Trail Fever
Spin Doctors, Rented Strangers, Thumb Wrestlers, Toe Suckers, Grizzly
Bears, and Other Creatures on the Road to the White House
by Michael Lewis
Knopf, 1997
The coalition which brought the dynasty to power has dissolved; its solidarity
is gone, and its superiority with it. The heirs to the dynasty prefer to rule
through the bureaucracy and magnates whose loyalty is primarily to their own
self-advancement. Policies instituted by the founder of the dynasty are
reversed, his institutions dissembled. The finances are in disarray, economies
are made at the expense of necessary investments --- even the ancient
watch-word ``repair the roads and strengthen the bridges'' is neglected --- and
not on the luxuries of the state. The higher classes neglect productive
efforts for shaddy financial dealings, expending their riches in ever more
elaborate display, while the common people tread water or slip into poverty.
The subject countries are restive, but the empire's policy towards them varies
between conciliation and almost petulant attacks of dubious effectiveness.
Victorious generals return from subduing the tribes on the frontier and become
even more popular by ostentatiously refusing to seek power. The capital,
consumed by intrigue and scandal, has eyes only for itself. The best of the
literati disdain to enter into office under such conditions; the halls of state
fill with incompetents, quacks and schemers. Secret and semi-secret societies
opposed to the dynasty proliferate, their visions growing ever wilder, their
crude pamphlets passing from hand to hand across the country. Some stockpile
arms, and even break into open rebellion, others are courted by the magnates
upon whom the rulers rely.
As they say, we live in interesting times. Even better, they're
entertaining ones. Not that those struggling to be the recognized successor
of the deified Roosevelt are good for much, but all the strange creatures
crawling out of the woodwork, like centipedes in the spring,