General Discussion

...for years and so I've gleaned some of this already from your many posts, but it's great to have it summed up so well in one statement. And it's such a strong statement (you are a writer by profession, after all) that I can only hope to make a couple of brief points.

1) I think everyone here is weary, regardless of age or health. You are no doubt correct about the morons who elected Trump not just once, but twice. However, as some have said (and you imply in your own statement), Trump is just a symptom of a larger problem. The problem is a uniquely American strain of what historian Morris Berman calls "the Anglo disease", seen to varying extents in all English-speaking countries. I would recommend that everyone read Berman, starting with his "America trilogy" of books. The most accessible of these is The Twilight of American Culture (2000). It's a fast read (I did so in one night).

2) As you say, "[the nation] didn't get better consistently." As a Gen Xer, one of the most difficult things to have witnessed myself is how so many of the world's great moral leaders (e.g. Gandhi, King) are cut down just as they are beginning to do some good. As is said in the Gospels, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house” (Matthew 13:57). I was born at the tail end of 1968, a year that saw two of this country's best (King and RFK) murdered within two months of each other.

Having said that, part of me somehow retains a tiny seed of the patience seen in Buddhism (a faith which I do not profess): life is a process, ever-unfolding. We all each get only one vote in this existence, and to short-circuit that process often ends up in tragedy. One can easily see this in the billionaire class trying to dictate to the world how it should spin. History tells us that this will not end well.

I don't know what the solution is. Part of me also agrees with George Carlin, who once famously said that "America is an extremely limited experiment in democracy". And on Keith Olbermann's show, he simply stated "this country's finished". I have to say that I don't agree with Carlin, and yet, I wouldn't bet against him either.