We need to talk. It won’t be pleasant.
Step fully into reality for a moment. Only a moment, because longer proves too overwhelming. We have open, unapologetic Nazi rhetoric from Laura Ingraham on Fox News; Rand Paul unabashedly ferried messages between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin; “missing votes” discovered in the Ohio special election; a Republican congressman indicted on insider trading charges; and children remain in cages after being separated from their parents without due process despite reunification court orders.
And that’s just a tiny fraction of what’s happening. All of it real. That’s the important point. This is real. This happening.
And it’s insane.
We are so far beyond the not normal, we frequently joke about it being some kind of poorly-plotted and tortured TV show. I did that myself with “All My Traitors” recaps, but I’ll tell you this, the funny dropped out a long, long time ago.
We cannot afford to smooth the edges of what’s happening, tempting as it may be. We cannot afford to minimize, to pretend. Our nation is in a kind of trouble it hasn’t experienced in its entire history. We are subject to the whims of a hostile foreign power who appears to call the shots on everything, including the reintroduction of asbestos into American manufacturing, with one Russian brand even bearing Trump’s face.
