Quotes

[on Russia as a hybrid democracy/autocracy] Vladimir Putin's Russia exemplifies one version: repression is combined with liberalization, and elections coexist with entrenched power elites..Russia has not turned into a democracy. It has turned into a pseudo-democratic kleptocracy, in which people use money to get power and power to get money.

For most of us, democracy is still the only game in town.

In the social media age, piety only works if you can make it your personal brand, in which case it's not really piety. Everything else is sanctimony.