Jesus fucking Christ.

Aside: Those are the tropes that *sell* storybooks, too.

And I worry that these things are a natural fit for neither human cognition nor narrative. 🧵9/9

Of understading these systems and reinforcing their intent. 🧵8/9

Of having civic awareness of the necessary complexities. 🧵7/9

I worry that a key weakness of democratic republics is that they depend on an educated populace capable of handling and discussing those abstractions over and over again. 🧵6/9

But kings and superheroes, well, that's easy. That's what we watch stories about over and over again. Those are the tropes that fill storybooks. 🧵5/9

(I don’t think I am a deep expert, but I can at least name and explain these things to my kids.) 🧵4/9

…democratic representation, tragedy of the commons, tyranny of the majority, negative vs positive rights etc etc. Those things are complicated and hard to follow and feel like school. 🧵3/9

MAGA wants a king—literally as anti-American a sentiment as can be—and I think part of the reason must be that monarchy appears to be so much simpler than all the high-falutin’ abstractions like separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism,… 🧵2/9