The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable.

It certainly looks that way right now. We have a populist figure who has become the identity of some 70 million people to the point where nothing he does phases their loyalty to his being their identity. To the dismay of most of the rest of us, our way of government and living seems to have rested on pillars of norms with little shafts of laws supporting the creaky edifice. The whole thing takes too long to right, we find out that many of our institutions are riddled with populist supporters, some destroying evidence, some obstructing... It gives us no joy to disbar Eastman or Guiliani, no joy to sentence foot conspirators to prison, but there will be joy in Mudville if we can finally hold that figure accountable for throwing the norms and the law to the wind and not loving his country more than his own perishable vanity.