Leona Helmsley (once known to New Yorkers as “The Queen of Mean”) famously said that “only the little people pay taxes.” The Department of Justice took a different view, and Leona did time for tax evasion.1 That was a simpler time, when the law actually meant something, and jurists at every level worked to strengthen the rules, understanding as they did that the alternative was descent into chaos.

These days, judges on the highest courts, in both the state and federal systems, take the view that free speech and the right to vote aren’t universal. To paraphrase George Orwell: All votes are equal, but some votes (and voters) are more equal than others. Thus does SCOTUS torch the carcass that it made of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), by claiming that congressional districts drawn to protect minority voters and their choices, violate the VRA by effectively disenfranchising White voters. Never mind that that was the very purpose of the VRA. Justice Alito’s intellectually dishonest opinion, to use a Vietnam-era phrase, destroys the VRA in order to honor and save it.2

The decision in Louisiana v. Callais was disappointing, but not really unexpected given the composition of the Court. Barely a week later, the Virginia Supreme Court decided that the March referendum in that state, drawing new district lines that favored Democrats, was invalid because (checks notes) “intervening period” must mean more than four days over a weekend. This is the kind of logic that gives lawyers, and the legal profession, a bad name: invalidating the clear will and intent of the voters because, well, you disagree about the number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin. One commentator noted that it was a “close call” at 4-3. Said pundit neglected to mention that the 4-3 vote was along party lines; this is a bit like saying that Mike Johnson was elected Speaker by a bipartisan majority: after all, both Democrats and Republicans do sit in the US House of Representatives.

I had a professor who, expounding on a particularly troubling court opinion — one based not on rigorous logic or legal precedent, but on a common dictionary definition — noted that, “Every time they get in trouble, they go running to the dictionary.” We should expect better of our elected officials, but (for now) that seems a lost cause; we certainly should expect better of high court justices, but that too is a quaint memory of a bygone era.3

We should expect more of our elected officials: I come back to this, again and again. In New York City, the establishment was shocked when Zohran Mamdani was elected Mayor, essentially on a platform of, “We the People should have nice things.” The argument that we can’t afford it is tired, and a lie: of course we can afford nice things. We can afford free bus service; we can afford day care, and universal schooling, and health insurance for everyone. It requires an almost superhuman effort to rewrite, in small increments, bits and pieces of our tax codes; but we certainly can afford these things. Mayor Mamdani’s modest proposal is to tax expensive NYC pieds-a-terre; and he has gained the governor’s agreement. Note that this is a one-time tax, a wealth tax on second residences. The GOP’s response, in the person of Bruce Blakeman, is that the Mayor is coming to take away your home. Uh, no. But such dishonesty has so often worked before, so why not give it a shot?

Only suckers pay taxes. Only GOP voters are legitimate. And rules are for the little people.

Democrats keep trying to play by the rules, but the umpires and referees have been bought. Establishment Democrats haven’t quite caught on: respecting the corrupted decisions doesn’t honor rules, it legitimizes the corruption. Rolling over — “We respect the system though we disagree with the outcome” — is no longer a viable option.

Most of us learned that respect has to run both ways. You might respect the system, but the system doesn’t respect you. And if you don’t fight back, hard, voters won’t respect you either. It’s a setup with nothing but bad outcomes: people don’t like Republicans but don’t trust or respect Democrats. That leaves them sitting on their hands, sitting out elections, waiting for an election that provides something better than what they see as simply the lesser evil.

On January 6, 2021, Trump incited a deadly riot at the US Capitol: “We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.” Hate the messenger all you want, but heed the message. You can’t play by the rules against a mob that ignores them. And you can’t be skittish about a race to the gerrymandering bottom. You’re already stuck in the mud. Win the damned race, by any means necessary.

Trying to be the bigger person just makes you look small.

I started receiving text messages from “unaffiliated” groups in late September, not terribly long after Zohran Mamdani beat the odds and the prognosticators to win — overwhelmingly — the Democratic primary. “Stop Zohran! Save Your City!” they screamed. “Socialism, antisemitism, extremism. They’re all coming to NYC if Zohran Mamdani becomes Mayor. We need Andrew Cuomo.” These messages were paid for by “Fix the City, Inc.” which was “not expressly or otherwise authorized or requested by any candidate or the candidate’s committee or agent.” That opaque disclaimer — the apotheosis of the non-denial denial — defies deciphering by grand grammarians, stunning syntacticians, and cunning cryptologists alike. The idea that super PACs do not coordinate with candidate committees — despite being prohibited by law — somehow requires a suspension of disbelief on a scale capable, if it were an actual physical force, of moving mountains or sending Dorothy back to Kansas. Also, Santa Claus is real.

In the weeks leading up to Election Day, Andrew Cuomo himself took to thundering: “If Zohran Mamdani is elected Mayor, Donald Trump will invade New York City.” News flash for the former governor: Trump will do what he wants no matter what. In his endorsement of Cuomo the toddler-king tweeted: “If Communist Candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the Election for Mayor of New York City, it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required, to my beloved first home.” News flash for the naked emperor: New York sends far more to Washington than it receives back. I don’t believe for a moment that this city is, or ever has been, “beloved” by Trump. The narcissist-in-chief loves no one but himself; adulation is the only thing that can fill his sails puny, and as he plunges further into dementia his tiny cognitive landscape requires ever more flattery and praise.

And he hates New York, especially the Manhattan core. The boy from Queens grew up resenting the swells; he is forever the outsider with his nose pressed to the glass, begging to be invited in and accepted. His presumed wealth bought him the invitation in, but he is still — and forever will be — awaiting acceptance. He is a buffoon, a laughing stock, an interloper tolerated for his amusement value as he stumbles and bumbles around.

A ton of shit (no other word will do) was thrown at Mamdani during the two months between primary and general election. His restraint should be a model for progressives and even centrist Democrats seeking election or reelection anywhere: Don’t take the bait. Hammer your policy points. I myself would be too tempted to correct the “communist” slur with fact, to point out that the oligarchs themselves live in a rarified socialist paradise where profits are private and losses are passed on to the public. Another tempting riposte: If you’re going to throw around scare words (communist! socialist!) it might be a good idea to know what they actually mean. But implicitly calling people stupid isn’t a particularly convincing debate strategy.

Mamdani dared to dream big (free buses for everyone!) and hit the ground running, which isn’t easy in the best of times. These are hardly good times, and the mayor surely had one eye trained closely on the events in Minneapolis. Surely he — and Governor Hochul, and other mayors and governors around the country — have ready plans against the next ICE invasion. Note to the Democratic leadership: stop asking us for money for “the next election” and start showing us that you actually stand for something. Stop tacking to the center; stop trying to triangulate and split the difference; stop pretending that these are normal times; stop beginning your commentary on Venezuela and Iran with irrelevant milquetoast pablum.

