This week in the saga

Wednesday morning a city tolling scheme is killed by federal letter, and the announcement does not say the programme is cancelled. It says Manhattan is saved, and then it says three more words that no American officeholder has ever posted about himself. The official account of the government reposts it inside the hour with a crown. Nothing in the week is bigger than that, and everything in the week is downstream of it: the ally in the east is reduced to a modestly successful comedian who talked the country into three hundred and fifty billion dollars; the general who ran the armed forces is thanked warmly in one paragraph and replaced in the next; the border is declared closed in six words and one exclamation cluster; and the adviser with the chainsaw is told, in capitals, that he is doing a great job and should be more aggressive. By Sunday a technology company has promised five hundred billion dollars and the reason given for it is faith in what we are doing. The king does not argue with the market. He posts the market's homage.