HYPOCRISY IS THE TRIBUTE THAT VICE PAYS TO VIRTUE, AND FAKE BOOKSHELVES ARE THE TRIBUTE OUR ELITES PAY TO ACTUAL INTELLECT: Washington’s Secret to the Perfect Zoom Bookshelf? Buy It Wholesale. “Over the past two decades, Books by the Foot’s books-as-decor designs have become a fixture in the world of American politics, filling local appetite for books as status symbols, objects with the power to silently confer taste, intellect, sophistication or ideology upon the places they’re displayed or the people who own them. . . . When workplaces went remote and suddenly Zoom allowed co-workers new glimpses into one another’s homes, what New York Times writer Amanda Hess dubbed the ‘credibility bookcase’ became the hot-ticket item. (‘For a certain class of people, the home must function not only as a pandemic hunkering nest but also be optimized for presentation to the outside world,’ she wrote.)”