Patterns are often easier to see from a distance. When I look at the arc leading to the Alaska meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, certain threads stand out. The first is the absence of leverage.

The news from Washington this week has the texture of something already known to history. A president invoking little-used legal provisions to take control of a city’s police. Federal agents and National Guard troops on urban streets.

A police state’s essence is not constant visible repression, but the slow normalization of extraordinary powers until they become routine tools of governance, accepted without question.

The stability of everyday life is often presented as the product of individual responsibility and personal management. Bills are paid, work is attended to, and obligations are met; security is framed as the natural outcome of diligence.