The world is siding into a recession that has no visible bottom. Globalism — the genius plan for exploiting the world’s poorest people to get cheap gadgets for the world’s richest people — has failed. Consumerism — the genius idea that if you just offer people cheap gadgets and credit cards they will keep spending forever and everything will be okay — has failed. Trickle-down economics — the theory that says all will be well so long as the very rich get very richer — has failed. Quantitative easing — the notion that if you create money from nothing and give it to large corporations so they can buy other large corporations, prosperity will ensue — has failed.

And worse than any of these things, Bernie Sanders is closer to the presidency of the United States than he has ever been.

Almost as bad, he is in a pack of candidates that includes Tulsi Gabbard, who is seriously advocating the end of the endless pointless war, and the dismantling of the Global Empire; and Elizabeth Warren who seems to think that financial exploitation of poor people is a crime; and Kamala Harris, who may or may not believe that poor people deserve health care insurance without anyone making a profit. And people are listening to them, and giving them money.

The American Oligarchy is close to panic. They are propping up the lunatic stock market with duct tape and super glue, they are frantically buying armored safe rooms for their houses and remote villas and islands where they can ride out Armageddon (as long as the power stays on and the Internet stays up). And they are spending anything it takes, applying every ounce of the awesome power they wield, to crush the rising voices that accuse them of what they’ve done, and promise to bring them to account.

That simply cannot happen. During the coming year, they will publish any slander, propagate any lie, encourage and if necessary finance any lawless violence, whip up any possible frenzy against people of other colors, religions and countries as the “real” enemies of the people, and in general bear any burden necessary to the survival of the oligarchy.

Unfortunately, when they were looking the other way, one of the dumbest oligarchs who ever inherited slipped into the White House and took over as their nominal leader. But to look on the bright side, while he is chasing his tail on TV, calling his opponents names and praising himself extravagantly, almost no one is watching, let alone talking or thinking about, the things that are spiraling out of control, crashing and burning, or just blowing away.

The Lyin’ King himself is afraid. You can see the large drops of sweat sliding out from under his welded hairdo as he desperately points us away from the impending storm: look over there, two congresscritters on a jaunt to Israel, chatter chatter; look, over there, I’m gonna buy Greenland; whadda ya think, am I a racist or not? Day after day, he rules the twitterverse and the punditocracy, but it gets harder every day and even his dim intellect is grasping the thought that there is reason to be afraid.

His polls are awful, the stock market is showing signs of tanking, the economy is slipping toward the ditch and the sharks are circling his tax returns. He might lose the next election, and if he loses, people are going to be coming to see him with handcuffs.

That must not happen. But it could. And so the fear rises, and the most powerful people on the planet are sweating their sheets at night worrying, and they are not going to go gently into that good night.

Which is why I’m afraid.