While at the same time the husband is cutting funding to those programs, Mitchell raged. Mitchell despised the mayor. The newspapers raced after him, a pack of hounds with press passes ready to paint him as charming and visionary. Who cares? It didn’t matter to Mitchell that the mayor was a real horse who itched at his withers and ached in his hooves. These destroyers of worlds were always in the end just sagging animals. That didn’t stop them from being soulless. Those in power were just the distracting performers who covered for nameless conglomerates and banks and armies. It was so hard to name, to wrap his mind around, that he ended up humming it. A private song about language untethered from meaning.

The mayor spoke of deregulation. Mitchell translated that into heavy-metal-poisoned water supplies. The mayor spoke of public–private partnership, which Mitchell understood as selling off essential public services to the mayor’s friends.

Honey Pongo, the reporter, asked the mayor about the issue of dark money. Shergar dismissed this as a problem with a nostril flare and a tail flick.

“I am not a politician by nature. Until coming to City Hall, I never held office or worked in government. So, I’m not interested in the smoky back rooms or the whole buildup of political favors—‘You scratch my flank, I’ll scratch yours.’ If anyone thinks they can buy me, they’re in for a rude awakening.” The mayor insists his only interest is in good ideas, and if someone—be they lobbyist or average animal—wants to come to him with a good idea, he’ll give them his attention. “If animals are putting resources behind an idea, it’s because they believe in it, and I think it’s my job to listen without prejudging the source.”

Aha! Mitchell took a gulp of lukewarm maté. Here was a hidden principle, a shaping shard of ideology masquerading as common sense. There is no alternative. There is no separation between wealth and thought. We’re all little buyers and sellers. You’ll get the ear of the mayor if you have a good idea. There is no hierarchy. Did the mayor really believe this? Or was it just another cynical sound bite? Mitchell didn’t know which possibility was worse.