Politics
“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51
“They had one weapon left and both knew it: treachery.” –Frank Herbert, Dune
“They had learned nothing, and forgotten nothing.” –Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
Impeachment
“A Vote to Acquit Trump Is a Vote for a Lie” [Peggy Noonan]. “Here is a human question. I don’t understand why I haven’t heard a single story of a member who supported the president in refusing Electoral College certification, who stood with him, and who, hearing what was happening in the first stages of the riot, went into the halls to speak with the rioters. Why did they not do that? They knew there was a rally and expected a march, presumably peaceful. Why didn’t they go into the halls where the clamor was and tell the people, ‘Friends, I share your beliefs and am arguing for them on the floor, but what you are doing is wrong and unlawful, and you must leave.’ Instead they were spirited from the floor by the police and hid in their offices and other rooms. Why didn’t they go out and speak to the crowds, their own people? Is it that they didn’t actually understand their own people? Or, in barricading themselves in, were they showing they understood them all too well? Another human question. Watching all the videotape, seeing all the posing of the rioters and holding up phones and live-streaming the event—there was something about it all that made you wonder if something about this age of hypermedia has made people less human, less natural, more like actors who operate at a remove from themselves, even in a passionate moment of insurrection. They acted as if the Senate was a movie set, and they took videos because they’re actors in a story called ‘Storming the Capitol.'” • This is why I have such a soft spot for Nooners; these are two perceptions I haven’t seen anywhere else. On the