The Great Regulatory Pendulum is swinging again, though calling it a pendulum is far too generous. It is more like a rusted wrecking ball that intermittently smashes into the collective skull of the American public, regardless of which direction it’s traveling. This week, we are being treated to the latest marketing campaign for the destruction of the ‘administrative state,’ rebranded as a ‘revolution’ in financial oversight. It is a term usually reserved for the overthrow of despots or the invention of a more efficient steam engine, but in the sterile, airless corridors of Washington, it apparently means letting the inmates design the prison’s security protocols and then handing them the keys to the commissary.

On one side, we have the outgoing regime of the Left, a gaggle of performative hall monitors who spent four years crafting four-thousand-page manuals on the font size of environmental disclosures while the actual economy quietly calcified into a series of monopolies. They love rules because rules require consultants, and consultants are their primary donor base. They treat the financial sector like a petulant child that needs to be buried under a mountain of paperwork, which, predictably, does absolutely nothing to stop the child from setting the house on fire; it just ensures that the post-fire report is incredibly long and grammatically correct. They managed to make regulation so tedious and bureaucratic that they actually made the prospect of total financial anarchy look like a refreshing summer breeze.

Enter the ‘Revolutionaries.’ The incoming cohort of watchdogs has promised to unshackle the markets, a phrase that should immediately cause any sentient being to clutch their wallet until their knuckles turn white. These are the people who view the concept of a ‘conflict of interest’ not as a warning, but as a checklist. The plan is simple: dismantle the ‘Deep State’ agencies that have the audacity to suggest that perhaps banks should have a vague idea of where their money is, or that cryptocurrency shouldn’t just be a high-tech version of a three-card monte game played in a digital alleyway. This isn't a revolution; it’s a garage sale where the merchandise is the remaining shards of public accountability.

The irony, which is thick enough to choke a horse, is that this ‘revolution’ is being sold to the public as a populist victory. It’s a masterful bit of gaslighting. We are told that removing the SEC’s teeth or neutering the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will somehow empower the ‘forgotten man.’ In reality, the only people being empowered are the ones who already own the building and are now being told they can stop paying for the fire extinguishers. The Right’s fetish for deregulation is born of a profound, moronic greed—the belief that if you just stop looking at the ledger, the debts magically disappear. It’s the intellectual equivalent of a toddler covering their eyes and assuming they’ve become invisible. They aren't ‘cutting red tape’ for the small business owner; they are clearing the brush so the lions can have a clear run at the sheep.

Let’s be honest: the financial sector is a parasitic organism that has successfully convinced its host that its presence is vital for survival. The incoming administration’s ‘watchdogs’ aren’t there to watch the industry; they are the industry. They are the same faces that populated the boardrooms of the firms that necessitated the rules in the first place. It is a beautiful, closed-loop system of failure. When the inevitable collapse happens—because unbridled greed combined with zero oversight has the structural integrity of a wet paper towel—the very same ‘revolutionaries’ will be the first in line for a government bailout, citing the ‘systemic importance’ of their own incompetence.

We are witnessing the final triumph of the grift. The Left will respond with high-minded op-eds and fundraising emails about the ‘assault on our institutions,’ despite having spent their tenure making those institutions as useful as a screen door on a submarine. The Right will continue to cheer for the bonfire, oblivious to the fact that they are standing inside the house that’s burning. It is a spectacular display of human stupidity, a cycle of excess and ‘correction’ that only serves to redistribute wealth upward while the rest of us argue about which flavor of disaster we prefer. The pendulum isn't swinging toward freedom or toward security; it’s just swinging back and forth over our heads, and eventually, the chain is going to snap. When it does, don't worry—there will be plenty of ‘watchdogs’ around to tell you it was actually a victory for the people.