I've been mentally disengaging from American political news for weeks; not so much the "Biden's Brain" coverage, it's the news that Trump could actually win. I'd thought that chance remote, given his history; a block of cheese carved into Biden's likeness should be able to beat him. it was shocking to suddenly notice the polls. What is WRONG with these people?

I have to remind myself, over and over and over, to not acquire hope for Americans, whatever their (very slow, halting, backtracking) progress. They've always chosen the leaders who lie to them, because they want to be lied to:

- Their past isn't so bad;

- it's quite past, America is good now;

- All their wars and attacks are justified;

- Their cops are trustworthy and only occasionally fail in "split-second decisions";

- Their businesses are honestly trying to serve customers at lowest cost, and their rich have earned it.

Both parties have to agree with these narratives, Democrats have to couch education and reform attempts in coded, respectful terms. These lies are very popular, and only clapback comes to those with ugly truths - it's like an employee going to HR with a story of a handsy boss; the problem is her fault for bringing it up.

I keep reminding myself this is like the 2004 election: Bush was proven by then to have lied about WMDs to trick his country into war (justified! see above) , had opened a no-human-rights prison camp and tortured people there, and it had come out that he shouldn't really have won the 2000 election after all...and, yet, he received the only popular-vote win for a Republican candidate in the last 36 years.

The crushing sense of American betrayal to all liberality around the world ... validating *torture* FFS ... was monumental. I'd kind of thought another 20 years, a whole generation, would make for a more-liberal America ... but, of course, "you are what you do" - that same war coarsened and brutalized Americans, too, made them a darker, harder people.

You don't want to get too sympathetic, just because there are a lot of good ones.