A Heedless Nation

One of our much-vaunted attributes as a species is our resilience. Our ability to recover from trauma, tragedy and setbacks is the stuff of legend. People devastated by wildfires rebuild; parents who lose a child to disease, accident or mayhem have another child; widows and widowers carry on with their lives; even crippling injury and maiming is not enough to stop us from looking forward to a better day.

Sometimes, however, that resilience and adaptability can work against us. I believe that is what is occurring under the presidency of Donald Trump. The Orange Ogre seems to have redefined what is acceptable or, at the very least, tolerable, in public life. Forget his serial philandering, his outright and ongoing mendacity, and his manifest unfitness for office, all of which, in an earlier time, would have provoked strong reaction and demands for remediation. Perhaps because Trump came from reality programming, and the United States, now more than ever in its history, subsists on a diet of illusion and false promise, it appears that widespread condemnation over what he does or does not do is largely absent, a 'perk of office' that his predecessor, Obama, did not enjoy.

Consider the following report, which begins at the 7:52 mark, and then ask yourself this question: If times were normal, what logical conclusion would most draw about Donald Trump vis-à-vis Russia?

Time To Be Atwitter?

I couldn't help but think of this story concerning trolls spreading fake news about Black Panther-related violence when I saw this:



Do I detect a pattern developing?