Yes, Maduro is a bad guy and held his office with no legitimacy; the mullahs are a repressive regime with no real popular support or mandate. That’s NEITHER THE POINT NOR THE SALIENT ISSUE. The Trump administration is out of control; it runs roughshod over the laws of this land and every other; it cares not a whit for treaties, international law, or the Constitution of the United States — a law which, not incidentally, every senior official has sworn to uphold. They have invaded Los Angeles, Portland, Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit. Raids in poorer neighborhoods of New York City are frequent and not much reported. ICE is a terrorist organization, funded by our tax dollars.

The impeachable offenses mount daily. Leader Jeffries, Leader Schumer: You need to say so. Introduce articles of impeachment. Make the case. Will the House pass them? No, and that is not the point. It’s time to put every Republican on record defending the indefensible. Public opinion is against the administration, but it is not with the Democratic Party. If you don’t understand why, the answer is simple: you don’t stand for anything. You play it safe instead of standing on principle. This moment is not safe for anyone. Timidity and fecklessness are not attractive qualities in leadership.

“We have serious problems in this country, and we need serious people to fix them.” So says Andrew Shepard, the title character in Rob Reiner’s “The American President.” Today’s Republicans — birthed by Gingrich, midwifed by McConnell, and in thrall to Trump — are not serious about anything but amassing power and money for themselves and their biggest donors. Democrats, so far, appear to be more about the next election than about actually moving the country away from the shithole.

And voters: If you really want to help yourselves: maybe you should vote for the Democratic Socialists. They dream big. They stand for something.

We were traveling for a couple of weeks. Any vacation is refreshing (or should be); and it’s particularly good to “get away from it all” in an almost literal sense. With our smartphones it’s impossible not to see at least a glimpse of the headlines, to get a sense of what is going on (mostly: more of the same); but we can (probably) exercise a bit of self control and avoid any in-depth look.

There are the obvious benefits of travel, especially foreign travel: it exposes us to other cultures, to history, to art, to things we’d otherwise encounter only in books if at all. In Marrakesh we saw the palaces of viziers, the villages of Berbers, the bazaars and souks that sustain thousands of shopkeepers and artisans. In Malaga, eighth century hilltop fortresses and ancient cities; museums of wine, of glassware and crystal, of art; and two museums dedicated to the city’s most famous son that gave us new ways to think about art, about Cubism, and about Picasso and his art.

Foreign travel reminds us that we are part of a larger world; that there are people and cultures much more ancient than our own; that there are many ways to approach the world’s problems, and that screaming angrily at the top of your lungs is far less likely to result in any kind of success or submission; surfacing latent suspicion and contempt is a far more likely outcome. This is a lesson that most parents learn quickly: bad behavior, of any form or kind, should not be rewarded.

For the better part of a century the United States has been the indispensable nation, a leader of the world’s democracies, a stable and dependable ally. Since January 20, 2017 those credentials were on shaky ground; since January 20, 2021 they have been all but shattered. Traveling in other nations is a much-needed reminder that the world is moving on without us — and while this might ultimately be a net positive for both the international order and the United States, it’s a painful and overdue reckoning. Since the end of World War II the US policy establishment, successive administrations, and the Congress have all understood that foreign aid is neither an altruistic gift nor a loan, it is a self-interested investment in stable international relations.

The stench and rot emanating from Washington cast a long shadow; the specter haunting Europe today is not communism: it is America. Among the things confirmed: European nations are indeed — as Trump demanded — spending more on their own defenses. They are building new facilities, both in-nation and off-shore (as it were): the French, for example, are building a new facility in the British Isles: the Americans can no longer be trusted to guarantee their security, and so our allies are proceeding without us.

In the eyes of Donald Trump and his useless economic advisers, the United States Treasury is their own piggy bank. It is the Suckers — that is, taxpayers — who feed it, and it is for them to enjoy the proceeds. “Smart people” — that is, the very wealthy — need not pay taxes. While we don’t know what individuals paid no taxes for 2025, we do know that at least 88 major corporations paid not one cent in federal income tax. Among them: 3M, United Airlines, Citibank, Tesla. Palantir, a corporation you might not know whose business centers on security, surveillance, and the use of AI, claimed to owe $0 on income of over $1.5 billion, much of that from government contracts. It’s a fair bet that Trump himself paid nothing; we’ll know as soon as he releases his tax returns — as every other president and presidential candidate since Richard Nixon has done. He promised to do so as soon as the audit is complete. (Just kidding: he’s never going to release his tax returns. The next Democratic congress will have to demand them from the IRS, as authorized under statute.)

So when Trump demands that our NATO allies “contribute” more, I suspect the first syllable is mentally elided (if he’s capable of such subtlety): what he wants is tribute. Not to the US, though he claims to do “everything" for his country; to him, personally. Indeed, as I noted above, our allies are proceeding to make their own intramural alliances, to beef up their own defenses. This result is not, I expect, what Trump anticipated: the man sees everything in terms of shakedown and grift, what will benefit him personally. He views NATO not as a strategic alliance among nations, but as a kind of protection racket.

“Nice little country you’ve got here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.” Yes, it would. And it has. What took 250 years to build, Trump and his minions destroyed in less than fifteen months. It will take another century or more to put Humpty Dumpty back together.

Just about every occupant of the clown car that is this belligerent, misbegotten, pathetic administration does two things:

• takes obsequiousness and lack of self-respect to new, historic lows (think: Marianas Trench, and you might be halfway there)

• makes an art of performative outrage, whether before the press or congressional oversight committees

Pam Bondi shrieking, “Oversight!” at Senator Adam Schiff earlier this year was typical, but lately Pete Hegseth’s obnoxious talking over and shouting in his testimony, not to mention his press conferences, might set a new standard for peevish arrested development in adults: because it is truly an administration of toddlers, whose defiant, “Oh yeah?”s and “Who’s gonna make me?”s might be suitable for the playground (through, say, pre-K) but are inappropriate, indefensible, and for the most part unintelligible in government.

The model for this low standard was set sixty years ago, in “The Honeymooners,” where the answer every difficult question is either:

• “a-humina-humina-humina,” an awkward non-word that announces, “You’ve flustered me!” or

• “The reason! You want to know the reason? I’ll tell you the reason….. WHY SHOULD I TELL YOU THE REASON!?” the kind of non-answer intended to put the questioner back on his heels through sheer force of delivery, but which universally says that Todd Blanche Ralph has no actual motivation other than ego and stubbornness.

