Republicans have spent decades branding Democrats as anti-capitalist collectivists bent on the destruction of private property and free enterprise. In the Right’s propa-melodrama, the leftist locomotive flattens virtuous Little Nell’s of capitalism after tying them to the railroad tracks of taxes with the ropes of regulation.

The character inversion is pure genius.

Stories are impossible, but it’s impossible to live without them. That’s the mess I’m in. –Filmmaker Wim Wenders Progressive storytellers looking to advance transformational change have a problem. The problem is melodrama, our culture’s dominant mode of story. A virtuous hero overcomes obstacles and saves an innocent victim from an evil villain. Melodrama is fundamentally [...]