Four levels of horror

Photo: Gage Skidmore.

Each of these operate independently of one another:

1. Half of the United States voted for that campaign.
2. Trump is driven only by ego, and that's a proven possible road to dictatorship.
3. Discourse poison will continue, this time from the bully pulpit.
4. He's 100% liar. His statements have 0% meaning. We have no idea where this goes.

That last one is a bigger deal than folks outside the media and government may think.

Folks outside these professions often say politicians lie, but that's only half right. Most politicians abide by a loose but real standard. One reason the government establishment and mainstream media were so in tank against Trump, more than his dangerous, repulsive and predatory words and actions, is they realize that his complete disregard for truth is fundamentally incompatible with democracy. And Trump has proven, to those watching, that it's far, far easier to fully abandon truth than they had hoped.

Billiards

As long as we all start bands, the Velvet Underground will never die. Long live Gawker.

Slouching

Goldwater's landslide loss in 1964 gave us the Voting Rights Act, Fair Housing Act, Medicare and Medicaid. But his success among racists also revealed the potential of what became Nixon's Southern Strategy in 1968, which embedded racial resentment in mainstream conservatism and has polarized national politics along racial lines ever since.

Whatever happens this fall, some rough beast is coming.