How can we ever be great

 While fully embracing what seems like a challenge to become the worst version of ourselves we can be? Trump ushered in an era in which not only is offensiveness and hurtfulness considered okay again, it's practically celebrated as "freedom of speech.' Make to mistake, it is NOT freedom of expression that people are giving life to, they're giving life to what they absolutely know is ugly and egotistical and congratulating one another for doing so, then decrying cancel culture as an infringement of basic rights.

The worst part of all this is that there are seriously mentally unstable people out there being encouraged and enabled along with those whose worst infraction is saying something offensive. There are people who take it as license to do violence.

 Donald Trump was not always as awful as what he's become. I remember. But he had a shtick for TV. He didn't want to be prez, so he became a caricature and ratcheted up the crazy rhetoric. But people loved it instead of rejecting him allowed themselves to be caught up in the ugliness and created an insidious dynamic. He began to thrive on the hero worship, senseless and shameful though it was. He saw that he could get away with saying or doing absolutely anything and people would applaud and find ways to defend and justify it. I was a high for him, the ultimate power trip. We sold our civic soul to a narcissist on a power trip, then called it good. It's the nuttiest thing I've ever seen.

They say every dog had its day, well the dogs are certainly having their day now. The worst of society, the most ignorant, cruel, uncouth, belligerent aspect of America is having its heyday, and too many people who know better and who used to have enough self-control, self-respect, and foresight/wisdom to do better are now just going along. Good people, intelligent people, sensible people jumped on the Trump train just to save their careers and party. They'll regret it. It has set us back, but not in a good sense, not to a better time, rather to the worst we've ever been IMO, because before we were seeking to be better, now it's like we're trying to see how low we can go.

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