Has anyone actually played a game of Monopoly to the end?

It never really happens, because at some point, people realize they will lose, no matter what, and they kick over the board, or go grab a soda and never come back.

But there’s this interesting point that happens just before that. Right toward the end of the game, it can suddenly become a competitive game of stealing money from the bank without getting caught.

Of course, the game never recovers from that point.

This is, of course, a metaphor for what has happened to the United States government: our much-vaunted “system of checks and balances,” our self-correcting republic, our “balance of powers.”

Once upon a time, our government was playing Monopoly. The game has changed.