This is what happens when the schoolyard bully is given the bully pulpit. Chaos agents thrive in an environment of minimal accountability; they achieve this by collapsing the norms that have maintained economic and strategic stability for the better part of a century. They do this partly by design, and partly by dint of their sheer laziness. Government is hard; maintaining the structures (and even the customs) of accountability, in addition to actually accomplishing concrete goals for the people (as opposed to basic grift for yourself) makes it harder still. Government is not a place for people of very limited intellect, limited imagination, and limited ethics. It’s up to the voters, of course, to keep such people away from the levers of power; and the voters seem to become more credulous with each cycle, entrenching a system in which (with the collusion of the Supreme Court, most recently in Louisiana v. Callais) the officials effectively choose their voters, rather than the other way around. The Voting Rights Act, it seems, now serves to protect White majorities from “racial gerrymandering” that might threaten their stranglehold on redistricting. In other words: gerrymandering to protect Whites, good; to protect Blacks or other minorities, bad. Got it.

As for the undeclared and illegal war (or is it a war? Trump and his stooges can’t seem to agree) in Iran:

• The Constitution requires that only Congress, not the President, can declare war.

• The War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires the President to notify Congress, in writing, no more than sixty days after hostilities are initiated and to either request a formal declaration of war, or to cease the military action.

May 1, 2026 was the 60-day mark, and the administration’s position is that the two-week cease-fire of April 7 tolled the countdown. It does not. Now Congress is (conveniently) in recess, and Trump has trumpeted that the war is “effectively over” — hoping, it appears, to buy himself another eight and a half weeks. Even the casual observer will note that Trump has said much the same thing every few days: whenever the market indicators tick down, or Brent crude futures tick up. Nobody really believes him, and yet the market manipulation continues even while his approval craters.

A friend in London told me about his own recent fish-out-of-water experience in Las Vegas. A half-dozen Brits, doing the Vegas bachelor party.

“I understand now how Trump got elected. The whole place was full of ‘his people’. They’d ask me why we [Britain] weren’t jumping to support Trump’s war in Iran. ‘You’ve got to support the biggest bully in the schoolyard!’”

He went on: “I took away quite the opposite lesson from the schoolyard.”

Exactly. As Columbia, Harvard, Paul Weiss, and many others have learned — or should have learned — it’s that the bully is never satisfied, and giving in only encourages him to press for more. It’s the same with any blackmailer, any protection racket, or any negotiation with an untrustworthy partner. Why (for example) should Iran trust any “deal” reached with Trump? The man has over a half-century history of deceitful and dishonest behavior, from stiffing tradesmen who worked on his properties to declaring bankruptcy to avoid repaying loans. (Let’s not get started on the mystery of why Deutsche Bank nevertheless kept extending him credit. Perhaps the Epstein files contain a clue.)

With few exceptions the congress has lost any sense that it is a co-equal branch of government, and that one of its responsibilities is to hold the other branches accountable. SCOTUS wants to grant criminal immunity to the criminal executive? There are numerous ways to reform the Court without waiting for its members to die, one by one, and hope that the president who appoints their successors is not equally corrupt. Term limits, for one; court expansion, for another. The Constitution states only that federal judges have lifetime appointments; it does not therefore follow that that lifetime is to be served on a particular court. After, say, eighteen years, a Justice would be retired to Senior Status on the Circuit Court bench. Neither is nine any kind of magic number; it would make more sense as a matter of both administration and jurisprudence to match the number of Justices to the number of circuit courts, which currently stands at thirteen.

A more urgent question than court reform — which is quite urgent — is the matter of the executive branch, which is bent on turning all of the levers of government into instruments of either revenge or personal enrichment. Companies associated with Trump’s sons were recently granted plum defense contracts; one could be forgiven for asking, what possible expertise or experience do Don and Eric have? The grift doesn’t stop there. The newest indictment of James Comey — for taking a photograph of sea shells arranged in an “86 47” pattern — is one more example of how far the Justice Department has strayed from the path of actual justice.

Many of the Epstein class in the private sector — in law firms, in universities, in business — have been publicly shamed but have not faced any legal consequences. The Epsteiners in government — Lutnick, RFK Jr, and Trump himself — have faced no real music of any kind, and continue to deny wrongdoing. Well, release the files. Let’s see them, shall we? Why have they not been released? To paraphrase Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche: “The reason? I’ll tell you the reason. WHY SHOULD I TELL YOU THE REASON?”

This kind of “comedy” isn’t funny in government: it’s kakistocracy.

Here’s all you need to know about tomorrow night’s State of the Union:

Donald is going to lie brazenly, egregiously, desperately, and often.

Don’t watch it.

The instinct is not to watch: why waste over an hour of my time watching a malignant narcissist, the world’s biggest attention whore, lie to Congress and the American people? Because he will lie: lies to him are as oxygen to the rest of us, the only way he can feed the bottomless need for applause and approbation. He will lie; he will do “the weave” (as he calls it); he will lie some more, weave some more, and — finally — conclude, having convinced himself that he has stuck the landing, that there has never been — in all of recorded history! — anyone as brilliant, as successful, as admired as he.

On one of these three points, he might be provisionally correct: nobody, in recorded history, has so successfully sold his lies. To himself, certainly; to his core followers, most probably. Whether his staff actually believes the nonsense they peddle, day after day after day, is open to question. Does Howard Nutlick actually believe his statement that his boss has more awareness, more energy, more stamina, than a man twenty years younger? Either Howard is a fool — and should, therefore, not be Secretary of Commerce — or, having seen his boss drifting off to sleep even while standing on the dais, he is lying — and should, therefore, be barred from any position of influence, power, or trust (for example: Secretary of Commerce).

Speaking only for myself (and acknowledging that nobody, truly, can ever do more): listening to Trump makes me want to throw things, At the TV, at the laptop, at the car radio. At the people who cling to their delusion that he is on their side and will fight for them. But make no mistake, Donald Trump is belligerent, loud, and obnoxious; he projects confidence and self-assurance; but this, too, is a lie. Because the truth is, Donald Trump is not a fighter; and he is not, at bottom, self-confident. He lives in a world of his own creation, where nobody has ever been more learned or more intelligent than he. Really? Leonardo? Gallileo? Plato? Socrates? Aristotle? Erasmus? Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, Hamilton, Hancock? Salk, Curie, Jarvik? These are all people of great accomplishment, and I have omitted, for brevity, many more. On this continent alone: TR, FDR, LBJ, MLK. Perhaps not all “very stable geniuses,” but leaders: men who knew how to inspire, and how to get people to think and act far beyond their own parochial interests.

