The Cathedral is a less clunky and more memorable way of saying "the bureaucracy of the international Progressive (he prefers Unitarian or Communist, but the territory is the same) movement and aligned criminal organizations." It's not exactly your standard conspiracy theory as there are no leaders, no actual plot, not even a conspiracy per se; just people reacting to a really bad set of incentives which drives politics leftwards and increases governmental entropy.

Huh. The definition I was using - I guess picked up from usage? - was something like "Liberals reframed as overdog, to counter the perception of underdog-ness and apply liberal strategies to themselves. See also: propaganda, censorship."

I suppose there are overlaps, but still ... I'll need to study further if I'm ever to pass the Reactionary Turing Test.