What is there left to believe in?

“Don’t wanna be a candidate/ For Vietnam or Watergate/ All I want to do is bicycle” — Queen

On their way out the door, the Biden administration made one more bizarre, inexplicable mistake. This Friday, both Biden and Kamala Harris tweeted declarations that the Equal Rights Amendment, which was proposed in the 1970s but never ratified, was “the law of the land”.

Biden and Harris are, of course, totally wrong.¹ Their unorthodox strategy for changing America’s Constitution was swiftly defeated, when the National Archivist, Colleen Shogan, calmly refused to certify and publish the amendment. Biden and Harris were left looking a little like Michael Scott from the TV show The Office, standing in the middle of the room and shouting “I…declare…bankruptcy!!!”. It just doesn’t work like that.

This sad little episode reeked of all the same dysfunctions that bedeviled the administration for the last four years. It was a purely symbolic move, no doubt dreamed up not by Biden or Harris but by the young Warrenite progressive staffers who work for them. And even as a purely symbolic move it failed catastrophically, since it made a mockery of Democrats’ claim to be defenders of American institutions. It was popularism without popularity — the kind of ideological virtue-signaling calculated to please a “base” of progressive activists and D.C. insiders so small and so hidden from public view that most Americans are only vaguely aware they even exist.

So what did the Republicans do this week? Well, Trump launched a new cryptocurrency — a “memecoin” that immediately made Trump over $50 billion on paper (though a second, Melania-themed coin caused the Trump coin’s price to temporarily crash). Watching the President-Elect of the United States used his power and prestige to extract untold amounts of money from his own followers just days before his inauguration was dismaying to many crypto lobbyists, who have spent years trying to convince the country that their industry isn’t just a vehicle for scams.

Trump then spent the weekend attempting to save TikTok from shutting down, continuing his abrupt about-face on the Chinese government-controlled video app. “SAVE TIKTOK!”, he posted, promising to give the app a 90-day extension in order to give it more time to sell itself to a non-Chinese buyer (despite the app’s owners indicating they have no intention to sell), and offering to have the U.S. government take a 50% stake. This has naturally dismayed and angered many conservatives, who fought hard to ban the app. Even Elon is concerned.

Trump’s move likely isn’t about populism — the divestment bill is still very popular, and many of TikTok’s own users even wish the app would go away. Instead, it’s a sign that the incoming administration can be bought, even by its earlier sworn enemies. Naturally, Trump’s most hardcore fans on social media have all rapidly pivoted from screaming for a TikTok ban in 2023 to screaming against a TikTok ban today, underscoring the personality-cultish nature of the MAGA movement.

So as Trump prepares to take the reins, America’s people seem to be left with an unappetizing menu of movements to believe in — an out-of-touch elite pushing an unpopular ideology, or a grifting corrupt circus. Where does that leave us? What ideals do we have to guide us through the strange new world of the 2020s?

Americans have had it with progressivism…but is conservatism coming back?...