If you include the linear regression trend line, it’s clear that American democracy is getting worse, the…

If you include the linear regression trend line, it’s clear that American democracy is getting worse, the more people come out to vote. I’ve Tweeted about how elections clearly have failed in their stated aims. But historically, if you zoom out the real meaning appears. /1 https://t.co/GzJof26V6k

I see 2025 as like Restoration England, in the 17th century. Where a momentary revolutionary overthrowing of the monarchy with the execution of Charles I was brutally reversed. What we call democracy is just a transition between monarchies. Tarde said that. /2 https://t.co/NoJl0RSwBq

Not a burst of ‘people power’ overcoming hierarchical, ‘authoritarian’ rule. Just a brief (in historical terms) interlude where one hierarchy is replaced with another. We’re in another Restoration now. Trump is the most visible manifestation of it. /3

Where ‘populism’ is promoting a whole range of rulers to power whose whole modus operandi is monarchical. Absolute power. Populism is just the means to an end. Elections are pure populism, and our cultures gamed them to restore our natural hierarchies. /4

Of course Trump is a useless King. But many Kings were. He’s still a long way even from Henry VIII in terms of brutality and ‘authoritarianism’. But this is humanity’s most stable governing cultural form, restoring itself again. Ask the French. /5

They had a revolution to get rid of King and aristocracies. What replaced them? An emperor with absolute power. Napoleon. The Romans the same, their brief flirtation with Republican ‘people’ rule was a violent abomination. /6

Followed by the Pax Romana (the ‘Roman Peace’), the most peaceful time in Roman history, led by new emperors. If we zoom out of the daily news cycles and social media team sports, history shows us to be repeating an old pattern. It’s the new Restoration. /7

Humans and their societies run on status. Hierarchies of status. In stable societies, those hierarchies are led by Kings, and sometimes churches, with an associated ‘court’ of distributed nobles. It’s a connected network of status hierarchies. /8

Call Kings Presidents or Prime Ministers, or whatever. They’re all Kings. Call the nobles ‘elites’ or ‘billionaires’ or the plutocracy, or whatever. They’re still the King’s court. Call the whole lot ‘authoritarianism’ and you’re saying nothing at all. /9

Humans as social animals will always form status hierarchies. All of them, not just elites. They’re fractal, at every level of a society. Sporting clubs, schoolyards, workplaces - all status hierarchies. All ‘authoritarian’. All LED by the highest status people. /10

To finish by going back to the data. As people surged to vote in recent years, the ‘democratic’ outcomes have been in free fall. Because somebody offered people a new King. They liked that very much. Now they just need a much better King. /end https://t.co/RV8d8rdluC