I watched about an hour of the Bondi hearing.
That was sufficient. I’m not a masochist.
Not because it was explosive. Not because it was dramatic. Not because I couldn’t bear the tension. I have sat in that room. I have testified before Congress. I have prepared those who testify before Congress at Bondi’s level (Secretaries and cabinet officials).
I know what the atmosphere feels like when scrutiny is real.
This was not that.
I turned it off because it was obvious.
Everyone knew their lines.
Bondi treated questions as personal affronts. Republicans treated loyalty as a competitive sport. Democrats treated indignation as a performance art. The media translated it all into “heated exchanges,” as if we were watching cable-news boxing.
It was not boxing.
It was ritual.
And ritual is what institutions perform when they no longer intend to correct themselves.
The Great American Fantasy
There is a persistent superstition in this country that the system is noisy but functioning.
Yes, the rhetoric is ugly.
Yes, the politicians posture.
Yes, the hearings are theatrical.
But underneath the circus, we are told, the machinery still works. The guardrails still exist. Adults are still in charge.
What I saw was not adults in charge.
It was professionals in costume.
Oversight has become content. Accountability has become branding. Law is now a prop in a drama whose ending has already been written.
This is not a strained system.
This is a system that has learned how to metabolize its own disgrace.
“We Just Have to Vote”
The civic optimists will insist that this is temporary.
We just have to vote harder.
We just have to protest louder.
We just have to fight.
Fight whom?
The people in that room were not at risk. That is the point. No one behaved as though they feared consequence. No one flinched as though institutional legitimacy were fragile.
In a healthy system, exposure is dangerous. In this one, exposure is promotional.
When hearings become auditions and law becomes narrative management, a line has been crossed.
The line is simple:
A self-correcting system punishes excess.
A self-protecting system rewards it.
Which one did you see?
The Closed Loop
Watch the incentives.
Escalation earns applause.
Restraint earns exile.
Loyalty earns advancement.
Questioning earns branding.
That is not dysfunction. That is adaptation.
And adaptation is durable.
This is how decline looks in a wealthy country: not with tanks in the street, but with well-lit committee rooms where everyone understands the choreography and pretends it is governance.
Nothing collapses tomorrow. The markets open. The planes fly. The restaurants remain booked.
That is what makes it dangerous.
Systems rarely explode without rehearsal.
They rehearse in hearings like this.
The Exposure Problem
Most people consume politics as entertainment. They argue, share, rage, and return to dinner.
But politics is not entertainment if you have assets, children, legal exposure, or time-sensitive optionality.
If the system has crossed from reversible embarrassment into self-reinforcing decay, then time is not neutral.
Every year of full exposure increases the cost of exit.
You can dismiss that as alarmism.
You can label it pessimism.
You can call it melodrama.
Or you can examine whether the corrective mechanisms are functioning.
If the guardrails are intact, show where they are enforced.
If oversight still disciplines power, show who pays a price.
If elections still constrain incentives, show the constraint.
What I saw was not discipline.
It was insulation.
The Banality of the Drift
The headlines after the hearing were predictable:
“Bondi clashes with lawmakers.”
Clashes.
As though we were watching a sporting event. As though the question at stake were who scored points, not whether institutional legitimacy is dissolving in public view.
This is how democracies degrade.
Not with a coup.
With ritual.
Not with martial law.
With framing.
Not with collapse.
With normalization.
The machinery does not stop working.
It simply stops disciplining itself.
Anger is irrelevant to that process. So is outrage. So is optimism.
The reaction continues whether you approve of it or not.
The question is not whether you are upset.
The question is how much unhedged exposure you are willing to maintain to a machine that has entered self-reinforcing mode.
Systems do not send invitations when exit windows begin to close.
They simply stop opening them.
With all due respect, I disagree in part and point out that this sort of posturing has always been a part of politics. Did Hamilton, Jefferson, or Madison really shock anyone with the arguments they made considering their positions? Lincoln or Douglas? The Black Panthers or the NAACP? "Don't ask, don't tell" folks or "Same Sex Unions Now" folks? This kind of "normalization" in arguments is as old as the ideas of self-rule and Republics. Exposure was dangerous then and it is still dangerous now but only if the sovereigns of this system make it so. We've done so for the last 250 years and can again.
Systems neither send invitations nor control weather or not windows are opened or closed. The people working and living in those systems control that, especially in a place where "the People" are the actual sovereigns. Ideas need to be put forth and then taken to the public for action. I agree that the shit that happens online is a masquerade that pretends to do this but I think that it continues because far too many of us are told that there is no real way to make it stop.
I'd argue that a part of the reason why we got to this place in our body politic is through the complacency of the People as sovereigns. I'd also argue that continually telling them that nothing matters and leaving them with unabashed nihilism as the only and predestined outcome in argument after argument is one of the reasons why, even though our ideas have broad popularity, the left and center-left lose so often in this country.
I leave by asking a question for Mr. Del Monte and do so sincerely: what is the solution? You've been there; how do we fix it in both the immediate and in the long run? Instead of just leaving us with a sense of "nothing matters," how about leaving us with a, "but if we do this, this, and this, then we can..." sort of answer.
I was 19 when the Cold War ended and I've spent much of my adult life watching good ideas fail because the folks who sell them to the public (and that's why it is called "the marketplace of ideas") do a shit job of selling them and then far too often insult the very public that they are trying to help. Let's get over that shit and actually try to fix things.
While there is perhaps empathy and agreement with portions or lines in the post, what are we to conclude!? So we just give up!? Congress continues to allow these traitors to wreck the country in real time. The typical " response" is words and outrage. Where is the coalition for action to hold these idiots to account!? Where is our collective moral courage to do the hard but needed yes for Democracy!?