Returning to Democracy

Royalty was like dandelions. No matter how many heads you chopped off, the roots were still there underground, waiting to spring up again. It seemed to be a chronic disease. It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: “Kings. What a good idea.” Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees. – Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

The Countercoup

What people want the Democrats to do, of course, is stage a countercoup. But they are not a revolutionary party. And this has happened before. That was the Compromise of 1877 and we know how it went. It led to a generation, slightly more, of racist reaction and aggrandizement of the rich, which all ended up in the the Great Depression of the 1930s.

I believe that US history can be understood as a series of swings between aristocratic and democratic politics. We are now in a period of aristocratic reaction.

The Roberts Court Let Trump Off

The Roberts Court let Trump off, not Mueller, not Smith. I have gathered up Allison “Mueller, She Wrote” Gill’s remarks from the Meidas Touch podcast of October 26, 2025, so as to have a short summary to point to. Allison herself, and links to her podcasts, can be found on Bluesky.