It’s hard to think of bigger governments, in the sense of the scope of government power, than monarchies. Yet not even the most tyrannical king would seriously entertain the notion of replacing his subjects wholesale with a foreign people. A king ruled a nation, which was a large extended family. He had skin–and blood–in the game.

The crisis overtaking the West arises from the fact that our leaders no longer have the least thing in common with us. The democracy hailed by the Lincoln Project has enabled the ruling class to insulate themselves from all accountability for their actions. After all, their logic goes, you voted for them, so you deserve the blame for their misrule.

It’s not the size of the government that counts. It’s the quality of the people in it and their degree of attachment to their constituents. Our corrupt oligarchs won’t voluntarily part with one iota of power anyway, so the solution to the size and malice of the government is the same. In pro wrestling, when a faction comes to dominate the ring, three outcomes are possible. The faction sways the audience and rules as a personality cult, another faction rises up to bring the cult down, or the whole company collapses under its weight. Which fate awaits us remains to be seen.

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