Today Donald Trump opened a meeting by having his cabinet members go around the table to praise him. As it unfolded, each official attempted to obsequiously outdo the last with flattery of their boss. This actually happened.

This, by the way, is the same way Shakespeare’s “King Lear” opens. Instead of cabinet members, it’s Lear asking his daughters to praise him in order to justify their inheritance.

​In other news, “King Lear” chronicles the descent of a leader into madness and death, set on his course by an almost comical but ultimately tragic narcissism.