Another election has come and gone and Americans are, as ever, facing new governance defined by corruption, incompetence, war, national debt, and endless intrusions into what should be personal matters. And yet, for all of this, there really are noticeable differences between the political parties.
It can be hard to parse how the public gets so worked up when the results are largely the same, particularly about trivial matters. But the real struggle across the modern West is not ideological in the typically understood sense: it is government by boss versus government by human resources (HR) department. This divide has proven remarkably strong because who you can accept telling you what to do is quite deep-seated in humans, who are fundamentally social and therefore hierarchical animals.
I first noticed as a young man that that though both parties are awful, the Democrats are largely matriarchal while Republicans are patriarchal. This is seen in common expressions such as conservatives decrying the “nanny state,” feminists attacking “the patriarchy,” or libertarians derisively using “daddy government” for people who want the state apparatus t to protect and care for them. However, while there is something to the gendering of the behavior, such distinctions have broken down in an era of emasculated men and women who wish they were men. For example, Canada’s ex-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is without a doubt an honorary pantsuit lady despite his gender. Women have also taken control of some notable “far right” parties; Marine Le Pen is indisputably the matriarch of the French right, while the limp-wristed Emmanuel Macron is no doubt the more matriarchal politician. Thus, while “boss” is typically masculine and “human resources” is typically feminine, the pairing is not absolute.
To briefly explain the political theory, a “head of state” is like an owner of a country whereas a “head of government” is more like the manager. In the United States, both of these positions are held by the president, who is thus like an owner-operator, whereas in Western Europe there is typically either a monarch or an appointed “ceremonial” head of state while the real power lies in the head of government, the prime minister. France and Russia are the only European countries with strong, elected heads of state, though in the former Eastern Bloc there is commonly a weak elected head of state, which is to say one with a few discretionary powers that go beyond symbolism.
The way that a boss runs a business is to attempt to maximize its success, whereas an HR department works on some vague perception of utilitarian employee comfort—which is to say, asking everyone to make personal sacrifices, not for institutional health, but so no one feels left out. Of course, they typically do neither of these things well, but let’s concede for the sake of argument. HR managers appeal to a larger principal than their branch’s success, with the European Union being the ultimate representative of HR government and all of the “good” political leaders under it accepting their role as a middle manager who is responsible for implementing the high level policies rather than making those decisions. It is very important that “rules” are followed, though they may be changed on the fly if it protects the structure of the “rules.” Fair treatment is guaranteed for all, assuming they like you.
Meanwhile, under boss government the person in charge focuses on making things work—whether or not that is successful is another matter—and is jealous of his nation’s ability to make independent decisions, even if he may draw too closely in alliance to other individual nations. It should be added here that HR government tends to operate in favor of international capital as a whole, whereas boss government tends to be owned by more identifiable interests.
This issue is, however, substantially aesthetic. The greatest resistance to Donald Trump has come from things which have no great impact on anyone’s life. While his behavior does show authoritarian tendencies, something that exists in the vast majority of political leaders, it’s moreso a matter of how it’s expressed.
A more interesting example is Hungary’s former Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Though a legally elected prime minister who held regular elections, people who read “mainstream” (and thus center-left, pro-HR government) American news developed a deranged obsession with him as part of some sort of “axis of tyrants.” The most valid charges—besides that they hated his desire to avoid acrimony with Russia— were that he reigned in some state-owned media he claimed were implacably hostile to his agenda. The other side practices censorship all the time, such as absurd cases of arrests for social media criticism, but this is done to “prevent hate,” which is to say, in the name of “equality.” When you look at how governance was actually practiced, the core issue was clearly just that Orban presented himself as a boss. Meanwhile, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni—who some do say has sold out in power—has a quite similar political program, but since she straddles the line and comes off as a rare “cool” HR lady, she has been completely accepted into the club and perhaps even viewed as a solution to the rising tide of desire for boss government.
Still, there are areas where this seriously impacts public policy and becomes ideological. Immigration is the clearest example. Under HR government there is a desire to bring in a great diversity of immigrants for its own sake on the spurious grounds that “diversity” improves the lives of individuals—and that anyone who doesn’t think so deserves marginalization. It has the added benefit that diversity requires endless HR people to manage all the problems it causes, so it is a make-work program for their own class. Meanwhile, even if boss governments choose to allow large numbers of immigrants, it is sold on the (also generally spurious) grounds of getting the best employees who will benefit the organization. HR government is bringing in every dreg they feel sorry for in the name of “equality” and that “diversity is our strength,” whereas the bosses boast that their color-blindness is contributing to organizational success.
It is also the case that bosses fear HR departments whereas HR departments don’t fear bosses, but are just annoyed that it falls to them to try to get various “malcontents” fall in line (a dynamic which viewers of The Office will remember from Michael and Toby). Thus, bosses were trying to appease diversity in a way they could portray as of their own volition. While there is currently a widespread revolt against the HR-ificiation of government and society in America (which probably ended with the Republican electoral wipeout last week), it is notable that the first Trump administration almost entirely went along with the prevailing “diversity” mores and in his second term opposition has largely been symbolic retribution against political enemies while still showing a great need to feature minorities.
The general premise you are supposed to believe is that HR government with a “rules based order” where “institutions” are in charge and there are elections within “guardrails,” in short Democracy™, is ideal for human liberty. On a spectrum it is certainly better than Nazism, but this ignores the fact that it involves endless tyrannies that ostensibly exist to make society “get along” while everything goes to hell. For just one example, Joe Biden’s White House used the power of the state in a very conventional fashion to ruthlessly track down anyone present at the January 6 riot and then kept many of them in prison for years, often without bail. What should have at most been basic trespassing and vandalism charges went into overdrive in the name of protecting “the rules.” It is something like fascism but where the trains don’t run on time and you have to listen to lectures about “who we are.” We might immediately think of Canada or modern Britain as exemplifying such governance, though perhaps California is an even stronger example.
Few people actually care that much about policies; they care about the aesthetics of the management style. The widespread media use of the term “strongman” for bosses implies that the norm should be rule by a weak man or a woman, and that is what they believe. While I should be capable of ignoring such things, I can’t help that boss government—even with a boss as deranged as Donald Trump—antagonizes me much less than HR government. When you understand that government is inherently based on violence, it is often the case that the proverbial velvet glove is more humiliating than the iron fist. If the government is going to be terrible regardless, at least grant me government I can fear without it embarrassing me that I must fear it.
