The earliest known depiction of democracy occurs in one of the lesser-known tragedies of Aeschylus, The Suppliant Maidens, about a large family of people who arrive on foreign soil seeking asylum. The play concerns the 50 daughters of Danaus who've fled their native land to escape a forced marriage with their cousins. The women arrive in Argos and ask for protection and permission to settle there. The rest of the play is about whether or not they should be allowed to stay.

As a former theater critic, could I just cut in here and suggest that there's something wrong with those tweets this morning, something fishy and theatrical? I mean something wronger and fishier than we're accustomed to seeing from Trump. And theatrical in a different way. Trump's tweets, since he took office, have taken two forms: the highchair variety that Stephen Colbert mocks nightly--wherein Trump is clearly speaking in his own voice and sounds like a thug or a schoolyard bully or a toddler whose diapers need changing.