There is no evidence of any kind that Supreme Court rulings will stop government from continuing to get much bigger. This kind of make-believe is fatal. At some point it simply becomes a refusal to see where we are.
The story of the last century is the explosive growth of an overlapping set of technocratic managerial status groups that presume to have the authority to direct society. As Woodrow Wilson put it, speaking as more or less the founding father of the technocracy, “I let everything alone that you can show me is not itself moving in the wrong direction, but I am not going to let those things alone that I see are going downhill.” They alone decide on the right or wrong direction. Society is a bus that they drive.
🧵 THREAD: Tom Nichols hates you more than you hate him, and here are the receipts.
— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) February 19, 2026
Thread below. stwo weeks, military commentators across 𝕏 have been dogpiling @RadioFreeTom for his criticism of Hegseth and his insufferable debate style... bemoaning the lack of War College… pic.twitter.com/XJVefwaRxk
Technocratic management grows like cancer, as they can never find anything that doesn’t require their intervention, and so the cost of technocratic management can never be brought under control. They are going to spend more, the end. Gavin Newsom became the governor of a state with a $200 billion budget; he finishes his second term with a proposed budget that falls just short of $350 billion. That wild spending has delivered dirty cities, poor infrastructure, and a much larger homeless crisis.
As the Hoover Institution at Stanford University explained in 2024, “California’s state government spends about $23,000 per household. In contrast, Florida, which is one of the fastest-growing states in the country — meaning that they are building expensive new schools, hospitals and infrastructure to accommodate their growing population — is spending $14,000 per household and since 2019 has increased its per-person spending at less than half the rate of California.” Look around on your own: Blue states and cities spend far more on government, per capita, than red states and cities, with nothing to show for it.
Meanwhile, a federal government that spent about 4 percent of GDP a hundred years ago now spends about a quarter of GDP. The growth of the technocracy has come with the explosive growth of its cost.
We’ve seen a century of absolutely relentless growth: Growth in the power of government, growth in the cost of government, growth in the burden of government on society. It just keeps getting bigger, everywhere the technocrats get their hands on the levers.
So here’s Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., responding to the Supreme Court’s tariff decision late last week:
In defense of our Republic, the Supreme Court struck down using emergency powers to enact taxes.
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) February 20, 2026
This ruling will also prevent a future President such as AOC from using emergency powers to enact socialism. https://t.co/M55CZgz4By
Some have asked me to comment on the SCOTUS ruling striking down tariffs based on emergencies declared by the Executive. Why should I comment when Gorsuch has already nailed it right here? 💯 pic.twitter.com/jUe5MM0S3c
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) February 20, 2026
There is no evidence of any kind that Supreme Court rulings will stop government from continuing to get much bigger. This kind of make-believe is fatal. At some point it simply becomes a refusal to see where we are. The $2-trillion-plus-a-year federal government that Barack Obama inherited is now a $7 trillion-a-year federal government.
The courts aren’t going to save us. Waking up to the meaninglessness of legal barriers on the road to serfdom is merely the start. “The rules” have no magic. Actual political victory is required.
The Left: “We aren’t playing by the rules anymore, but the Right totally should.”
— William Wolfe 🇺🇸 (@WilliamWolfe) February 21, 2026
The Right: “But look, we ARE playing by the rules, doesn’t that make you want to reconsider?”
The Left: “Lol, watch what happens when we get power again.”
Rinse and repeat. This is why we lose.