It is often said that the United States of America is an idea. It requires work; it requires sacrifice; it requires dedication. And it requires empathy, education, curiosity, courage, and a true moral compass. Right now that idea is not working, for too many people; it is failing its promise of a more perfect union; the rule of law — which we claim is King in this country — is under sustained attack.

All of this brings me back to tonights constitutionally-mandated State of the Union address to Congress and the nation. I won’t be watching, because I don’t want to throw things. I don’t want to raise my blood pressure. I don’t want to shout and sputter at an eclipsing dotard, an authoritarian whose only desire is to enrich and aggrandize himself, whose grift and greed and grab-em-by-the___ are bottomless.

Instead, I’m watching the State of the Swamp event. It is angry, sure; but it is also joyful, and hopeful, and inspirational. It’s the best kind of alternative programming: one with actual facts, and not the other way around.

Thank you, Defiance.org.

Mehdi Hasan’s memo on Zeteo today asks, “Is Tulsi Gabbard the Most Shameless, Desperate Member of the Trump Cabinet?” He acknowledges it’s stiff competition:

• There’s Liddle Marco, who sold his soul so he could disappear into not doing any the multiple jobs — Secretary of State, National Security Adviser, US Archivist, USAID Administrator — for which he’s manifestly unequipped and unqualified.

• Also in the running: JD Vance, who (like Rubio) once likened Trump to Hitler. Can someone help me understand why it’s only Democrats who are mocked for going full-reverse? (“I was against it before I was for it,” seems to be OK with the GOP, as long as “it” is their grip on power.)

• Robert F Kennedy, Jr, wasn’t a fan until he was offered the chance to fulfill his ambition: wreck the entire public health apparatus of the United States. With measles roaring back, can polio be far behind?

• And of course Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard herself, who once denounced the January 6 rioters and those who encouraged them as domestic enemies.

I’d say there are plenty of other worthies, too: Pete Hegseth, for example, whose fabricated tough-guy persona comes off as trying too hard not to look weak — and instead comes off as cluelessly, hopelessly out of his depth. Or Kash Patel, who prefers cosplaying an FBI field agent to his actual desk job of running the FBI.

There’s no shortage of shallow, vain, shameless, desperate, and weak people in this administration. Lack of basic competence is a job requirement, along with a willingness to abase yourself so the boss can imagine he looks good. For my money, though, the most shameless and desperate character — primus inter pares — is Donald Trump himself.

Trump has, after all, shown himself to be utterly without shame. If you can’t acknowledge that after his ten years in politics and fifty in the public eye, then you either haven’t been paying attention or you are lying to yourself (and to everyone else). He is an inveterate, instinctual, and thoroughly unrepentant liar. If given the choice between a lie and a simple truth, Trump will always lie. When caught out he will double down and deny that he ever said it, and when confronted with irrefutable evidence he will insist that it’s an AI deep fake. When over the weekend he posted a racist meme on his pathetic social media platform, he let it stay up for hours; he let his press office blame an unnamed staffer (at 2 in the morning?); and when asked about it directly he said both, “No, I haven’t seen it,” and “No, I posted it, it wasn’t a mistake.”

Trump is also desperate: to stay out of prison, and to remake reality in his own twisted image. Desperate to deflect blame, avoid responsibility, and live in the continued glow of his own imagined greatness. He would like to be in the pantheon of great American presidents: Washington (first president, reportedly could not tell a lie); Lincoln (preserved the Union and abolished slavery); FDR and LBJ (the New Deal and the Great Society). But his only play here — since he is incapable of building anything — is to demolish it all: presidents from FDR to LBJ might have created the post-war world order, but Trump can — and will — burn it down to cement his place in history. That, and rename every building in sight for himself.

A memorial to FDR was dedicated more than fifty years after his death. A case can be made that a physical monument was unnecessary. The true legacy of a president — or a man — isn’t where his name is chiseled in stone, it’s the ways his life positively touched and improved others. It’s the New Deal bureaucracy; it’s the Great Society programs; it’s the determination to land on the moon and fire the imaginations of a new generation.

Trump’s determination to erase it all is evidence (if any were still needed) of his contempt for everything but himself. The small people around this small man reflect no values of their own, only his cruel and malignant self-centeredness.

Despite the self-inflicted wound, the paper continued on; its newsroom continued to break stories, including stories unfavorable to the regime now in power. Apparently this is too much: last week, the Post announced that it was laying off hundreds of journalists and other staff, because — if you don’t know — running a newspaper is expensive and one of the world’s wealthiest men can’t continue waiting for the ink to stop running red. (I’m not the only person asking: why not?)

Today, in an email that reaches new heights (or nadirs) for tone-deafness, the Washington Post asks me to resubscribe for the low, low price of $40 for a year, and $140/annum thereafter. No, thank you. Maybe some enterprising soul could project “All the President’s Men” on the Post headquarters all night, every night, on continual loop.

Somewhere, and not for the first time in the age of Trump, Richard Nixon is once again grinding his teeth. And Kay Graham is spinning in her grave.

The other night Sir Ian McKellen appeared on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” to promote his appearance in “An Ark,” currently on view at The Shed. It sounds interesting — “mixed reality” with the actors not actually present, but with every appearance of a live performance. Still, I’ll pass.

Colbert also chatted with Sir Ian about the Lord of the Rings movies (“Stephen, do you read it every year?” “Every year would be a bit light!”) and about the new LoTR feature about to begin production. But the real highlight came at the end of the interview when McKellen performed a soliloquy from “Sir Thomas More” attributed to Shakespeare.

The soliloquy speaks directly to this moment in American history. Find it in the extended interview linked below, beginning at timecode 22:15; but really, it’s worth watching the full interview.

Thank you, Sir Ian. We should all be so capable at 86 — and would we had half your pathos, and your empathy.

First of all: what healthcare thing would that be, Mr. Speaker? Republicans have been promising to rescind, repeal, repair, and/or replace Obamacare with something much better for fifteen years now; are we to believe that you, Mike Johnson, have involved yourself so deeply in the details of healthcare and insurance policy that we can at long last expect a proposal will be forthcoming? I’m not buying it, and neither should anyone else. (For the record: there actually is something that would be better than Obamacare and the ACA subsidies the Republicans love to hate; but Medicare for all is a nonstarter.)

In case you’ve forgotten: Johnson spent most of September and October being so busy that he didn’t have time to follow the news and would demur on any question put to him. Busy doing what? He kept Congress recessed while the government was shut down to avoid facing the Epstein discharge petition. He claims to have been busy trying to resolve the budget stalemate; with the House sent home for the duration, that seems unlikely: with whom, exactly, was he working?

