A new age of politics is upon the world as toppled leaders lose their grip on power

Did anything happen lately? Let’s see ..

.On Nov.5, Donald Trump, having risen like a zombie from the political grave and barely survived being well and truly assassinated, decisively defeated Kamala Harris in the US presidential election.This was more than a loss for the Democrats.

It was the overthrow of “our democracy” — a regime that felt so virtuous and scientific that it expected to last forever.Two days later, the German government collapsed, supposedly over disagreements about the budget but really because the principals couldn’t stand each other.The German economy is flatlining and, other than quarreling, the political class has no clue what to do about it.Nevertheless, elections will be held early next year.On Dec.

3, the president of South Korea, locked in a political struggle with the opposition majority in parliament, tried to gain the upper hand by the clever expedient of declaring martial law.His opponents, he insisted, were really a bunch of Commie stooges of Kim Jong-un — and since they were elected officials, it was best to dispense with this democracy thing.It didn’t work.

Within 24 hours, martial law was undeclared by the legislature and the sitting president abruptly found he had a lot of explaining to do.Two days later, the French government collapsed because — you probably guessed this — it failed to come up with a budget that didn’t incite car-burning riots in the streets of Paris.The French have already had their election.In an unusual twist on democracy, President Emmanuel Macron asked all the losers to form a government and kept the winners out.Four days later, in another interesting interpretation of how democracy should work, Romania’s Constitutional Court canceled the presidential election because a “far right” populist appeared certain to win.Rumors abounded about a Russian disinformation operation manipulating opinion in the populist’s favor, carried out on that most potent and persuasive of all platf...