“Two forces eerily contemporary have traditionally been thought to bring down ancient republics: the oligarch and the demagogue. What makes republics fragile are compacts of the very rich confiscating wealth in ways that makes injustice too palpable, and the demagogue who, usually rising as an opportunist among the oligarchs, can manipulate the incoherent discontent of the plebeians.” Hey, I’m not saying America’s superpower status is on the way out in the near-term. But, the paragraph above does sound more than a little familiar. Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker: A Walk in Rome in the Days of Trump.