The early twentieth century saw the birth of the administrative state under Woodrow Wilson, and a new political consciousness in which progressives came to regard themselves as a “civilized minority” as defined against a backward people. In the writings of Walter Lippmann and many others, the demos was regarded as an unreliable partner in the democratic project. Combine such an ambient elitism with faith in progress and confidence in the direction of History, as well as the dynamics of bureaucracies that must always expand and institutions that must reproduce themselves through personnel selection and educational formation, and you will get the kind of self-reinforcing cascade of sincere belief and class interests that can remake the world. Shaming the population permits the concentration of power, and it just seems to be in the nature of power that it wants to concentrate.

The 1619 Project might be understood as an attempt to consummate this logic, retroactively making slavery the very principle of the American regime and the animating spirit of the American people. Every crevice of American life stands revealed as needing supervision and correction. Fittingly, Joe Biden announced in the first week of his presidency that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion would henceforth provide the master principle of the federal government. Systemic racism provides the premise for the growth of the “immense tutelary power” that Tocqueville foresaw. If war is the health of the state, racial shame is the engine of administration. It makes men less proud, more administrable.

The line separating innocent victims from guilty oppressors, or the compassionate elect from the deplorable haters, has come to bear a lot of weight in a post-Christian politics that has forgotten the universal nature of sin.