They want you to believe America is exceptional while Americans huddle against the freezing cold in the powerless dark, beg for money for healthcare online, go without clean drinking water, and sort through trash for food thrown out of massive chain grocery stores.

The fourth largest city in the United States is without water. Many of its people are in danger of freezing to death. All because we’re gripped by austerity and oil-dependency funded and defended by the wealthy and their bought-and-sold politicians.

This moment of crisis, not just in Texas with this storm, but the individual suffering, the racial and economic suffering, this roiling climate catastrophe, this fascistic death March, is because of one disastrous decision after another by the wealthy and powerful.

We are living in the consequences of malicious and incompetent management over the course of years and generations and no one responsible will admit their part or work to repair the damage. All they have are conspiracy theories and partisan blame to win news cycles.

If watching our decaying infrastructure crumble while undeniable climate change lashes us and we have to bury hundreds of thousands of our dead because we lack a shared reality or even a remotely-sane healthcare system doesn’t do it I don’t know what will.