Took in “Dunkirk” at Circle Cinema last Friday. I thought it was superb, for all sorts of reasons. Afterward, I decided to take a look at Churchill’s “The Gathering Storm,” the first in his multi-volume history of the Second World War (as I’m certain my FB friends already know). This was my dad’s set. Like many of his generation he revered Churchill. Me, not so much. Anyway, 1/2 through “The Gathering Storm” a few thoughts come to mind. First, the easy ones. Churchill’s account is riveting but also quite self-serving. No surprise. He’s an ardent colonialist and constitutional monarchist. He writes fluidly. But here’s the larger take away. Churchill describes a moment in history where liberal democracies proved vulnerable to individuals or political movements that regularly, and strategically, violated what we might describe as ‘norms’ of political and indeed ethical behavior. We often comfort ourselves with the thought that the rules, procedures, checks and balances, embedded in our constitutions and international relations ultimately protect us from abuses. That, as Woodward and Bernstein observed years ago (problematically I think) “the system works.” Well, in the 1930s the system didn’t work. Not because there was no system or were no rules and norms but because those norms only work when those holding power insist upon it. Absent that, those willing to absorb criticism (usually mild and always rhetorical) will continue to push. And it is not at all clear that ‘the system’ will right itself automatically.