Wry chuckles and sardonic smirks aside, investors had a lot to smile about headed into a long holiday weekend.

Most obviously, US equities (derisively, “the stocks”) were on track for an eighth consecutive weekly gain, a run that doubled as a summit push.

Say a Christmas prayer for bears who pressed their luck towards the end of October. It’s been an excruciating two months. The simple figure below is just a monthly version of the by now familiar “everything rally” chart.

If you were on the wrong side of that stampede professionally, don’t fret: They don’t fire you on Christmas weekend. And if they do, you don’t want to work there anyway. (First reader to name the film gets a free shirt: “Grace, call security. Have them change his locks, clean out his desk and toss him out of the building.” “He’s fired?! But it’s Christmas!” “Thank you! Call accounting, stop his bonus.”)

November PCE inflation data released into the pre-holiday void on Friday was insult to injury for naysayers. Core price growth was cooler than economists anticipated and headline PCE prices actually fell in November from October.

Later, the final read on University of Michigan sentiment found the headline revised higher from a preliminary December reading which already represented a sharp improvement from last month. “All five index components rose, which has only occurred in 10% of readings since 1978,” survey director Joanne Hsu said, adding that “the net favorability of news about prices rose in December to its most favorable reading since February 2021.”

Although longer-term inflation expectations were revised slightly higher from the preliminary read, consumers’ year-ahead expectations were unchanged at 3.1%, preserving the largest month-to-month decline on that series in more than two decades.

Hsu went on to attribute the marked upswing in Americans’ outlook to “substantial improvements in how consumers view the trajectory of inflation.” Conference Board data released earlier this week conveyed the same general message.

There’s rampant speculation that all of this (including and especially the Fed’s dovish pivot) is too good to be true. Some of that speculation has conspiratorial overtones vis-à-vis an election which both sides of the political spectrum view as existential in one way or another. And yet, as Stephanie Kelton told CNBC this week, “We’re letting this constant compulsion to turn everything into politics — to politicize everything — just destroy our faculties for critical thinking.”

Irrespective of what you believe about the Fed’s motivation for cutting rates in 2024, Stephanie’s absolutely correct in general. And that compulsion (to turn everything into politics) is destroying more than our capacity for critical thinking. It’s destroying a social fabric that was already hopelessly frayed after decades “bowling alone,” to channel Robert Putnam.

Blame who you will for the fratricidal enmity that now defines American life (if you’re inclined to fault the establishment not the usurper, you’re not entirely wrong), but don’t readily succumb to the siren song of quick fixes in 2024. More and more, Americans seem amenable to the seemingly self-evident notion that if “government of the people, by the people, for the people” is no longer creating good outcomes for a majority of “the people,” then perhaps it’s worth trying some other form of government. To hijack and modify the old joke: “With a democracy like this, who needs an autocratic, oligarchical kleptocracy?”

As self-evident as such criticism of America’s broken system might seem (or indeed might be), I’d submit that the alternative currently on offer is considerably worse than the status quo. And that’s really saying something coming from me, a man who harbors no delusions whatsoever about the multitudinous injustices foisted upon Americans (not to mention the rest of the world) by a deeply entrenched political, military and business establishment which jealously guards every lever of power and influence in our crumbling “city on a hill.”