I think he’s an aberrant shit-mouth and am not the least insulted by your analysis. It’s correct. This is a nation of lunatics, ignorance, arrogance and swagger. It’s embarrassing. I spent a month in Greece years ago and some people inexplicably thought I was French. I did not correct them. Nor would I now. (Though with barely a memory of high school French, the ruse would be tough to pull off.) Canadian. I’ll be Canadian.

I apologize for the madness that is my home country, the insanity that I truly do not understand. I’m actually related to some of these people, I will shame-facedly admit. Most of us are. I remind myself for comfort that we elected Obama and, while I could chronicle my own disappointment with his presidency, the fact that this nation spoke twice in his favor is a much-needed check in the correct column.

It’s like Rome in the end, not a new argument I know, but it sometimes seems like we live in one big, ugly reality show. Where’s the rational thought? Where’s the intelligent discourse? The measured consideration of weighty issues? We seem, here is this bizarro world, incapable of much depth and it’s depressing.

But it’s not new. We elected George W. Bush — twice. We elected Jesse Ventura. We elected Ronald Reagan, for chrissakes, and he’s held up as a hero. Even evil Nixon became a hero of sorts upon his death.

I only hope it’s just temporary entertainment (though it’s getting harder to find anything entertaining about so much ugly idiocy) and he’ll vaporize and we’ll be left with more of the same mainstream dysfunction. We are not entirely a nation of clowns and I hope the end will prove it.