However - it's interesting for Kremlinologists to realise that the Party Line has now changed.
It's not yet clear what it's changed to - although I wouldn't be surprised to see a regrouping followed by a few casual suggestions that 'reform' will save the world from 'recession.'
But there may, temporarily, be confusion in the ranks until common wisdom coalesces on some new kind of silliness.
I don't think that, this time, they can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.....
And even if they can no longer (credibly) claim that there is no problem, they can still claim that competition is magic and will automatically solve the problem that doesn't exist, or they can try to sow doubt and spread confusion. In other words, even if the first hand of denialist cards no longer plays well, they still have some three or four hands to go, where they can pull off a victory or at least delay their defeat.
This is not the beginning of the end. At most, it is the end of the beginning.
- Jake Ceterum censeo Chicago esse delendam
The question is thus whether it will now be so crushingly obvious that he's broken that they can't deny it anymore? I would not assume that from the outset.
Well, I think it's possible that an alternative emerges - it is emerging, I believe - that is so gobsmackingly obvious we won't believe that we ever did it any other way.
As the designer Naoto Fukasawa puts it:
"My motivation is to find the simple answer that everybody knows, but which doesn't yet exist..."
