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| Cosimo, by Jacopo Pontormo |
Linda McQuaig in The Star today expresses astonishment at the American consensus that the United States is the "greatest democracy on earth" as if gerrymandering, voter suppression, a wildly disproportionate Senate, a politicized judiciary, the electoral college, and presidents more or less above the law -- plus racial discrimination and the heritage of slavery, her particular point -- were not disqualifying factors.
Crooked Timber offers a helpful perspective from history, collating links to posts that observe how much the behaviour of a new president-elect resembles that of Cosimo de Medici:
Mr. Trump loves the tension and drama of a selection process, and has sought to stoke it. A senior adviser described the meeting, in part, as Mr. Romney simply coming to pay his respects to the president-elect and “kiss his ring.”
