What we are living through is definitional collapse. Our moment is one in which anything is possible because nothing means anything. Every last set of orienting principles in politics is being dissolved in the acid bath of culture war, before our very eyes. I am telling you: never in my lifetime have political terms meant less. You can easily imagine a world where vaccine skepticism was left-coded – indeed, in the Trump years it was! – but in this particular reality your thoughts on vaccines overrule your feelings about the means of production. That condition is the product of pure contingency, chance; there is no a priori reason the left-of-center would treat vaccination status as a definitional landmark. But right now that is what yelling people yell about, and there is no ideology anymore, no ideas, only Yooks and Zooks.

In other words there is a vacuum of meaning, in our politics, and the really scary question is what will fill it. The right strongman, whether R or D, could ride in and get 65% of the electorate to support him as he casually dispensed with law and democracy, giving the people the firm hand they so desire. We’ve just been lucky that our recent leaders have been so corrupt, feckless, and decrepit that no one’s taken the reins. But we won’t be lucky forever. If Obama tried to seize dictatorial power he’d do so with the permission of half the country. I would bet my life on it.