Tactical impact, and that if you are trying, as i said, that if you're if you're trying to get rid of democracy, one of the ways you do it is by telling people that is no knowable truth, because then people cannot connect to real world that might have real world solutions, that you might want to put your government to work on and trying to get rid of people's sense of connection to ability to change things through the democratic that we have. you should read it, but only if your book club meets in the morning because none of you will ever sleep again. my husband was like, can you not read that book anymore? honestly, like it's worthy of a book club selection. by the way, i was reading that for the first time, i think early in the trump presidency in the spring of 2017. and if you want to imagine what that's like, i commend that novel to you, but don't read it late at night. we had a few different guys who would happy to do it and philip roth's great novel, the plot against america, is a counterfactual american history about what would have happened had charles lindbergh actually run against fdr in 1940 and had he won. it's one of the top four most important things in this era where we had a very strong, very well-connected authoritarian, anti-democratic, fascist, pro-nazi movement that was working with the nazis who were steamrolling europe at the time. and that, like that's actually the kind of the good news both about what happened, but also the good news about this being forgotten. and when the american people learned of that, they escorted them to the exits of american politics. and the reason we don't remember names today is because they were exposed as having taken part in an plot to remove the american system of government and replace it with a strongman rule. and yet we do not remember their names today. and these were some of the most influential, most powerful people at the very center of american politics. he was a household name, an absolute household name. burton wheeler, who was the guy who pressured the attorney general to fire the prosecutor and succeeded in doing so. congressman hamilton, fish of new york was something like 24 years in the house and had never an election. I mean somebody like senator gerald nye had been thought of as presidential timber. i mean, you know, it's like in miniature our politics is, you know, speeded up in real time, right? i mean, it's just going to be so months long catastrophe now. what do think about what's going to happen as a result of the hamas terrorist attack inside israel and already we see the divisiveness the disinformation, the concern. and attendant scapegoating, conspiracy theories about other minorities. i think there isn't a brighter red flag than spiking anti-semitism in this country right now. and when that is ascendant, when you see a lot of energy directed to that that is anti-democratic energy is trying to take away the vote and control of our own destiny from of us. you have to believe us, you have to believe there's a there's a there's an enemy within somebody has to be blamed for our troubles. Idea that we cannot collectively take part in decisions that we are not a unity re polity that can collectively decide through the democratic process what we're going to do as a country. but i've of forced the there to be more time for it than you would think and it's just the and so there isn't always time to do that with everything going on in the news. i need to know where things from, for circumstances and characters that i'm talking about, particularly as it pertains to the news. i, in order to understand things in a way that i find satisfying, i need the origin story. i just like i've got a quirk in way of thinking about things. i don't need all the backstory backstory. and after the meteor, you have to understand, she's like, no, just start when you drove into the parking lot. and i'd be like, yes, first there were dinosaurs, though, and then there was this meteor. One of the things that i think rightfully get dinged for, and it's true in my life as well as in my work life, know my partner, suzanne, i'll say like, weren't you going to tell me a story about something that happened? you said something weird happened in the parking lot when you went to stop and shop today.
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