1/ Been thinking this morning abt what I would say in the event of a #2020Election #trumpwins. I've decided it's better to say it now.

Once would have been a fluke. Twice would mean we are decisively broken.

I very purposefully do not say our system would be broken.

2/ Our system hasn't changed all that much. That's why we commit it to paper, institutions, and civics lessons. Conditions change, we change.

The system changes too. But less, more slowly, differently.

We are what changed. We are what makes it possible.

Trump is us.

3/ Look at this guy. Look at him last night. Or look at him here, the first time I remember seeing him.

It's the first time I can remember disliking someone I never met so instantly and viscerally. I was 14 or 15.

4/ The way he brags & boasts, lies abt himself & so much more all the time so instinctively is UGLY.

@realDonaldTrump is an ugly person--in the sense that from 1987 on I never don't want to look away.

The boastful mendacity of such an insecure person elicits discomfort.

5/ I think there cannot be anyone who does not know this, perhaps on earth.

His sister knows. His daughter knows. His ex wives know. We know.

Why do so many people tell themselves to ignore it? To indulge it? To accept it?

There's where the problem is.

6/ It has become so important for so many Americans to win a culture war that overlooking his ugliness began to seem worth it.

So did overlooking selfdealing corruption. Abuse of his appt power. Dogwhistling racism. Flouting of norms. Preferring self interest over natl interest.

7/ Now we overlook a #pandemic that killed more Americans during a 4-day #RepublicanConvention than were killed in #911attacks. A pandemic nearly every other govt managed far better.

We also overlook 10% #unemployment & a recession that will take years to recover from.

8/ #Trump survives that kryptonite only because we hate each other more than we care abt any of that.

We are broken.

Yes, I mean that 38%-42% who would overlook a 5th Ave shooting.

But I also mean us.

9/ A war has 2 sides. Action provokes reaction. And there is danger in extreme anti-Trumpism too.

I don't much like wealthy white people with guns threatening peaceful demonstrators outside their mansions.

But I have to allow them a place in our American community.

10/ The casualty of our war and the #Trump era has been the sense of it being OUR American community, whether were dividing into "Democrat cities" and GOP cities or dividing some other way.

WE are broken because we dont want to be whole. We dont want to try to reach each other.

11/ We prefer to be right. We prefer to win.

Systemic fixes will not help. No constitutional amendment or SCOTUS decision will quench our mutual loathing.

We just have to find the will to STOP.

Nothing else can save us. Our nation is lost until we can decide to live together.

12/12 That is what I hope not to say on Nov 4.

/END/