God will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

t would certainly be overstating matters to suggest that Donald Trump is fulfilling this prophecy from Revelations 21:4. There will be plenty of mourning and crying before his second term is over, and not only from the Left. As I have written before, we are still very much in a war, and it would be reckless to declare victory prematurely. Trump’s astounding first weeks in office have left Democrats reeling, but they will regroup and mount a fierce resistance. Nevertheless, there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic that a tectonic shift in American politics is underway.

Not only is Trump a very different man from his first term (hardly surprising after having been indicted, convicted, impeached, and shot), the whole mood of the country has changed profoundly. Trump and the MAGA agenda now have a broad legitimacy and public approval that was absent the first time around. Many formerly apolitical Americans are becoming radicalized by the mismanagement of public funds that Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are uncovering. Even my most cynical and politically astute friends have remarked, in response to these revelations, “It’s worse than we ever thought.” 

Although the waste is inexcusable, Trump and Musk will likely get that under control, and the taxpayers should expect some relief. Perhaps more interesting than the scale of financial abuse, however, is what we are learning about the mindset of the many thousands of bureaucrats, contractors, and non-profit employees who felt entitled to use the citizens’ hard-earned money for so many absurd and partisan purposes. We are getting to see for the first time, not only how the sausage was made, but how the sausage-makers saw their roles in the broader agenda of progressive government. 

A new book by two Ivy League professors, offering a “scholarly” defense of the administrative state, provides just such an opportunity — not despite, but because of, its complete lack of academic merit. The book is exactly as predictable, stale, and superficial as one might expect; and under normal circumstances would deserve little notice. But if “the old order of things” is indeed passing away, then this volume and others like it might be reconsidered in a new light. What makes a book like this newly interesting is the glimpse it offers into how elites of that old order understood themselves. It reveals how the economic corruption of the progressive administrative state, however bad that may be, is dwarfed by its moral and intellectual corruption.