But don’t try to tell anybody that these are not especially consequential times. You’ll have an easier time convincing them that there’s an occult coup under way and that the Trump administration is preparing to strike back — today, Sunday — against it by running in John Podesta. (Even if they sometimes mistake John Podesta for conservative Trump critic John Podhoretz.) If there isn’t some secret cabal pulling the strings behind the scenes, then that means that we are — God, no! — responsible for the state of our own lives and, corporately, for the state of the union. If things are as they seem and got here in the ordinary way, then blame will fall as the rain does on the just and the unjust alike. The conspiracy theory– and there are many versions of it; Occupy Wall Street was simply a conspiracy theory encamped — gives us release from that. We need the drama, because we need the release. We need catharsis.