I'm reading Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates right now. NPR ran an excerpt of the 2008 book. It's an interesting look at modern politics and some of the Puritan origins of U.S. attitudes, and Reagan has a lot to answer for. As does Trump, and ten years later one can't help but read that book and see how the actor-turned-politician went for charismatic words (look in particular for Mario Cuomo's response to Reagan) but ignoble acts. Trump is just all-around ignoble.

Maybe if we get back to a presidential president, we can start to fix things; and after seeing what wasn't etched in stone that Trump was able to break, fix it in a more durable fashion.

/Pollyanna off/