that as being science-based medicine applied appropriately in each individual case; progressives want ideological group- and rights-based prioritization (e.g., gender affirming care despite expert clinical opinion).
As I said, I may be wrong, or this may apply more in some countries than in others. Interesting discussion.
This bolsters my claim of decades: “Marxism is a spectrum.”
Progressives are Marxists.
Alexander has proposed an interesting taxonomy. I agree with DrBrydon that there are also the “useful idiots” to add to the list.
I could probably name specific individuals if I thought about it but, even without naming names, I can recognize the types. Most of the ones I knew when I was working were either careerists or cowards. Everyone knew it was all nonsense, but we didn’t really think it would take hold in the long run so we tolerated it and, sadly, kept up the charade—at least until the mandatory diversity training sessions came to their merciful ends. Once the sessions were over and the money wasted, we all went back to our working lives as if they never happened.
How will it all end? I would bet most on the Cowards rising up and calling bullsh*t. The others either can’t be redeemed or they benefit by keeping the lies alive. Cowards arise!
Although I actually got on to Substack in order to read Maarten Boudry’s articles, I’ve found Frederick Alexander to be the most intellectually stimulating of the posters I’ve read. His critiques of the woke left (and, in one article, its ugly mirror image, the woke right) have been uniformly excellent, incisive and well-written.
In addition to the one currently under discussion, other free posts of his can be found at The Gadfly with these titles:
Celebrity Activists Are Dangerous Morons
10 Traits of a Useful Idiot
Letter to a Young Activist
The DEI Phrasebook – Decoded
Send in the Keffiyeh Clowns
How to Deal with a Leftist
How the Anti-Woke Right Became the Thing It Hates
How to Spot a Political Grifter Online
Anatomy of a Technocratic Centrist
The Evil They Chose Not to See
And one that I would really liked to have read (the first half is excellent), but it’s for subscribers only:
Leftists, Islamists, and Other Spoiled Children
Note that Letter to a Young Activist is especially moving, as it shows the actual human cost of virtue signaling, pretending to care about imaginary evils (the “Israeli genocide” calumny) while ignoring actual evils (the Iranian regime’s repression of dissidents).
I don’t know who Frederick Alexander is, though I sure would like to; he does not have a Wikipedia article, and I haven’t found out if he’s a freelancer, professor somewhere, or what.
I’ve also been impressed by Alexander’s writings, and I, too, don’t know who he is.
Thank you for the info on Alexander’s articles. Nice to be able to put a name and a description to the logic flaws in activism that I have noted.
This one of his is especially good – it takes on the issue of whether there are objective grounds for judging cultures/moralities:
https://www.gadflynotes.com/p/some-cultures-are-better-than-others
I think that the same categories exist in different ideological bins. For example, in another galaxy are those in orbit around Tr*mp, and there you will find the same categories of people in the Republican Party. True believers, cowards, careerists — all of them.
Ted Cruz started out as a vocal and I thought surprisingly up-standing opponent to Trump during the primaries leading to Trump 1.0. Like many in the Republican Party, he seemed genuinely shocked about this man. Horrified, even. Then, when the writing was on the wall, he became more or less an Opportunist.
Aren’t most politicians Opportunists? I can think of few exceptions – Fetterman being one that comes to mind immediately.
Bernie Sanders as another exception?
No. Bernie used to oppose mass illegal immigration because it undermined American workers’ wages – harking back to the days when Ceasar Chavez was a hero to the Left. Then in 2015 the Left told him in no uncertain terms to change his tune or else they would not support him. So he did.
This pattern also applies to other belief systems, like religions, for instance.
While you can always find individuals of each type within a religion, the ratio of these types can often vary considerably. And it usually gets problematic when the True Believers™/Fanatics™ reach a “critical mass” (which is usually well below the majority threshold).
Frederick Alexander’s taxonomy presents little on the psychology of the various types. I would add one, quite obvious feature. Why are the True Believer types so obsessed with the “colonialist” evil past of their own culture, and with long dead past offenders (Washington, Jefferson, Galton, Pearson, Huxley, etc. etc. etc.). The symptoms virtually shout, do they not, a diagnosis of Daddy issues. A little of the same may also incline Opportunists and Useful Idiots in their direction.
In the last of the articles I listed in my post above, Leftists, Islamists, and Other Spoiled Children, he actually does go into the psychology, in order to answer the question, why are leftists in tight with islamists, who would cheerfully throw them off the nearest building? Unfortunately, as I mentioned, I was only able to read half the article.
I see a button at the end of that free first half labeled “Claim your free post”. It links to https://www.gadflynotes.com/p/leftists-islamists-and-other-spoiled-children
I have not clicked it.
I think lists like this one tend to caricature believers by emphasizing extremism and ignoring human nature. The vast majority of the woke (I agree that calling them progressives isn’t the right word) aren’t aware that they’re promoting bullshit. They’re garden variety believers who have categorized an extreme position as being similar to an ordinary position and are acting accordingly. It’s what we human beings do.
