True story:
So for the first time in years, I went out to buy an actual newspaper this afternoon. I wanted a hardcopy with a big headline of Trump's epic fail. All the NYTs had been snapped up right away, and I had to go to 3 places before I found a short stack of the local paper

I came up to the checkout of the kwik-e-mart and tossed a copy on the counter. The guy behind the plexiglass picked it up, scanned the barcode—and stopped. "They impeached the President?!" he blurted out. He held the paper out and read the headline again. "When did this happen??"

"Yesterday," I replied, snapping my finger. "It happened fast." He started to put the paper back down and looked at it again. "WHY are there soldiers in the capitol?" His shocked tone told me this was breaking news to him so I continued to tamp down any surprise over his reaction

I did my best IRL shrug emoji and said “The military is there to protect the capitol from the president.”

The masks and plexiglass made the rest of the conversation a little difficult to hear, but he went on, more quiet now as he rang up the rest of the sale.

The world always looked up to America, he said shaking his head. How had it come to this? He said something I couldn't quite hear about why he came to this country and US military strength. I told him there were now 3x more US troops in DC than there were in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He slid the paper back to me and shook his head again. "Unbelievable."

I felt the same thing as I walked back to my car: that 24 hours after Trump’s historic impeachment & a week after his coup attempt, in a world supposedly swimming in media, this guy was just hearing about it.