It’s difficult to catalog the range of visceral emotions I feel as I watch President Trump, Elon Musk, and his team of whiz kids at DOGE dismantle the Deep State, piece by piece. Anger. Joy. Disgust. Grim satisfaction. Schadenfreude.
We’ve known for years that our federal government has been robbing us blind. We’ve felt it in our bones but been unable to prove it, while those who gorge themselves at the public trough — politicians, contractors, media figures, lobbyists, lawyers, NGO execs — become rich beyond most of our wildest dreams. To see all that graft and corruption finally dragged into the light of day, with receipts, is almost more than I can process.
As I write, when I find it hard to express my thoughts, I often turn to narrative. So let me start with a little story, a true story, one I’ve thought of many times in the past two weeks.
Last summer, my wife accompanied me to the Washington, D.C. area, where I was helping conduct a three-day workshop for a group of conservative college kids sponsored by The Leadership Institute. She often comes with me on these trips, now that we’re empty-nesters, especially if I’m going someplace interesting or somewhere she’s never been. Usually my expenses are paid, and all we have to do is buy an extra plane ticket. And since D.C. has always been one of her favorite places to visit, as an ardent American history buff, she was happy to tag along and see some of the sights while I worked during the day and with me at night.
One fine evening, after a rain shower had cooled things down, we decided to go for a walk in the obviously rather affluent neighborhood right behind our upscale hotel in Arlington. Lining the quiet, tree-canopied streets were quite a few stately older homes, several smaller older homes, and whole slew of large, modern, brand-new homes, some still under construction.
Out of curiosity, my wife pulled up Zillow on her phone and began looking at home prices, using the function that allows you to see the estimated value of every house in the vicinity all at once. I heard her exclaim, “Oh, my gosh” and looked over her shoulder at the app. Even the oldest, most run down house on the block was valued at over $1.5 million. The larger ones were in the $2–3 million range, with the new homes pushing $4 million.
“Where do all these people get that kind of money?” she asked.
“From us,” I replied.
I understand that’s a bit of a generalization. Some of those homes have been owned by the same people for years and simply appreciated in value. Then again, you can see on Zillow when a home has been sold, and most of the ones we were looking at had changed hands at least once within the last five years.
I also understand that not everyone in D.C. makes his money directly from the federal government. Indeed, most federal employees can’t afford to live in a neighborhood like that, which is why they live far from downtown and commute an hour or more to work. (Back when they used to commute, I mean, before they all started working from home — something else Trump is putting an end to.)
And yes, it’s true that other metro areas, like San Francisco and Chicago, are also very expensive, because they have lucrative industries that draw people to them. In the Bay Area, for example, you have Big Tech, which seems to be creating new millionaires every day. People who are interested in the technology field, and who want to make a lot of money, are drawn to the area.
That’s not to say everyone in the Bay Area works in the tech industry, or that everyone who lives there is rich. It’s just that the tech sector is the main driver of the area’s economy and the main reason so many rich people live there. If the tech companies all went away, the economy in the Bay Area would collapse overnight. (That very thing may be starting to happen.)
So what about Washington, D.C., which is nearly as affluent and expensive as San Francisco, if not more so? What is the main industry there? What is the driver of its economy?
You know the answer. It’s the federal government. That’s what draws people to D.C. Not the climate or the food or the history. People looking to make lots of money are drawn there by Big Gov, with its virtually limitless funds. And what is the source of those funds? Why, we are. We the people, the taxpayers of the United States of America. Under our Constitution, the government is essentially us.
Here’s where the schadenfreude comes in.
My wife and I have worked hard all our lives to achieve some level of success. We make a decent living. We’ve lived frugally. We sacrificed to put four kids through college. We haven’t taken on a ton of consumer debt, and we pay our bills on time. We’ve saved and invested.
Now I look at my portfolio and, factoring in the last four years of inflation, I calculate that I may need to work until I’m 72 or older just so we don’t run out of money in retirement. On one level, this is fine. I enjoy what I do, and I’m not actually looking to retire anytime soon. Nor am I complaining about the hard work. I was raised to expect life to be like that. We brought up our children the same way.
But then I stroll through a neighborhood like that one, in (or very near) our nation’s capital, and I see all these people who are making their money — most of them, anyway, directly or indirectly — from the federal government, the government I pay taxes for, and they’re ten times richer than I’ll ever be.
That’s a bitter pill to swallow — that any amount of my hard earned money, however small, goes toward enabling someone else to buy a $4-million home, a home I could never afford if I work until I’m 102.
Then Elon and his wunderkinds come along and show us that we were right all along, that we are being robbed, that the treasury is being plundered, that money — our money — is being funneled to people and places we would never approve, into worthless projects that, besides flouting our values, are mostly just money-laundering schemes to help the rich men north of Richmond get even richer.
And then Elon and company begin to turn off the spigot. Suddenly, the trough is no longer filling up. And the Deep State operators and all their cronies and minions panic. They’re being starved. What will they do? What will happen to the value of all those multi-million-dollar homes they’ve purchased with our money?
Hey, maybe in a couple of years I will be able to afford one of those after all.
Pixabay.
Jesus Christ is King