But he’s a very busy man, clearly, too busy to follow the headlines or have answers to questions. Too busy, it seems, to be briefed by his staff; too busy to get a heads-up from his communications director about the obvious questions he’ll get at the podium. Too busy, in short, to be an effective leader: he is all smoke, no substance.

Sales professionals like to say, “It’s the sizzle that sells the steak.” Johnson has neither, and he’s ill equipped to sell even a simple thing, never mind a complex policy solution that stymied better men and women than he — by far — for generations.

And Speaker Johnson is definitely too busy to assert Congress’s authority as a coequal branch of government. A friend of mine remarked, “He is useless.”

Useless, in my view, would be an improvement. That, at least, would be visible.

A truth not yet universally acknowledged: the internal combustion engine is dying. It lives on, gasping even as it poisons the air; it is kept alive, partly by habit, partly by an EV market that is only now developing fully; and partly, it must be said, by entrenched financial interests: I mean, of course, the financial interests of the ruling political class, which depends so much on campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry. You don’t have to take my word for it: here’s a Nobel Prize winning economist on the subject:

Republicans in general and Trump in particular like fossil fuels and dislike renewables. Some of this is about money: In the last election cycle the oil and gas industry gave 88 percent of its contributions to Republicans. And as I wrote last month, energy policy has been caught up in the culture wars. Solar and wind power have, in the MAGA mind, become identified with wokeness, while burning fossil fuels is considered masculine. Hence the hostility to green energy.

Paul Krugman, "The Crazy Comes for Clean Energy"

Never mind that the climate-change doomsday countdown clock has the apocalypse — the actual one that threatens the actual world — less than four years away. Apparently the idea of non-extractive, non-polluting, renewable energy — where profit derives not from gallons of poisonous volatile organic compounds but from the sale and maintenance of equipment like windmills and solar panels — is for snowflakes. And the obvious fact that the fossil fuel will, eventually, run out completely is a problem for another day. The New York Times reports that Alaska’s largest city could soon go dark, when the gas from the Cook Inlet runs out. The proposed remedy — a pipeline from the North Slope — simply kicks the can down the road a few more years.

In a recent conversation with neighbors — the monthly block happy hour — someone mentioned the sheer joy of driving a stick, and half-heartedly lamented that it would soon enough be a skill (and necessity) lost to the mists of history. Glance casually at an automobile dealer sticker — the list of standard and optional installed features — and you’ll be struck by the transmission listed for an electric vehicle: 1-speed. What??? It forces us to think, for just a moment, about what that means: in a world of 4-speed automatics and 5-speed sticks, one speed sounds primitive. Regressive, even.

That 1-speed is hardly regressive, it turns out. Anyone who has ever struggled with a short on-ramp or dicey merge (most drivers, especially here in the land of Robert Moses’s parkways) will immediately appreciate the single-speed EV, with its fast pickup and zero emissions: it certainly feels faster than any conventional car I’ve driven (including a stick). There are now many more EVs on the road, and not just rhymes-with-Messla. GM, Ford, Subaru, KIA, Hyundai, VW, Audi, BMW, Volvo — I see them all over the streets of New York and elsewhere. In the last two years the market, availability, and variety of EVs has exploded. Are they perfect? No, but they are getting better very quickly. I’ve taken trips that exceed my car’s nominal 250-290 mile range (depending mostly on whether climate control is on or off, and the outdoor temperature) without a hitch. Does it require a little extra planning? Yes. Have I ever had a problem finding a place to plug in? Absolutely not.

That said: what is missing now is infrastructure. It would be vastly easier if we didn’t have to take that extra five minutes before a trip: where are the available public chargers? How far can we go before needing, really needing, a fill-up? Should we alter our usual route in any way? These are (obviously) not concerns when driving a conventional internal combustion vehicle: the retail infrastructure is well established, having been built out over the 125 years. One reason: in the early 1900s the United States government actively encouraged the fossil fuel industry with price supports, favorable mineral rights, and more. It also encouraged competition through the vigorous enforcement of the antitrust laws, breaking up the Standard Oil.

In London there are over 25,000 street kiosks; in New York City, there are fewer than 10,000. That the EV-charging infrastructure here in the US is not better-developed is shameful, if understandable. This will change, with or without federal assistance, but it’s fair to say that it will be slower without the incentives and encouragement of the Biden Administration.1

Still, it will happen. In Kansas City I saw at least half a dozen public chargers within walking distance of my hotel, along one street. The auto companies have seen the future, and it is not internal combustion. The District of Columbia is on board, even if the federal government isn’t: there are about 1,200 stations so far, and about half of those are fee-free. The cost of charging is already less than gasoline. “Free” reduces the EV driver’s costs even more, adding — ahem — fuel to the fire.

It’s not about being woke, it’s about being practical. While the cultists sip their Kool-Aid and jeer, the world moves on. For now, it moves on without the United States, a tragedy as predictable as it was avoidable.

The cultists are loud, but the truth is: they do not have the numbers. The country will, eventually, move on without them.

There was a time — wasn’t there? — when an elected official who spoke incoherently would be mocked, his fitness for office questioned. Under such circumstances members of Congress of any party might be expected to suggest one or another Constitutional remedy.

There was a time — wasn’t there? — when anyone who spent most of his time mugging for the cameras (as opposed to, say, focusing on his actual job) and babbling nonsense answers to straightforward questions would be ridiculed and rebuked.

There was a time — wasn’t there? — when obvious lies, tautologies, and non-answers would be identified and unmasked; and any emperor of evasiveness exposed: the literal naked truth, per the fable, for all to see and acknowledge openly.

We do not live in such a time; and with each passing day it is harder to recall when, or even whether, we actually did. That, of course, is the point and the design: we become numb to and accepting of the incessant insults to our intelligence.

Joyce Vance’s important piece on how Trump is moving the Overton window — the link is here — describes one source of the decay; equally important is the role the media plays (or doesn’t). Ever since the “ride down the golden escalator” a decade ago the corporate press has treated the phenomenon as normal. But it isn’t, and should never be:

• It is not normal for a politician, of any party, to describe his rivals as “vicious” or “nasty” or “terrible” (and Hillary Clinton fell into the trap).

• It is not normal for a politician, of any party, to attack and accuse anyone who dares ask a question he would prefer not to answer — or to hear.

• It is not normal for a politician, of any party, to describe every American city as a dystopian wasteland that only he can fix.

• It is not normal to invent crisis after crisis after crisis, to describe emergencies that do not exist in order to impose “solutions” whose sole purpose is to intimidate; they do nothing to address the stated problem,

• It is not normal for cabinet officers to attack the people they serve: while all senior executives serve “at the pleasure of the president” it is the People of the United States who employ them. Our taxes pay their salaries and their jobs are to make our lives better.

