Years ago I was staying with a friend in Brooklyn and reading late at night when I smelled smoke. The apartment next door was completely engulfed in flames. I woke my friend up then ran down the hall screaming FIRE!!! One person poked his head out & asked “Well is it a big fire?”

That response stunned me at the time but it was an education. Some people, for reasons of denial, complacency or plain cowardice, see a potential disaster & convince themselves that the problem won’t get bigger than it already is. Even if they know small fires beget big ones.

“Is it a big fire” is a metaphor for so much right now — how the media, mainstream institutions and a huge swath of the white public viewed the rise of Trumpism, how millions of people saw (and see) the COVID pandemic. Even how some see the threats to the coming election.

The fact that someone is screaming “FIRE!” in the middle of the night should alarm you, move you to action even if you’d rather turn over and sleep some more. You only get big fires because small ones go unchecked. And we’ve been smelling smoke for a good long while around here.