I’m listening to Ezra Klein talking with his compatriots about where we are on the autocratic timeline, and what we should be looking for, and is this competitive autocracy or failing tyranny or Orban or Duterte or what (actually, doesn’t the monomaniacal nature of tyranny mean that every one is different, tuned to the differences in the Dear Leaders?), and does the robustness of the resistance mean that he’s lost, and …

Coincidentally, I just read a good article in the Times about the hurricane in North Carolina, and how different individuals, their families and the emergency response system fared.  Never happened there before, that creek has never gotten this high but this house is fine, it’s never flooded, sure hurricanes happen on the coast but they don’t do that here, they need that level of preparedness out there but not here, then BOOM landslides, mass destruction, death.

Amazing resonance.