People writing earnest pieces about how In The End The Process Worked are missing something fundamental. Everything surrounding Trump’s presidency exposed us to the world as a broken nation. The international response we saw after 9/11 - in support of a flawed but

1/

still idealistic nation - gave us the political capital to do almost ANYTHING within reason in defense of those ideals, & we squandered it within 2 years by persistently choosing the unreasonable. Voting in Obama was redemptive because it represented a rejection

2/

of some of the most fundamental sins of our past. And our allies, who still see us as a scrappy kid among elders, *mostly* forgave us. From the outside, it looked like we as a unified nation had chosen to try to do better.

3/

Then every single asshole in the country jumped to their feet to tell the world that *they* would do *worse*. And then Putin, the GOP, &/or the base fear & hatred in their souls convinced them to vote for THE most incompetent motherfucker IN THE COUNTRY. A man with NO ideals.

4/

And now the world knows. Our secret is out. We can’t present as a learning, growing country anymore. Because a solid half of us watched NAZIS storm the Capitol in defense of a corrupt fraud & said, “I think this is, on the whole, something I support.” And the world saw it.

5/5