“Heaven is high and the emperor is far away.” So did Chinese peasants celebrate their distance from the Forbidden City over many centuries now past. I imagine a similar sentiment may prevail in the hyper-centralized People’s Republic.
When power is to one or another degree autocratic, power is best when power is distant. So it was for me, if briefly, as 2025 drew to a close.
PATRICK LAWRENCE: New Year’s Notes on Purported Leaders
I spent the Christmas holidays, courtesy of my kindly mother-in-law, in the Pacific Northwest and was blessedly far from post-democratic power in any of its manifestations.