ALT Text, longer than X's alt-text limit, please see the source: https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2026/06/13/multiple-parties-in-government-a-statement-of-the-problem/index.html

ALT Text: We do have a weapon, though. What is it that Trumpists seek to undermine more than any other thing? What is their kryptonite? It the capacity for any form of authority to emerge whose pronouncements resist being bought. The standards and ethics of our professions, imperfect and compromised though they are, remain a constant threat. They are a threat not because we are numerous, but because despite the firehose of shit they flood the zone with, the liberal professions are institutions whose core purpose is to distinguish virtues from falsehoods in each of their many domains, and when we do that well, a broader mass public might find our views persuasive.

ALT Text: Creating fiscal space, "financing the government", is not the only or main purpose of taxation. An equally crucial purpose is regulating the distribution of wealth and income. American policy is a catastophe in part because its wonk class has not publicly made the case for this function, which has left our tax policy and the discourse surrounding it incoherent. As long as we cede, to steal a leaf from Medlock, the case that taxes are a necessary evil we accept only to buy government services worth their cost, we won't have a decent society, because you can't have a decent society with dispersions of wealth and income level as great as we currently now accept.