America has perhaps a tradition of radical egalitarianism but at no point has that radical egalitarianism produced less liberalism. We don’t look at FDR’s administration as a time of encroaching autocracy! (Or rather, the only ones who did were and are deeply authoritarian themselves).

which pushes towards disunion every time it is allowed or forced—or worse, in the case of the modern Republican Party, actively sought out—to concentrate in a single political vehicle. There is one illiberalism in American history and it took its most concrete form in the Confederacy.

I have a fever and the only cure is more intersectionality.

I guess I see the sequence of circumstances that I suspect contributed to the 5 point shift (& I include the assassination attempt as being a part of that) as rolling the snake eyes, but I definitely see your point.

Hard to know if that was overly optimistic or not. We might have genuinely rolled the snake eyes!

And whenever I do peel back the curtain, it’s like “yeah I dunno how THEY’RE managing it but that sure as Hell isn’t for ME.”

See, this is why I try not to peer into the romantic partnerships of others (unless I’m explicitly asked to opine on it); all the complexity of another’s inner world, multiplied (and further intensified) by the number of participants.