Group therapy for Times readers

The new thing is “Democracy Grief’, and these people are suffering terribly.

Lately, I think I’m experiencing democracy grief. For anyone who was, like me, born after the civil rights movement finally made democracy in America real, liberal democracy has always been part of the climate, as easy to take for granted as clean air or the changing of the seasons. When I contemplate the sort of illiberal oligarchy that would await my children should Donald Trump win another term, the scale of the loss feels so vast that I can barely process it.

The article, by a Times columnist who a decade ago bewailed the impending takeover of the country by fundamentalist Christians (it never happened, in case you haven’t been paying attention), whines on and on, with the obligatory reference to Hitler and interviews with psychiatrists who treat rich Upper East Siders, but this comment from a reader sums it all up nicely:

Thanks for writing about something that so many of us feel. I live in a place where most people close to me – friends, family and colleagues alike, seem blissfully unaware of anything beyond the day to day rigors of raising kids, managing the home and businesses and, now, the holidays. I sometimes crave to join the “ignorance is bliss” camp, but just cannot stand to see the danger today with worse to come if Trump wins again (though glimmer of hope, however unlikely, of Dems winning the Senate).

Paying attention to their children, jobs and home — having a life, in other words — instead of cowering under the bed, awaiting the crashing arrival of Trump’s storm troopers at the door? Oh, my, God! Don’t they see what’s happening?! Aaaaagh! Eeeek!

I so, so hope that Trump is reelected. And if he can take back the House … oh, my God!