By Moses 
It is sometimes easier to understand our present when we imagine that the dead are watching us. Suppose, for a moment, that Tutankhamun — the boy king of Egypt who ascended the throne at nine and was gone by nineteen — were standing in the wings of our era. The fragile monarch who lived through a court riddled with intrigue, coups, priestly power plays, and abrupt reversals would not be startled by our news. He would nod knowingly as governments collapse in sequence, one after another, as though history has returned to remind us of its eternal rhythm.
Government collapse is not a rare phenomenon. But when collapses begin to cluster, when one resignation or no-confidence vote echoes across borders, the pattern takes on a different weight. We find ourselves in 2025 with France unable to keep a prime minister in place for more than a handful of months. Before Bayrou, there was Attal. Before Attal, Barnier. And still, the palace at the Élysée insists it can maintain authority. Yet the National Assembly votes, the streets prepare marches, and the prime minister’s chair is little more than a revolving door. In such turbulence, Boy King Tut might whisper, this is the politics of a court without stability.
But France is not alone. Look across the continent, and the term “political crisis” has become a weekly refrain. In Germany, the ruling coalition fights not just the far right but also its own disagreements, tied in knots by energy, migration, and budgetary strain. In Italy, instability is almost ritual, though the present government clings to its mandate more tightly than its predecessors. In Spain, compromise hangs by a thread of regional bargaining. The United Kingdom, outwardly calm since the election of Keir Starmer, still knows what it means to live through churn: four prime ministers in six years left scars that remain beneath the surface. Even stable democracies have learned that leadership can vanish overnight.
So what, then, is new? Why should King Tut, watching from the sands of eternity, take special notice of these days? Perhaps because the collapse no longer feels like an exception but like the standard operating procedure of modern democracies. What should be temporary storms now resemble permanent weather systems. Governing is not the task of building but of surviving another week. Cabinets are less architects and more firefighters.
In the old kingdoms, collapse had immediate and often violent consequences: dynasties shattered, thrones seized, temples sacked, populations scattered. Today, collapse is procedural, legal, and in theory bloodless. Votes of no confidence, resignations, snap elections — the polite instruments of the parliamentary age. Yet beneath the politeness, the discontent is raw. Protest movements gather in plazas, general strikes threaten to halt transport, youth chant about futures that seem perpetually deferred. Tutankhamun would understand the pageantry: whether priests whispering in Thebes or unions marching in Paris, power is never secure when the people sense weakness.
The current timeline tests us with simultaneity. Economic shocks, climate disruption, cultural polarization, and geopolitical tension all land at once. In such an environment, governments struggle not because they lack intelligence but because the demands are unrelenting. Inflation bites as wars rage. Energy markets wobble as glaciers melt. Migration surges as borders harden. In ancient terms, the gods appear angry. In modern terms, systems strain against complexity. Collapse follows when leaders can no longer balance the ledger of demands and responses.
Yet it is too easy to romanticize collapse as drama. For citizens, collapse means uncertainty in pensions, instability in schools, interruptions in medical systems, unpredictability in transport, and anxiety in housing markets. A prime minister falling in Paris might inspire editorials, but for the nurse in Lyon or the teacher in Bordeaux, the meaning is more direct: the rules that shape their wages, their protections, their futures are in limbo. A boy king watching from beyond might see it as spectacle; those alive feel it as stress.
The question, then, is whether collapse is terminal or transitional. Ancient Egypt survived Tutankhamun’s brief reign; the dynastic machinery adapted, redirected, rebranded. France will survive Bayrou’s resignation, just as it survived the fall of monarchs, emperors, and other presidents before. Britain will survive its churn. Italy will continue its tradition of unstable stability. But survival is not the same as thriving. When collapse becomes frequent, trust evaporates. Citizens grow cynical, then disengaged, then hostile. The legitimacy of the system itself begins to fray. That is the deeper danger — not the fall of one leader but the corrosion of faith in governance as a meaningful enterprise.
Boy King Tut, leaning on his ceremonial staff, might look puzzled. Why do they collapse so politely? he might ask. Where are the generals storming the gates, the viziers assassinating rivals, the priests declaring new gods? And the answer, of course, is that we live in a different architecture of power. Collapse is no longer spectacular, but bureaucratic. Yet its consequences are equally profound. Credit ratings shift. Investment slows. International partners hesitate. The texture of daily life grows thinner, more brittle.
And still, collapse is also an opportunity. For just as Tutankhamun’s fragile rule was followed by reforms and restorations, so too can today’s governments learn. Collapse can clear the field of exhausted leadership and open the space for new voices. It can awaken citizens to the need for vigilance, participation, and accountability. It can remind societies that no throne is eternal, that power must be constantly renewed by trust.
The current timeline is testing us, not just with the fall of governments but with the question of what comes after. Do we retreat into nostalgia, hoping for strongmen or simpler times? Or do we accept that complexity is the condition of our age, and that democracy must evolve to meet it? Tutankhamun might not have the answer. He died before he could grow into a ruler of depth. But his very presence as witness is a warning: youth and fragility are no protection against collapse.
The boy king gazes across the centuries at our parliaments, our assemblies, our news feeds scrolling with resignation after resignation. He recognizes the pattern: leaders come and go, but the people remain. Thrones crack, palaces crumble, governments fall. What matters is whether the society beneath finds continuity, resilience, and vision. Collapse is inevitable; the real test is what rises in its wake.