The two most notable philosophical notions in the western canon are Plato’s Cave and Kant’s Appearances.

In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave we are asked to imagine that we humans are sitting in chains watching shadows on a wall. It’s the only reality we know. Is there a fire behind us, shining through people going to and fro and creating those shadows? Good question.

In Kant’s philosophy, he says that we cannot know things-in-themselves, but only appearances. How do we know anything beyond the appearances? Good question.

In the last month we Americans have seen some remarkable changes in the shadows on the wall. Remember that doddering shadow we called Slow Joe? Gone, all of a sudden, to be replaced by another shadow, a prancing illumination that the far-Right call Kackling Kamala.

And who was directing the shadows and throwing the sticks on the fire? Was it Nancy Pelosi, revered descendant of the imperial D’Alesandro dynasty? Good question.

Okay. So the new presidential shadow looks different, but what about reality? Has anything really changed, or just the appearance? Here’s what one commentator had to say:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.

Not shadows but just a bunch of actors?

The question is: who is the stage manager back there? Is it Nancy Pelosi? Chuck Schumer? Barack Obama? The Intelligence Community? All of the above, or none of the above? Don’t forget to “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” If you know what’s good for you.

Maybe the answer to our problem is Candide’s “Il faut cultiver notre jardin.” That’s French for: we deplorables had better cultivate our gardens, because no matter what the shadows on the wall are doing -- or pretending to do -- we still need to eat.

I prefer the answer given by a smart Jewish kid 125 years after the first triumph of critical theory, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. (Note to experts: If he were philosophizing today Kant would have called his book “The 1781 Project,” because critical theory is so much more advanced these days.)  If we can’t know things-in-themselves what can we know beyond appearances? No problem, said the smart Jewish kid. Everything is relative, except the speed of light. Then he created the math, with the help of his old school chum Marcel Grossman, to prove it.

He was right. Everything is relative. Except the Intelligence Community.

Odd thing about the Intelligence Community. It has yet to take out a Democrat president. Why is that? You can forget the Kennedy assassinations. The Intelligence Community had nothing to do with that.

So what is really going on? N.S. Lyons at UnHerd points us to Vilfredo Pareto, who said that regimes are founded by lions and governed by foxes.

Nations are founded by lions, who are a society’s natural warrior class -- its jocks, so to speak. They establish and expand a kingdom’s borders at the point of a sword, pacifying external enemies.

But then the lions get replaced by the foxes.

Security and prosperity produce a proliferation of foxes. Foxes are unsuited to and deeply uncomfortable with the employment of force; they prefer intellectual and rhetorical combat, because they’re nerds. They will use physical force if necessary, but prefer to disguise its nature and are prone to use it ineptly.

No wonder the Brits banned fox hunting.

Whaddya think, sports fans? Are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer as cunning as foxes?

If you are as cunning as a fox you can insert Joe Biden in as presidential nominee in 2020 and put your Zuckbucks to work on the ballot front. You can set every partisan lawyer in the land to work on lawfaring against Donald Trump. Then you can switch out Biden for Harris when the wind changes in 2024.

But whatabout the mainstream media, what kind of animal are they? Oh, of course. They are chameleons. They will change the color of their narrative six ways from Sunday, any time the foxes want.

But there comes a time in the affairs of men when cunning and manipulation just don’t do the job. That’s when you accidentally break the chains and climb out to see the world outside the media cave and realize that all those media generated shadows on the wall are fake news. That’s when you start to realize that the ruling-class theory explaining all the appearances doesn’t reflect reality -- and maybe never did. That’s when you have to admit that business-as-usual isn’t going to get the job done. That’s when you need someone with a strategic vision rather than tactical cunning.

That’s when you need a lion.

I don’t think we can be in any doubt after 7/13 about whether Donald Trump is a lion.

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.

Image: Markus Maurer