Is William Barr A Muppet?

This is the question that pestered me all weekend. I just don't think you'd have to tweak Waldorf too hard to come up with William Barr, especially with the turned-down-mouth, lips-pulled-in expression of disgust that he's most commonly made during public appearances with Trump. His latest gig as surrogate for Merrick Garland on questions about the Mar-a-Lago raid raises the continuing question for me that he never took the position of Attorney General under Trump in good faith -- I suspect there was actually a back-channel deal among Barr, McConnell, Romney, and assorted other Senate RINOs to confirm him in 2019 on the basis that, like Jeff Sessions, he wouldn't actually implement Trump policies.

I would also go a little farther and suggest that Barr isn't so much an apologist for Garland as he is an apologist for the deep state. In fact, I would suggest that the example of Barr is a refutation of the notion that the deep state is some sort of conspiracy theory. Let's take this Wikipedia entry as an expression of that notion:

According to a discredited American political conspiracy theory promoted by Donald Trump and his supporters, the deep state is a clandestine network of actors in the federal government, high-level finance, and high-level industry operating as a hidden government that exercises power alongside or within the elected United States government.

Variations of the deep state have existed as popular conspiracy theories in the United States since the 1950s.

The deep state conspiracy theory reached mainstream recognition under the presidency of Donald Trump, who referenced the ‘deep state’ as working against his administration’s agenda.

Opinion polling done in 2017 and 2018 suggests that approximately half of all Americans believe in the existence of a deep state.

However, the idea of a "deep state" predates the 1950s and has never necessarily been a right-wing theory. Ferdinand Lundberg, a populist and by no means a right-winger, published America's 60 Families in 1937, which according to Wikipedia

is an argumentative analysis of wealth and class in the United States, and how they are leveraged for purposes of political and economic power, specifically by what the author contends is a "plutocratic circle" composed of a tightly interlinked group of 60 families.

Critics have pointed out that Lundberg never specifically identified those families, but Lundberg's hyperbolic style suggests he never intended to -- it was a metaphorical outline of how things worked. C Wright Mills's 1956 The Power Elite, according to Wikipedia,

calls attention to the interwoven interests of the leaders of the military, corporate, and political elements of society and suggests that the ordinary citizen in modern times is a relatively powerless subject of manipulation by those three entities.

. . . According to Mills, the eponymous "power elite" are those that occupy the dominant positions, in the three pillar institutions (state security, economic and political) of a dominant country. Their decisions (or lack thereof) have enormous consequences, not only for Americans but, "the underlying populations of the world." The institutions which they head, Mills posits, are a triumvirate of groups that have inherited or succeeded weaker predecessors:

Mills was hardly a conspiracy theorist in the shadows; he had a PhD from the University of Wisconsin and a full academic career with grants at the University of Maryland and Columbia University. Far from a right-winger, he was a Trotskyite. His books, while aimed largely at a popular audience, continue to be influential among academics.

Another popular writer of the 1950s and 60s was Vance Packard:

In The Hidden Persuaders, first published in 1957, Packard explored advertisers' use of consumer motivational research and other psychological techniques, including depth psychology and subliminal tactics, to manipulate expectations and induce desire for products, particularly in the American postwar era. He identified eight "compelling needs" that advertisers promise products will fulfill (Emotional Security, Reassurance of worth, Ego gratification, Creative outlets, Love objects, Sense of power, Roots, Immortality).

According to Packard, these needs are so strong that people are compelled to buy products merely to satisfy them. The book also explores the manipulative techniques of promoting politicians to the electorate. Additionally, the book questions the morality of using these techniques.

This might be looked on as a constellation of assertions by best-selling mainstream journalists and academics in the 1930s through 1950s that US society is dominated by wealthy elites with interlocking interests that use media and the political process to impose their consensus views on a largely powerless public.

I don't think you could find a better example to substantiate those views at the current moment than William Barr and his contentious relationship with Donald Trump, who has made a successful post-retirement career as an amateur politician who fronts for a working and middle class that's become aware that their interests don't necessarily conform to the elite consensus outlined by Lundberg, Mills, and Packard.

That Trump in many ways before retirement worked within that elite consensus as an entrepreneur and media figure gives credibility to his political persona -- but his political persona as an opponent of the elite consensus is his whole stock in trade. He is not a policy candidate, he's a personal champion.

This is the source of the current elite anger, and you couldn't ask for a better foil in the present news cycle than Barr, who's little more than a muppet.