At first astonished, then embittered, and finally indifferent, we recognized that what matters is not the mind but the boot brush, not intelligence but the system, not freedom but drill.

And so, as the pandemic shut down cities and states, half the country looked to science and the other half looked to Trump. Americans didn’t look to one another because there was no longer any trust between them. Into this void government by the people collapsed, leaving the unelected elites and the elected demagogue to battle it out. The struggle