A nation held hostage by the incompetent and criminal

It is tough to argue with a straight face that our fellow Americans should trust our leaders, our institutions, and our legal traditions when we are confronted with so many examples of ineptitude, moral cowardice, and outright malicious intent connected with those leaders and institutions.

It would be entirely understandable that a foreign rival/adversary would sense weakness on the part of the U.S. at this time. Nations do rise and fall and it is entirely possible that we are in some early stage of the fall of the American experiment. Why not push a little harder, if you are Russia or China or India or Hamas or... You get the idea.

It's difficult to wrap our heads around the idea that a handful of wackos in the House of Representatives can stifle a nation of 330 million from taking new actions, responding to threats, and supporting solutions to problems.

It's hard to fathom the arcane idea that one radical Senator can stall almost all progress on routine military leadership appointments, even in the midst of multiple foreign crises.

It's difficult to imagine why an entire political party has decided to abandon any pretense of actually governing. A few rabid partisans are OK with blowing the whole operation up, perhaps assuming that cooler heads will handle the fallout and that they can still get rich and famous on cable TV.

It's nearly impossible to imagine a disgraced narcissist having a decent chance to win re-election to the presidency, despite being under multiple indictments, despite having encouraged violence at the Capital, and despite a barrage of personal attacks on people that would shame a first-grader. 

But there we are. 

Occasionally I try to imagine what my grandchildren are thinking during all this insanity. Amazingly, the girls seem able to shrug it off and keep their "eyes on the prize." They work hard. They pay attention. They find joy in all sorts of things. The boys are likely too young to even pay much attention to the machinations of nutty adults. Good for them.

There really is only one solution to it all. Reasonable Americans need to vote to throw the obstructionists, the deluded, and the guilty out of office. Over and over. 

But the 2024 election seems so far away.