A Supremacy of Nerds

 "So the shift is away from RGLB as a covering theme to "finish the coup." Instead ours can be a counter movement within the re-embrace of citizenship." 

There has long been a limitation, you could say resistance to defining citizenship as the basic building block of our nation.  John Adams argued that 

"The same reasoning which will induce you to admit all men who have no property, to vote, with those who have, . . . will prove that you ought to admit women and children; for, generally speaking, women and children have as good judgments, and as independent minds, as those men who are wholly destitute of property; these last being to all intents and purposes as much dependent upon others, who will please to feed, clothe, and employ them, as women are upon their husbands, or children on their parents.”

So there is a history here that not only implies a caste-like ranking of the population but has worked to understand "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as preferably accomplished by those holding property.  Notice that Adams' argument does not leave all work to a "landed gentry" but clearly intends for those "destitute of property" to labor and earn their keep through employment, as dependent on the propertied as are "children on their parents." 

Certainly there were other currents working against a broad understanding of citizenship.  You'll not read any DEI adjacent arguments from those steamy late 18th century Philadelphia summers.  And finally Adams' argument as it came specifically to address voting was to "leave it to the states." I will not argue beyond indicating the long struggle between state and federal "forces" regarding the voting franchise than to say African-Americans were finally fully franchised by the federal government in my lifetime.  

My sad point is that our history has more years than not where the definition of citizen served other interests and suffered many prejudices and fears.  It's as if it was never really the first concern or default set in each era's arguments and contentions about our government.  I say this with some incredulity but how could we have missed(avoided?) it for so long and failed to integrate citizenship as the better unit of measure in the nearly 250 years of our constitutional republic, our democracy.

[Aside: I am curious that those who argue ours is a "republic not a democracy"(RND) are not only making a category error but exposing an old bias similar to Adams'. Indeed my experience in conversation is that a Venn diagram of those arguing RGLB and RND would render nearly concentric circles.]

To answer, I believe at the heart of this failure to embrace citizenship is what we now mostly call racism and with it sexism, classism, and all the divisive categories that populate the rhetoric of power.  Adams knew he was arguing for a way to protect power not just to seize it from a monarch but to hold and share within a body of people--men with property--like him.  

Wealth has other measures such that property is often more sign than source.  Think of Ted Turner's "fishing holes." You can grant that there may even be benevolent impulses at play but the truth is that the land itself is not from where his wealth was derived. 

There are other more lucrative wealth builders most of whom started with someone else's money. Think Trump or Bezos or Musk, all aided by their parents.  It's easy to build a longer list.  The business model that is most recently informing how government should run under the RGLB banner continues to look more like venture capitalism than hard work and thrift.  

The labor of this new "industry" requires no muscularity or leadership.  It's more video gamesmanship and chat rooms.  It's where allegations travel faster than facts and accountability is implemented by who is most offended (not really injured) and has a political power wielded by a trunch of lawyers.  

"Turning and turning" and it will not do for citizens to "defend the constitution" any more.  The idea empowering Musk's maddened attack on any department or executive agency that has scrutinized his many likely illegal, definitely predatory business practices is called accelerationism.  Think Matrix and Revenge of the Nerds had a baby. More later.