But the press, from the Washington Post and The New York Times to CBS and ABC, is inconsistent at best — and complicit, more often than not. Rather than speak truth to power, the instinct is to silence (or attempt to silence) those who do: just ask Terry Moran and Stephen Colbert. The New Yorker, too, will subtly sanewash some of the administration’s excesses. It’s almost impossible to avoid when journalists see their job as explaining and not describing or reporting. Explainers fall into a habit of superimposing a logic and reason that simply do not exist. They might instead try describing the chaos as chaos.

When I began thinking about this topic, I had some specific examples in mind; but each fresh outrage pushes the others out. That, of course, is the point: it’s the Overton window shifting, even for those of us who resist.

Descent down an escalator into a basement is too perfect a metaphor for where we’ve been (mis)led. Speak up; protest; be heard. We all have lives to live; but resist the urge to keep your head down until things change for the better. It’s the only way to put things right and to shift the window back to normal.

Universities are supposed to be (so they told me at the one I attended) places of academic inquiry, of free speech and the free exchange of ideas. I’ve noted before that the main benefit of an undergraduate education isn’t rote learning of some academic canon; it is learning to think for yourself: it develops the critical thinking skills that are necessary for further intellectual growth — and, I might add, an absolute minimum requirement for surviving in a world of mindless misinformation and shameless disinformation.

And now two of our leading universities have followed the examples of major law firms, media companies, and news organizations and have decided to pay tribute rather than stand on principle — important principles on which this once-great nation was founded. Adding insult to injury: the academic shakedown is an order of magnitude and then some above the “fines” or “settlements” paid by for-profit corporations like CBS and ABC, and Meta; all this in the name of “fighting antisemitism on campus. So congratulations, CBS! You got your merger, and all it cost you was $15 million and firing the court jester. Oh, and your reputation and integrity.

Trump brings the media companies to heel in pursuit of “free speech” when it is anything but: it’s freedom for the speech he likes, praising the emperor’s new clothes; criticism in the brave new world is verboten. And the universities? The pretense is fighting antisemitism. In truth, it is MAGA: Make Antisemitism Great Again: it will enable, abet, and encourage the very thing it purports to prevent. (If Columbia and Harvard think they should monitor antisemitism on campus, they are free to do so — maybe they could make it some kind of study and publish the results? Are research institutions equipped for that sort of thing? That seems a forced but far more satisfactory outcome than the jackboots I can already hear marching across College Walk. But, again, I digress.)

The America we celebrate is dying: Make Academia Grovel Again is today’s watchword.

I encourage you to spend two minutes — using the link above — with Tom Lehrer, who died this week at the age of 97. We need more of his kind of wit and satire1. Jon Stewart and John Oliver provide it on cable; Stephen Colbert was just canceled by CBS and will have to find new ways to ignite our righteous anger when his contract expires next year. CBS claims it was a cold financial decision: Malarkey. Like everything else, it’s about avarice and enabling corporate advancement. Making the Airwaves Greedy Again: it’s not exactly catchy, but it is at least accurate.

Everyone loves to complain about government: it is large, it is cumbersome, it makes mistakes, it is inefficient. This grievance is common to all people, everywhere: in kleptocracies, where the only important measure of efficiency is serving those at the top; in oligarchies, where promises of “trickle down” economics are routinely made and too seldom carefully examined; in autocracies, which combine the worst features of the foregoing -ocracies; and in democracies, where laws and institutional safeguards slow implementation of necessary services and improvements to the proverbial seepage of molasses in January.1

Allegedly to address these frustrations — you can judge the facts for yourselves — the regime launched a “Department of Government Efficiency,” an organization that lacks both the Congressional approval (and financing) required under the law, and any actual organized plan: the organization lacks organization. (Now that Elon Musk has faded from public view, DOGE too has receded from the headlines — but the damage remains unmitigated.)

A complaint often voiced by Republicans, whether they are officeholders or candidates, is that “Government should run like a business.” Let us accept — just for a moment — this premise. Any business looking to improve efficiency would not rush in and begin firing people. A business would spend months studying the problem; studying the workforce; studying how things are done, and planning how to improve those processes. It might even bring in outside consultants to perform these tasks. Perhaps the changes, after implementation, would require fewer workers; perhaps too the improved processes would enable the existing workforce to reduce its backlog and take on other important tasks.

None of that happened: there was no no study, there was no planning, there was no methodology. Musk and his stooges marched into government offices and set about torching them: the Department of Education, the State Department, CDC and NIH and Justice…. the list goes on, and lasting damage was done. Infrastructure that was created over a period of decades (in some cases, many decades) was decimated in an afternoon or two. Amid the wreckage is national pride, prestige, and goodwill; staunch allies around the world watched, shook their heads, and concluded that the United States is an unreliable ally. And really: if your ally is not reliable, it’s not an ally in any meaningful way.

Government — good government, and good governance — is not efficient; it isn’t supposed to be. The information siloes are intentional. Justice and Homeland Security and State and HHS and Labor and Commerce (to name a few of the higher-profile departments) should not be sharing data; their databases and computer systems should not be interconnected and — as the spooks like to say — operationally inter-aware. The firewalls are there to protect us — the citizens, the residents, the beneficiaries of what used to be a functioning bureaucracy — from government overreach.

Eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse has long been a catchphrase for Republicans: it’s little more than a dog whistle to communicate that all the wrong people — those people — are using government services and using tax dollars meant for you. Ronald Reagan at least put imaginary faces to his dog whistles: the Welfare Queen and the Strapping Young Buck were entirely inventions of his speechwriters, but the trope stuck. And now with the pretenses gone, and the firewalls dismantled and the watchdogs themselves fired, government is, if anything, less efficient and far less effective than ever before. Making government less effective was of course the point of the exercise: it’s easier to commit robbery in plain sight if the cop on the beat is now over on the unemployment line.

Kleptocracy and kakistocracy are not what Americans thought they were voting for in November 2024. Now the entire world lives with the consequences of a credulous public taking the word of a convicted felon and his cronies. If you didn’t know they were lying to you: why on earth not?

The regime that has usurped the powers of Congress, of the courts, and of the people enjoys throwing labels: scum, murderers, rapists, criminals. The epithets (and accompanying temper tantrums) are tossed indiscriminately at governors, senators, attorneys; and at academics, museums, and research libraries; in short, at anyone who might speak out against and challenge a despotic oligarch, a dictator of weak intellect and high intolerance. Yesterday a United States senator — Alex Padilla (D-CA) — was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed for even attempting to ask questions of the DHS secretary. The nerve of the man! Instead of meekly accepting the federal invasion of his state he demanded some accountability from the thugocracy. The right-wing echo chamber — which now includes official as well as unofficial organs of government communications — was quick to assert that he was disrespectful, charged the podium, did not identify himself, etc. etc. etc. It should go without saying at this point that every talking point asserted — did not identify, charged the podium, disrespectful — was false. A series of lies which the timid media will report with, at most, “some say that.” In other words: normalize the hatred, the vitriol, the intimidation, the false characterizations.

