Three reads this week, all from the FT:

• Martin Sandbu on how this election is “Judgment Day for the Liberal Order“
• Sandbu again, interviewing the ever-insightful Sarah Kendzior about her latest book, Hiding in Plain Sight
• Tom Burgis’s extraordinary 2018 exposé of kleptocracy in Kazakhstan — and how vendettas are being pursued in Western courts

Perhaps the craziest thing about having crazies in charge is that real life looks an awful lot like someone’s idea of a conspiracy — except it’s not really a conspiracy in the sense that Q is a conspiracy.

And all of this begs a question: if what’s going on, mostly in plain sight, is as bad as it looks — or perhaps even half as bad as it looks — what are we to do? What can we do?

I don’t have any good answers on this. All I can say is that I still love the idea of America, but the reality is looking worse and worse — and I’m not sure where else to turn.

Four years ago, I was utterly convinced that the answers to most of our biggest questions were going to be found in those elusive tax returns.

And then they appeared — and they were news for about five seconds.

There’s no need to rehearse the details. The question is what they mean. And the answer is that, more than any email server, they show what ought to be the apotheosis of our line-blurring between finance and politics.

If the private speaking circuit is an outrage, consider that it’s at least private. A “reality” TV show is a means to achieving the same ends — in public, and more crassly.

Whether or not former politicians have anything new to say to bankers, it’s quite clear that a turn on reality TV is not adequate preparation for the trust and exercise of the powers of the presidency.

Especially when the taxpayer in question has chosen the strategy of losing as much as he can in order to “win” the utterly meaningless metric of paying as little as possible.

That’s what winning earns: a chance.

World War II, which still has such a powerful grip on the American imagination, was about as definitive a victory — on both fronts — as history has ever known or is ever likely to know.

Most aren’t nearly that decisive, and even that greatest of victories was ultimately a chance at a new beginning more than a final repudiation of evil.

The war years were difficult, no doubt. (And all the more so for the many countries that fought longer than the United States, or that were fought upon directly.) But consider the work that remained to be done, like re-writing the constitutions of Germany and Japan; re-ordering the transatlantic, transpacific, and international economic systems; and settling into a new confrontation with the Soviet Union that lasted more than 10 times longer than the United States was actively involved in World War II.

Signing the instrument of surrender is one thing. But it’s worth planning for the reconstruction, too.

It’s tempting, in this always-on, ever-faster age, to wish for faster government.

Why isn’t government more responsive? More flexible? Where’s my high-speed rail line? Where’s the new bridge we’ve known we’ve needed for 20 years? Why can’t we vote online already?

Speed, flexibility, and responsiveness are to be wished, but we need to recognize that they come with a price. Namely, a more responsive government must be designed and staffed to be more responsible, too.

Consider how much government has changed in just the past four or 10 years. As legislation ground to a standstill, we had executive action, and then a more-than-equal and opposite reaction. Add Twitter, some fancy footwork on appointments, and a whole lot of non-appointments, and what you see is a government deeply changed by intellectual arrogance and fairly basic (if unprecedented) bureaucratic maneuvering.

Now, imagine it could have been harnessed, re-directed, and re-purposed even faster.

Even in the best-case scenario, this set of tradeoffs is going to be upon us soon and hard. If we re-engineer the scope and speed of government but skip the hard work of re-examining how we elect the people in charge, too, we’re likely to re-learn the executive orders lesson, only more stiffly.

Building a faster car is only worth it if you can train and select more capable drivers.

Carpetbagger of two parties and captor of one, the current president is the embodiment of two myths that both need to be pushed out of our politics, pronto:

1. The Republican mythology is that of the CEO-as-president. This was always ridiculous; the job stretches and often breaks even very successful politicians, and it’s categorically different from leading even the biggest business.
2. Somewhat harder to see, because it’s baked even more deeply into our culture, is the broad appeal of the celebrity president or vice-versa — especially among Democrats of all stripes. Whichever direction you run this formula — Oprah for president or Obama for sainthood — it’s deeply undemocratic.

Now that the New York Times has shown the world in detail what it already knew — namely, that Donald Trump executive “experience” is largely his celebrity, and he’s not even so good at that — it’s time to break up with both myths. And we’ve all had more than enough exposure to his odious personality.

