The Limits of Description

Why Understanding Power Requires More Than Just Knowing What Happens

Noah Smith is one of the sharpest minds writing today. His ability to describe economic and political realities with clarity and empirical rigor has shaped my own thinking. His blog Noahpinion is a must-read. He is, in many ways, indispensable. And yet, his perspective—powerful as it is—remains fundamentally incomplete.

Because description, no matter how accurate, never answers the question “why?”

Noah and I have had a few brief exchanges in the past few months, and I know he views figures like Musk and Thiel purely as opportunists. He is significantly less alarmed by Thiel's political project than I am, that's for sure. He tends to see these tech oligarchs as reacting to structural incentives rather than as deeply ideological actors with a coherent vision for the world. I see them differently. I believe their actions are animated by a clear ideological project—one that seeks to dismantle the constraints of democracy in favor of a system that is optimized for the accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of a self-anointed elite.

But let's step back.

Descriptive analysis tells you what is happening. It charts the rise in national debt, the reckless fiscal policies of both parties, the collapse of institutional norms, and the structural shifts in the global economy. It is the domain of the empiricist, the analyst, the realist.

But description alone does not account for human intent. It does not explain why certain actors make the choices they do, why some crises are seized as opportunities, why democracy is not merely eroding but being actively subverted. Description is the scaffolding of understanding, but without an account of motivation—of ideology—it remains passive, observational, incomplete.

The question of “why?” is fundamentally a question of power.

If you view politics as a purely reactive field, where events unfold chaotically and people respond within the constraints of existing structures, you will see corruption and incompetence as primary drivers. But if you recognize that power does not just react but acts with intent—if you acknowledge that ideology is a guiding force, shaping both the rhetoric and the structure of governance—then you begin to see the world differently.

Take Musk's DOGE, for example. Noah's recent analysis correctly identifies that DOGE isn't finding significant waste or fraud, and that its claims of cost savings keep evaporating upon scrutiny. But if you believe, as Noah seems to, that Musk is largely an opportunist, you might see DOGE as an inefficient, chaotic attempt to cut waste, ultimately misguided but not existentially dangerous.

But if you recognize that Musk's project is not merely about efficiency but about who controls the levers of power, then you see DOGE for what it is: a mechanism of state capture. A vehicle to strip the government of neutral expertise and replace it with an ideological vanguard, loyal not to institutions but to Musk's broader anti-democratic project.

Similarly, if you see Peter Thiel merely as a wealthy libertarian with eccentric views, you miss the larger picture—that his project is not just about tax cuts and deregulation, but about the construction of a post-liberal order in which governance is no longer constrained by democratic accountability, but instead functions as a domain of enlightened autocrats making decisions insulated from public interference.

And this is where Noah makes an even deeper miscalculation: his assumption that Musk, because he exhibits some degree of descriptive competence, serves as a stabilizing force against Trump’s nationalist populism. This is a profound misunderstanding of power. Musk’s ability to execute complex projects does not make him a safeguard against authoritarian chaos—it makes him its most effective instrument.

This is the Silicon Valley delusion in its purest form—the belief that technical proficiency is a substitute for political wisdom. But power is not just about competence. It is about ideology, incentives, and institutional control. Musk is not a stabilizer; he is an accelerant. He is not a bulwark against Trump’s excesses; he is a visionary for a different form of autocracy—one optimized for oligarchic rule rather than nationalist demagoguery.

If anything, Musk represents an even more insidious danger than Trump’s erratic nationalism. Trump’s movement is destructive and lawless, but ultimately incompetent—prone to self-sabotage, incapable of sustained governance. Musk, on the other hand, represents the rationalization of autocracy. He doesn’t oppose strongman rule; he wants to optimize it—to strip away inefficiencies, to replace its vulgarities with precision, to run a dictatorship like a well-engineered company.

Noah’s mistake is in assuming that the presence of competence within the regime mitigates its danger. In reality, it enhances it.

Description tells you what they do. Ideology tells you why they do it. And it is the why that determines what happens next.

Noah's work is invaluable, and I count him among my recommended reads here at Notes From the Circus—a genuine endorsement, not a perfunctory nod. His analyses provide essential grounding in empirical reality at a time when such grounding is desperately needed. But his work remains primarily within the realm of the descriptive.

The greatest historical failures do not come from failing to describe events accurately, but from misjudging the motivations of those in power.

Descriptive analysis is necessary. But it is not sufficient.

If we are to understand what is happening to America, we need more than charts and economic models. We need to understand the intentionality behind the destruction—the ideological blueprint that guides it. Because once you understand that, you understand that what we are facing is not a chaotic mess, not a series of unfortunate events, not merely poor governance. It is a structured, ideological project to replace democracy with something else entirely.

And if we fail to see that, we will fail to stop it.

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. These descriptive truths ground us in reality. But the meaning of these facts—what they signify, how they constrain us, where they lead us—that emerges only when we place them within an interpretive framework. When we ask not just what is true, but why it matters.

The first step in countering this ideological project is to name it for what it is. Only by recognizing the blueprint can we design the counter-strategy. Only by understanding that we face not chaotic incompetence but deliberate subversion can we marshal the moral clarity and strategic focus that effective resistance demands.

“Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.” — George Orwell