The entire establishment has forgotten, if it ever, knew, the importance of the Third Commandment. Ironic, from a crowd that claims the Bible as its own, believes the United States is a white Christian nation, and wishes to plant the Ten Commandments in every town square and courthouse in the land. Freedom of speech, of religion, of assembly: the core values of our founding have no place if we don’t agree with the Monarch. He is a mad-king failed pitchman and carnival barker. But let us not, please, speak truth to power.

I digress: my point was that the regime hurls names with an alacrity that would exhaust most schoolyard bullies. Everyone in disagreement — which is to say, about 60% of the nation on one or another issue — is branded an Enemy and targeted for elimination. This toxic rhetoric has now entered the lexicon of the Democrats, who send texts and emails begging for money to “fight our enemies.” Fight, absolutely. And I have no real quarrel with branding the regime as an enemy — of the people, of the rule of law, of honesty and compassion. But let’s not fall into the trap of thinking of political opponents as the Enemy Within.

Adopting the language of the oppressor is unlikely to change any minds, not least because it looks inauthentic. Signing on to legislation that does nothing to advance the interests of the American people demonstrates neither toughness nor willingness to compromise; it shows only that you got rolled, and you did it to yourselves.

Democrats need to stick to the core values that made America great and the indispensable nation. We can be great again, but GOP-Lite1 won’t get us there.

Politics has to become again the Art of the Possible. Right now it’s not even the Art of the Deal, it’s Might Makes Right. That’s not democracy, it’s tyranny. That is the enemy of the people.

Republicans are good at winning elections; they’re terrible at governing. (They don’t actually want to govern, they want to rule. It’s important that we all understand the difference.)

We’re heading for a cliff. The question is whether we can correct course before a plunge is inevitable. Or will we furiously pump the air, like Wile E. Coyote, hoping to return to the precipice? The regime is now actively trying to invade one of our largest cities; there are threats of violence against anyone who dares to protest the North Korea-style birthday parade on Saturday, apparently in any city, because “these are people who hate America and our country.” No, sir, we love our country. We despise you. And there are 1800 such protests planned for, so good luck with that.

The last week — protests, but no rioting, in LA — has been a stark reminder that one of the biggest issues of the 2024 election was immigration. Needlessly so, because Congress was on the verge of passing a significant reform bill. What happened? The Republican nominee instructed his compatriots in Congress to kill it, because he wanted the issue. Not a solution, the complaint.

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Government exists, in the best case, to serve the people: it derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. (Best case, sure; seldom actually achieved.) But that’s what our Constitution, our most fundamental law, promises. Government must serve the people, not the other way around. It must actively seek solutions to the problems we face: not just a messy immigration system, but also things like Social Security, air traffic control, perhaps even ensuring that everyone is adequately clothed and fed and at least minimally educated; and, oh yes, basic health care.

We are saddled now with a government that serves itself, not its people: it serves to enrich those in the administration, and those wealthiest private citizens who enabled it. The White House is filled, for the moment, with people who would rather make unhinged speeches and run questionable memecoin schemes than conduct the people’s business — that is, look for and implement actual solutions to the real problems of real Americans. Government is not the venue for cosplay, but here we are.

The moment must be met, and by each and all of us. The Democrats in Congress have not risen to the occasion; they ask for money for elections, but there is no fight there — and the historical moment demands fight. It demands principled stands, and it demands action.

You can do your part by being at one of Saturday’s peaceful protests. (More information here.) If we don’t show up we are giving up. Even Wile E. Coyote doesn't do that.

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A few years ago, as the first misbegotten Trump administration hurtled to what we hoped would be its last gasping breath, a friend asked me: which character from Shakespeare is he, do you think? There are plenty of good choices:

• Julius Caesar: In the summer of 2017 the New York Shakespeare Festival mounted a controversial production of Julius Caesar in Central Park: Caesar the bombast in a blue suit, too-long red necktie, and odd off-blond coiffeure. It was a not-subtle commentary — protected by the First Amendment — but of course the MAGA crowd went crazy, insisting that anyone who defended the conceit was intolerant of different views. (Free speech for me, but not for thee!) In literature Caesar is a kind of ur-despot, a war hero turned dictator — a life (and a run as emperor) cut short when his friends shivved him on the Ides of March in 44 BCE.

• Richard III: A man so confident in his villainy that he breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience directly to pat himself on his crooked back. The Duke of Gloucester, consumed by jealousy of anyone with a better claim to the throne, plots to whack them all — and off them he does, one by one, to seize the crown for himself. His court is consumed by turf wars and petty jealousies. Civil war erupts to eject the usurper; Richard fights to the last and — like all usurpers — comes to a bad end.

• Coriolanus: Roman general who, much like Caesar, is elected to Consul; like Caesar, his elevation is ill-considered. He loathes the common people — taking himself much too seriously, really; he is tried, convicted, and exiled. He returns and attempts to take Rome by force, then negotiates a peace. Since he has now betrayed both sides… well, his demise is a swift and unhappy one. (The Red Bull Theater performed a fine production in the fall of 2016, just before the election that year.)

• Macbeth: Swashbuckling war hero turned usurping regicide. We all know this story: warty fortunetellers tell Macbeth he’s going to be king, so he and his wife decide to hurry it along. Scotland plunges into civil war. The snowballing mental unraveling of Cawdor and his wife begins slowly enough, then quickly gathers speed and mass. One has the feeling that Macbeth might have made a decent enough king, if he’d just waited things out; of course, if he’d waited things out he’d never have been king.

So who, in this rogues’ gallery, most resembles the self-crowned king today? Which court or retinue most resembles the viper’s nest in the West Wing?

Caesar might be the obvious choice: historically, he chose to be “dictator for life” rather than earn reelection in the Senate. Macbeth has it all — palace intrigue, spiraling mental health, a country divided. But for my money, the winner (if we can call him that) is (and was, when the question was first posed) Richard: he’ll burn it all down before he’ll watch someone else take the prize.

We are in an upside-down world of haters claiming to love all humanity, liars posing as sages, criminals running law enforcement, and unabashed “For Sale” signs hung out by policymakers cashing in. It takes tin ears and tone deafness to new levels. It’s the stuff of satire, but it’s real and it isn’t funny.

