When Trump finally departs the political landscape, we'll experience a wave of shame over the fact that things got to this point in America. He incited a coup in Michigan, and now that the plot is revealed, is attacking the intended victim. We are witnessing historic obscenities.

All Americans alive today must in some way feel that we've disgraced the generations of brave Americans who came before us. America didn't beat back the British at the Old North Bridge in the town I was born in—Concord, MA—just to sink to this ignominious low under Donald Trump.

We're a *better nation* than this. A better people. We deserve more—and even more importantly, our predecessors marched and fought and died and made great art and built incredible innovations so that we could hold our heads higher than any of us can right now. We are in disgrace.

We're led by an evil clown. That's all—an evil clown. The worst part is that our legal, political, financial, and cultural infrastructure spent decades getting him where he is today. That's why I say some measure of shame must be felt by all Americans today—not just Trump voters.

This period in American history discredits us before the world. None of us can hope that the rest of the world sees us the same way now—as Americans—as it did before Trump. Having opposed Trump doesn't make any of us any less subject to the degradations he imposed on *all* of us.

I love this country so much. I hope that one day we will be able to remember the values—often breached, never fully lived up to—that made the perpetually flawed American experiment a nevertheless historically valiant one. But we must not kid ourselves about how low we have sunk.

The President of the United States—with criminal negligence—is spreading a deadly disease. So are his family members. And his minions are doing the same. They are spreading racist propaganda while trying to tear down our democracy. And most of America is still just standing by.

Every American should feel seen and judged by this historical moment. People in other nations—for instance, the Germans of the 1940s—have faced such moments. What it means to be an American is being determined in the eyes of history *right now*. We're part of deciding the answer.