The TV presidency has coincided with the nuclear presidency. Boring competence might not make for great TV, but it seems that’s exactly the quality you’d want in the person in possession of the nuclear launch codes. Of course, decency helps, too.

If you want an effective president — especially one who might (gasp!) tax and regulate corporations and wealthy citizens — you’d probably better not look for him or her among the ranks of CEOs.

And if you want a president who can lead us toward a democracy we can be proud of, it’s unlikely you’ll find that person on TV. And, it should go without saying, a crown is perhaps not the right symbol for this person’s righteousness.

***

PS: If you’re less than enthralled with Joe Biden and desire real change, the very best thing you can do is to work for a sweep of Congress and the White House. Without the Senate, don’t expect much of the presidency [see 2010–16], especially over the long haul. And the benefits of divided government, though real, cease to be relevant when one party isn’t at all interested in governing.

There’s an important distinction between raising someone’s status and providing a benefit.

If we’ve learned nothing else in the past five years, I hope that lesson proves sticky. Mainstream U.S. culture has always been pretty uncomfortable with the idea of a handout, and that discomfort has only grown in the quarter-century between welfare reform and the rise of the modern cult of success.

To ask why people aren’t satisfied with better programs and services is to miss what’s really on offer: given the choice between a few abstract marginal dollars and the chance to utterly dominate the national “conversation” for half a decade or more, which would you take?

Or, to put it more bluntly, if the current administration sent another round of stimulus checks, would that change your vote?

Have you made a plan to vote?

Have you gathered what you’ll need to cast your ballot safely, securely, and effectively?

Have you checked in with a few friends, neighbors, or family members to ensure that they have, too?

There’s a long-running argument among two camps of historians: the “trends and forces” school and the “great man” school. Great or not, too many of us have been fixated on one man for too long: we missed the trends and forces that led us here, and we’re still not looking hard enough at where they’re taking us.

Let’s begin, then, with a macro analysis of a “looming Constitutional crisis” and the possible undoing of the United States. In a big read, the FT’s Ed Luce takes a hard look at the slow-motion ossification of a governing document written by hand on parchment more than 200 years ago. Perhaps it’s easier for a non-U.S. newspaper to ask hard questions about a quasi-sacred text and the idolatry of “originalism” that’s sprung up around it; in any case, Luce shines light into several corners that most Americans — even run-of-the-mill institutionalists — shy away from.

Moving from structural forces to cultural trends, Luce also penned an incisive, courageous analysis of the future of Trumpism: in short, it’s not going away, even if its namesake does. There’s lively debate on this, including in the FT’s comment pages, but I’m with Luce here. Ideologies seem to be hardening and hardening, and it’s going to take a pretty radical reframing to get us back on the same team — if that’s possible.

Finally, for a look at just how polarization, suspicion, and violence compound, consider Lauren Smiley’s excellent chronicle of “The True Story of the Antifa Invasion of Forks, Washington,” in Wired [HT Longreads]. As Twain is supposed to have said, a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still getting its boots on — and, these days, the lie can literally appear in boots (and camo, and body armor, bearing weapons) weeks and months before the truth comes out. If ever it does.

In November 2016, the late, great Brian Doyle sent along one of his email “ditties” under this title.

Then, of course, you knew exactly who “he” was — and Brian’s response was characteristically empathetic, charitable, and hope-filled. No, Brian insisted, he wouldn’t be leaving this country he loves; and, after all, people can change, quickly — we’ve all seen it.

Four years later, much has changed: Brian didn’t leave the country, but he tragically left this life. And “he” hasn’t exactly risen to the dignified image of his office.

But the question remains, and it’s even more pointed now. What to do if he’s re-elected is now the subject of much public and private handwringing; an NYT columnist seriously considers leaving, while an FT columnist is no longer considering settling here.

But what will you do if he’s elected? No, not him — the other one. If it’s hard to contemplate grace in defeat, it’s perhaps even harder to contemplate grace in victory. “Vindication” is awfully close to “vindictive,” and vindictiveness is not going to bind up the nation’s wounds.

Victory is a test of character, probably more even than defeat. “He” failed that test horribly.

Will we?

There is such a thing as imperfect and ethical.

There is also such a thing as imperfect and unethical. (Often cynically presented as either the regular kind or the logical response to a world of only-imperfect options.)

The challenge is to discern the difference.