Hail Caesar

(Video, if you care, is here)

Seeing the picture of a crowd of rich, mostly-old, white liberals attending a Napa Valley Democrat fundraiser brought to mind a review of Robert Strauss’ new book, “The Death of Caesar” that I read this morning, written by Roger Kimball.

‘To the plebes’, Strauss writes, ‘he brought handouts, entertainment, and debt relief — but not enough to hurt the wealthy’.

KImball’s on a roll. He also posted ths yesterday, in a different forum:

One of the most disturbing aspects of Hamburger’s analysis is the historical connection he exposes between the expansion of the franchise in the early 20th century and the growth of administrative, that is to say, extra-legal, power. For the people in charge, equality of voting rights was one thing. They could live with that. But the tendency of newly enfranchised groups—the “bitter clingers” and “deplorables” of yore—to reject progressive initiatives was something else again. As Woodrow Wilson noted sadly, “The bulk of mankind is rigidly unphilosophical, and nowadays the bulk of mankind votes.” What to do?

The solution was to shift real power out of elected bodies and into the hands of the right sort of people, enlightened people, progressive people, people, that is to say, like Woodrow Wilson.