All things must pass

But in the meantime...

Often when I’m trying to decide which way to go on a close call, I will choose the most optimistic option as a way of forcing myself to make a more positive argument. I don’t know if this a particularly wise way to approach life, or even politics, given the times we live in, but it does help create clarity, especially when the optimistic call turns out to be wrong. As it did with Kamala Harris.

Now that Trump has won and is arguably the most powerful person in human history—who would you put above him, I wonder, given what he presides over?—I’m still inclined to err on the side of optimism, though I will concede there is an edge of desperation in taking that position.

In The Shortest History of Democracy, John Keane writes that “Among the funniest jokes about democracy, said Hitler’s Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, is that it gives its enemies the means to destroy it…”

The quote sounds made up—too good to be true—but Goebbel’s really did say it, and the full quote is, “Thi…