The theatrics read like a caricature of European elegance, which is what I imagine they were. I had a conversation with a family friend the other day, an age-old exercise in trying to reconcile the often contradictory movements of the American sociopolitical body. It suddenly occurred to me: not for morals or money, on either side, but, ultimately, to avoid humiliation on the global stage. We don't want to be seen as backwards, a backwater, underdeveloped, unserious, unsophisticated. So: we build railroads, we build skyscrapers, we tear down Jim Crow, we go to the moon. And, occasionally, we take the wrong impression of what would impress our international neighbors and it backfires, apparently.

Still, if only we could harness this proclivity for healthcare and housing or guns... I suppose the starkest signal of the breakdown of American stability is that not even the embarrassment of being the odd, terrible one out on those issues has spurred us to action.