Picture an old-timey locomotive racing out of control down the railroad tracks. The original engineers have jumped off, and only the crazy train passengers are left. They have packed themselves into the small cab and are furiously yelling, pushing, and turning every knob and valve possible.

There is a throttle, clearly marked as such, that they could pull back to slow the train considerably; they could also pull the lever helpfully marked brake for better results. If you pull back the throttle, one of them says, you might get enough speed to jump over any breaks in the track. They agree to push the throttle as hard as they can, even though this will speed them to a crash at the very next curve in the tracks.

Basically, this is liberalism, circa 2015. The useless, flailing hysteria that results before the inevitable self-induced crash. The train was built in 2006 during the Bush presidency, and boarding began in 2008. By 2009, the train had left the station and run at a dangerously high speed. With the end of the line approaching in 2016, there has been a feverish realization that the Good Times Express is going to smash into something more solid. They could have built more track, but decided to waste the time by gaining speed.

This is explains everything, really: the outlandish anti-RFRA hysteria, the Missouri rioting, the Ted Cruz outrage, the college rape non-demic, and everything all the way back to the November 2014 mid-terms: the Left has been cakewalking from one mass hysteria to another. Remember the protesters hailing Satan at the Wendy Davis events? Does this seem like a smart, reasonable strategy?

Of course not: the panic has overtaken them. They cried only a little when they lost the House, but became very frightened when they lost the Senate. With the naked awareness that they are on track to lose the presidency—and have been effectively abandoned by their current executive—the tell-tale beating of the conservative heart in the floorboards has become deafening to them. With a scream and a leap, they are now in the berserker rage of children who lost track of summer vacation and see their first back-to-school sale advertisements.

Additionally, this explains the rather tepid response from the other side. Although the news media are freaking out over whatever is in the headlines, and college students are having kittens about the lack of Left-wing lynchings, and celebrities are paper bag ventilating about these horrible politicians, the average American is not—poll-wise—caring all that much. Recent polls on RFRA, for example, are pointing to a collective shrug from most of America. This doesn’t affect them, except they are getting a bit weary seeing so much of it on the news. Because it isn’t that big a deal to most folks: it’s just the liberals getting upset over nothing.

And each day, as Hillary looks weaker and weaker as a candidate, and the Democrats lose more and more credibility from their pool of possible replacements, the panic will continue. Maybe a Republican will be elected president in 2016, and maybe not: but if so, the crazy times we see now will quietly vanish in January, 2017, and be replaced with a couple years, at least, of relative calm.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.