In the post-Watergate era, Senator William Proxmire (D-WI) granted his Golden Fleece Award for things he felt were a waste of taxpayer funds. While he wasn’t always on the money himself — plenty of research projects with no immediate practical application are, in fact, legitimate pursuits — the Golden Fleece did serve to call public attention to government. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes: Who will watch the watchers? We all do. (Or, in Ronald Reagan’s formulation: “Trust, but verify.” Today’s predicament can be traced to voters who have lost trust in government, but who can’t bother to verify what they’re being told.)

The Golden Fleece is not the award for these troubled times, but I propose instead the Tin Ear. This week’s winner must surely be Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) for answering a constituent’s fears about Medicare cuts — “People are going to die!” — with an unconcerned, “We’re all going to die.” Yes, Senator, we are; the real point is, that a government (any government, but especially one of, by, and for the People) should not be working to actually hasten that event.

Ernst’s tone-deafness is offensive by itself: she, after all, has excellent health insurance as do the other 540 legislators (including non-voting Representatives) in the Capitol. But that wasn’t enough, and she later posted a non-apology video: walking through a cemetery, she compounds her truism with sophistry. “I thought everybody knew that.”

Well done, Senator Ernst. Who will next week’s winner be?

The so-called Deep State™ isn’t actually about curbing your freedoms (not even the one that says you can open carry a firearm and discharge it in a crowded place if you feel threatened). Bureaucracy is about creating a system of rules which constrain and direct administrative agencies: it’s about how agencies operate within those rules to create outcomes that maximize the benefits of their decisions. (Pause here to credit John Stuart Mill and the Utilitarians.) MAGA has twisted the concept and turned it on its head, and Elon Musk and DOGE took a wrecking ball to institutions that have lasted for generations because they personally didn’t like the outcomes or the regulatory restraints that apply to everyone.

The Supreme Court and Chief Justice Roberts handed out an unconscionable, unthinkable, and quite frankly unconstitutional get-out-of-jail card to a convicted felon, and worked hard to return him to office. They are completing the last steps in their drive to a maximalist “unitary executive” — where all power rests with a single individual, where expert advice within administrative agencies is unwelcome because the president makes all the decisions. Personally.

There are plenty of reasons not to empower anyone in such a way. Look for one example in the whipsawing of the financial markets when the executive usurps the authority to impose tariffs, and does so arbitrarily. (I lost count when the tariff schedule changed fifty times in the first few days.) Imagine now how the world regards United States foreign policy, trade policy, monetary policy…. if it can change so quickly, on the whim of an individual, what does that say about the stability of the nation, its government, its economy, its alliances?

Yes, bureaucracy and bureaucratic institutions exist to constrain the executive, even though they are under the executive branch of government. They also exist to enable the chief executive to focus on things that are of greatest importance — not to him personally, but to the national well-being. (I will try to limit my lecture on the dangers of endowing a raging narcissist with any power at all; it should be clear to everyone that he will do nothing that does not benefit him, personally — and financially.)

Far from being constraints on individual freedoms, the Deep State™ also serves to insulate The People from the whims of a rogue president, and from the excesses of government. (It also serves as an institutional memory that helps prevent repeated mistakes by people who can’t be bothered to learn history.) Cherish it, in other words. Because without it, we lose everything.

The militants who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 like to tell each other — and the rest of us — that “freedom isn’t free.” It’s the kind of compact, pithy slogan that is often used to justify antisocial behavior, and as is so often true it ignores plain meanings of words to try to warp public opinion. The freedoms we enjoy require vigilance, sure: but that’s what our military and our domestic police forces are for. And those things — the armed forces — cost money. Free speech, after all, is a right; free beer is a gift. And freedom, indeed, isn’t free.

One of the problems we face in every election cycle — and in 2024 especially — is the common perception that the president “runs the government” — that is, that his hand is and should be on everything. That, in essence, is the theory of the “unitary executive” so popular with conservatives, especially at least three members of the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Roberts, in particular, has been working towards the demolition of the administrative state since he was in the White House Counsel’s office during the Reagan Administration. That administrative state — the well-established, independent executive agencies where experts in their fields work to solve the various problems of government (conducting, in other words, the People’s business) — is portrayed by MAGA as the dreaded Deep State™, committed to taking away your freedoms and controlling your life.

Of course it’s a lie; the administrative agencies developed as a practical solution to a significant problem of government: how to expedite decision-making, while ensuring that those decisions are not — as the lawyers like to say — arbitrary and capricious. (Arbitrary and capricious is very much where we are now, with the whipsaw of tariffs, the “emergency” immigration of White “refugees” from South Africa, the attempts to “purify” both academic speech and racial composition…. the list goes on and on.) The structures and strictures that so chafe at John Roberts and his SCOTUS brethren are hardly arbitrary; rather, they are born of hard experience over decades. For example: civil service rules that protect government employees are designed to prevent exactly the excesses of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (which is neither a department, nor interested in actual efficiency). Many reforms were enacted after Teapot Dome exposed the sale of patronage positions; many more came after Watergate, a response to Nixon’s weaponization of the FBI and the Justice Department.

It all sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Everything old is new again. This time, not only jobs but pardons, government secrets, and the personal data of millions of Americans are for sale; dissent is suppressed, and the dissenters threatened with prosecution, deportation, or life in a South Sudan gulag.

The poet Andrei Codrescu, commenting on the collapse of the nascent democracy in Russia, remarked: “Give the people a choice between free speech and free sausage, they will choose the sausages every time.” I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, because it neatly describes the box the American people have put themselves in: free speech, our most precious right and the one without which democracy perishes, doesn’t put food on the table. It doesn’t provide jobs (except to those journalist elites), it doesn’t educate our children (except that it does), it doesn’t help with the housework or the mortgage payments. Put another way: you can eat your words, but you can’t eat free speech. That doesn’t mean it’s unimportant, or that the “anti-oligarchy tour” doesn’t have a point. It especially doesn’t mean that we should all just go about our business and hope — hope! — that Fearless Leader will eventually lower the price of eggs and coffee, as he promised. (Instead, his ill-conceived and even more poorly-executed trade war is driving us straight to paying $3,000 for a new phone.)

Freedom isn’t free: the price is vigilance, and protest, and voting. Use it or lose it: exercise that precious right, and keep exercising it in the face of a corrupted government that would prefer people not hear unpleasant truths. Exercise it, speak out, talk to everyone you can; because actually doing that is the cost of keeping it. It’s a small price to pay.

You can find a way to speak out near you at this link. Please attend, and make your voice heard. Silence, after all, is acquiescence.