There are a lot of explanations going around for why our political moment feels more chaotic than many of us have ever experienced.

Let me offer up one more explanation. It has to do with rules. My belief is that many people,

in many different circumstances, have come to think that the rules we live by are stupid,

so stupid that the only sensible thing to do is break them. And if you get away with it, then you've got the confidence to just keep going.

And now you've got different people playing the game of life by totally different rules. How do we think that's going to work out?

All this got me thinking about one place where rules are still followed, for the most part, at least.

And that's what we're going to talk about today.

Can I take you on a really weird digression?

I would love a weird digression.

Okay, down a rabbit hole?

Sure.

Have you read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?

Not in approximately 45 years, but yeah.

I read it when I was a sophomore in college.

I was one of those annoyingly good students who took notes in the margins, and I wrote all my papers on time.

Anyway, so my daughter was five or six. I picked up the book again,

and I started reading it to her. This is Louisa Thomas. She writes the sporting scene column

for the New Yorker magazine, and she happens to be married to a former NFL player. Okay, back to

Alice in Wonderland. I picked up the same copy I had had in college.

It was filled with these meticulous notes.

All the words were defined.

The logic puzzles were solved.

...