When the plausible sounding arguments put forth by respected authorities and supported by personal testimony make it clear that the battle is between the good and the wicked, we will fight as if we are actually in a battle. Throw in social contagion, peer pressure, anguished children, stress, uncertainty, and the desire to make a difference and really matter, and it’s easier to believe than to note what ought to be an obvious absurdity. Look at the Mormons. Or religion in general. It’s the same mechanisms.
Some atheists would apply Alexander’s list to religion. The problem is it suggests people who really believe in God or think Jesus came to save the world from sin are a puzzling fringe minority instead of standard issue Christian. There are a lot of standard issue woke. I’m not sure this analysis captures that.
Thank you, Sastra. These reflect my thoughts on this.
Yes Sastra. I often think of religion in light of these socially transmitted manias: green apocalypticism, fwee Pawethtine, the trans cult, BLM and r’tded Epsteinology (idiocy de jour).
They resemble religion and its practitioners closely.
Just when we atheists get a bit of breathing room with the decline of (Christian) religion in public spaces… different hydras spring up with their many heads!
D.A.
NYC
“They’re garden variety believers who have categorized an extreme position as being similar to an ordinary position and are acting accordingly”
Yes. And they dismiss the extremists, because, being more-or-less sensible people surrounded by other more-or-less sensible people, they assume them to be (truly) marginalized cranks. As a friend of mine said when we talked about trans ideology: “Oh, well, every movement has people who go too far.”
Said friend is one of those who honestly thinks “Woke” means, simply, “against bigotry.” These folks aren’t wading deep in any philosophical/theological waters; they’re just well-meaning people getting on with their lives. I think they should be more aware of what’s going on, but there’s a whole big world of stuff to think about and my preoccupations aren’t everyone’s.
ETA: Not dismissing Alexander’s list. It just needs one more item.
“They’re garden variety believers who have categorized an extreme position as being similar to an ordinary position and are acting accordingly.”
And, in doing so, they view perfectly ordinary people and ideas in opposition as extreme—and seek to either contain or destroy them through social, legal, and other institutional force.
I don’t mind the word “progressive” in scare quotes because it is the Woke who co-opted the term from folks like Barry. There are those of a certain older generation who like their label, equate it with the one true liberalism, want to keep it, and struggle to accept that words change. Then there are those who want to obscure, who want to signal a false kinship through shared labels—like progressive. This is the crowd that casts hate as love, illiberalism as liberal, discrimination as inclusion, defense as genocide.
Whatever label one chooses, best that it has a tinge of ridicule. Wokeness will not die until the social and other costs of purveying it exceed the gain.
Sufficiently advanced ignorance is indistinguishable from stupidity.
This is a productive way to understand this phenomenon.
Another frame could be drawn around these descriptions :
Outer School : want to know more about the way the worldview operates ; want to contribute to advance it.
Inner School : adepts that know the theory in order to train the Outer School to practice the worldview but admission is limited to higher achievements.
Inner Circle : Knows and creates theory, but not necessarily for the truth of it; limited access by the Inner School adepts; rarely if ever noticed in public.
This is one model of cult hierarchy.
There are more detailed models published by Robert Jay Lifton, Steven Hassan (the BITE model), and Margaret Thaler Singer (with their publications listed) discussed in brief on this page under “Identifying Characteristics” :
https://grokipedia.com/page/Cult
The problem with progressive goals: laudable but unaffordable. Universal health care sounds great until you realize it would ration by service (now we ration by cost). So, disproportionate taxpayer money would go towards life-risky events, cancers, etc. But insufficient money would fund ophthalmology ( you don’t need two eyes) or, say, hip replacements (you don’t need to walk). Ask any Canadian. Or go to the Mayo Clinic and play Spot the Canadians. So, the question is, how do we want to ration?
Uh, rationally. First of all, enough “we” must accept that anything with a limited supply and unlimited demand inevitably will be rationed in some manner, either unthinkingly (e.g. via wealth, social status, or the squeaky wheel principle) or rationally: by explicit priorities, relevant data, and appropriate analyses.
Sadly, accepting explicit rationing is personally difficult for many (most?) people, just as accepting death is: “It’s not fair!!” So it’s not politically possible in our current democracies.
Alexander’s categories are pretty good, and PCC(E) provides good nuance.
I don’t think any of it is going away soon – rather it will be subsumed by greater moral panics and socially transmitted nonsense.
Epsteinology anybody?
Great piece. I might start reading this website.. what is it? WEIT? regularly,
D.A.
NYC
I didn’t want to be first with this but since Susan has broken the ice @11:
All of Barry Lyons’s progressive ideas are terrible ideas. Not just ill-advised, or controversial, or “problematic”. Terrible.
Sure, they sound good. Democratic electorates could conceivably vote them into law, and have, some of them, in some places at some times. “The Party of Free Stuff that Other People We Don’t Like Pay For™” always has an electoral advantage. The problem is that when the electorate realizes it made such a terrible mistake, as per the DuBois birthday quotation from Mr. Bannister on the Monday Hili, the totalitarian progressives catalogued by Alexander make sure it can’t change its mind. (Capital flight contributes, too.) This is what the dictatorship of the proletariat just is: mob rule channeled though the elites who buy the mob’s docility. Or as HL Mencken said, the principle of democracy is that voters get what they voted for, and that they get it good and hard.
