I don't know how American politics could be more depressing right now.

Fortunately, democracy works even on the bad days and even when it's perverted and utterly corrupt at the highest levels.

Today, I will talk to dozens of regular, law-abiding people while we're all going about our day.  What we do today won't be stopped or even affected by the absurd nightmare that is playing out like misogynist clockwork.

My extreme poverty of a decade and concurrent homelessness have also resulted in my having known an above-average number of people who aren't or weren't strictly law-abiding.   I rarely met one of them with whom it was impossible to have a pleasant conversation, and I never met anyone who had a fraction of the arrogance, cruelty and smugness of the kindest of conglomerate celebrities or cogs in the machine that produces and supports them.