Have the Courage of Your Mistakes

What happens when half of our political representatives lack all self-respect?

A scene from another life (Udaipur, India, September 2015)

There’s a Joan Didion essay I return to ever so often, written for Vogue in 1961, called “On Self-Respect.” You may have read it before, as it seems to make the rounds every few years, but it’s one of my favorites because it spans so much: Literature, professional jealousy, anxiety, competition, …