The United States is not socialist-communitarian enough ever to embrace any of those progressive policies.
ISTM that one problem with democracy is that it does not scale well. Larger polities may have similar proportions as smaller ones of sociopathic, delusional, violent, and otherwise dangerous people; but larger absolute numbers matter a lot, since such people tend to disproportionately value having power over others. A smaller “talent pool” limits the potential damage.
Absolutely. Which is why Islamic numbers should be very much restricted. Who would sample a candy from a bowl with 100 candies in which you know 5 to 15 contain poison that would kill you?
Dictatorship of the proletariat, in its actual implementation in Russia and Eastern Europe until 1989, was the politicians staging a coup d’etat, to capture the whole apparatus of the state. Then they set up a pretend play, making the people say and repeat that this new system is people’s will and of greatest benefit to them. So people did what they were told – while being observed by secret police, who could be anyone: a best friend, a family member. Under a threat of death, or at least many years in prison, if they went off THE SCRIPT. The authorities labeled this system “Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” People thought it meant bondage.
The Western Marxists loved the performance and turned a blind eye to the existence of those who managed to run away to regain their freedom and said it was all a lie. Amazing that it is so difficult for anyone who never experienced life behind the Iron Curtain to have so much as a concept of how it is to live under such constant coercion.
Compared to this, today’s pseudo-left is playing a child’s game. I am not denying that they are dangerous, but in order to be effective, they would have to deactivate every principle of democracy, exactly the way the Soviets did. If people continue being docile, one day they might even succeed. The question is, why are we letting them try?
I think a good way to prevent another collapse of democracy is to understand and respect democracy. And that means respecting the concept of peaceful disagreement. The opposite of polarization. Willingness to talk.
As for the forgotten Economic Left, there is willingness to improve the distribution of wealth, and there is revolutionary zeal to take over the world. I think mixing up the two is unwise.
“Indeed, it’s growing, to the point where Nate Silver lists Gavin Newsom and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the two top Democratic candidates for President.”
Big concern here is how both of these people are intellectual lightweights. This is not like the Dems of old. The Democratic Party that I grew up with (80s/90s/Aughts) had their flakes, but they rarely ascended to the top ranks. Joe Biden tried a Presidential run in 1988, was found out as a bit of a stuffed suit (not to mention a plagiarizer and serial liar), and was not a serious contender again for decades.
Meanwhile, the Republicans had a succession of pedestrian intellects (Reagan, Bush/Quayle, Dole/Kemp, Bush Jr.) as President or presidential candidates. But over on the Dem side, for all of their faults, Carter and Dukakis were highly intelligent men. Clinton was a Rhodes scholar, and Gore was no slouch (hard to see him glitching for 45 seconds when asked a question about our policy towards Taiwan). Obama is/was a very bright, highly educated and articulate man.
But Gavin Newsom is like Clinton without the brains. And AOC…I am not sure what she is good at other than raising money and looking great on social media. Oh, and being a “woman of color”, which counts as a talent in the progressive Left.
I hope the Democrats can look past Newsom and AOC. The country dearly needs character and competence for its head of state.
I’ve long argued that Democrats cannot (or have great difficulty) win the presidency with California or NY/Massachusetts candidates. Where was Obama from?
Kenya, wasn’t it?
Funny that the GOP was able to win with a candidate from New York. And not upstate somewhere like Lockport or Massena. The Big Apple itself.
I do like the fact that the author is naming and then playing with ‘progressivism’, naming it as an ideology and, by implication, a reactionary one. And having some (serious) fun in the process. Indeed there is a distinctive whiff of Victorian English morals in their carrying on. Exposing its reactionary nature is plainly important and one way of doing this is with humor. Here is an offering: Swim against the tide?
Swim against the tide?
What a message to send
We’ve no wish to make trouble
To hurt or offend
Let us pivot politely in progressive pose
Those standing against us, who resist and oppose
Must be silenced, cancelled, shown the door
We don’t feel safe when they take the floor
Their motives are wicked, hate filled and mean
Denouncing their sins keeps us pure and clean
We are right don’t you see? No need to raise doubt
Those who question our grounds must be cast out.
T’is plain to now see the distress they cause
We might question ourselves if they question our cause
To put a stop to this we must keep them at bay
That’s why we attack them and chase them away
They’re r-r-r-retrobates, backward scum
So last millennium with their class struggle drum
Safety resides in our inclusive bubble
Outside its confines we will only find trouble
And of course the top end supports our view
Together we support what is just and true
Shared values drive our moral stand
Influencers together, we’re The Progressive Brand.
The anti-zio subespecies is the most numerous, but maybe it’s included in the opportunists.
Every civilization carries the seeds of its own destruction, and the same cycle shows in them all. The Republic is born, flourishes, decays into plutocracy, and is captured by the shoemaker whom the mercenaries and millionaires make into a king. The people invent their oppressors, and the oppressors serve the function for which they are invented.
~ Mark Twain