https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/06/26/the-lotteryShirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”
Why do we treat elections like contests and pretend “winners” are fortunate? Would it not be fairer to admit we are hiring public servants whose talents are admirable?

There is a mean streak in EuroAmerican culture that is not satisfied with the symbolic sacrifice propagated by Christian ritual. Of course, we are too sophisticated to actually be stoning to death, but the adulation of “master criminals” prior to their incarceration and/or execution provides an opportunity for shadenfreude, revenge and sanctimony without cost.

Does Donald Trump know he’s being set up, taken to the heights just to be sacrificed? Perhaps. Ron DeSantis does not have a clue that he’s angling to be a scapegoat too.