What then is to be done? In a giddy moment, we might imagine a revolution in our political culture, with voters rejecting corrupt officials. Or we might fondly pin our hopes on another constitutional convention under the Constitution’s Article V, with thirty-eight of the states somehow agreeing on a remedy for crony capitalism. Neither outcome is within the realm of possibility, and in any event the chimera of a perfect Republic of Virtue, such as Robespierre imagined, should be abandoned as hopelessly naïve. What Baudelaire said of laughter might equally be said of corruption: it reveals a
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