Thinking about…

Oligarchies are unstable.  They have flaws and weaknesses and can crumble quickly.  They have given way to democracies.  But we have to see them for what they are.  We need to see the oligarchs not only as selfish and unpatriotic but as ridiculous.  But the same things that make them ridiculous — the utter self-absorption, the nattering cliques, the pointless struggle for unreal things — make them lethal to the rest of us.  They have entertained their way to power, and it is a new kind of power: an international oligarchy inside the American capital.  If they can entertain their way to power, perhaps we can at least entertain ourselves toward clarity.  Comedy might help us to see the tragedy.  And we should think in other genres, too — next time I will try a little mathematics.

if we want to anticipate what will happen in 2025, if will be more useful to think of oligarchs on an island, starting in apparent unity, dreaming an impossible Russian dream, wreaking bloody havoc, and then coming apart.