Is Trump the cause of American decline, or its most successful narrator? A reading of power, television, Ukraine, and the strange art of making retreat look like victory.

There was a time when the internet had a place in the home; a corner, a schedule, a shared practice. That idea didn't vanish overnight. It came apart gradually, and left something behind.

Starting from Fassbinder’s cinema and a minor academic omission, the text takes an unlikely detour to think about how power has shifted from scenes to prediction.