The pendulum is swinging wide across the far-stretched expanses of the Overton window. The temperature is hot everywhere. There was an older gentleman I used t

The pendulum is swinging wide across the far-stretched expanses of the Overton window. The temperature is hot everywhere. There was an older gentleman I used to have conversations with in my teenage years when I was living in the midwest, an ardent NRA-supporter, Vietnam-war vet, an old-school American, good-hearted and sweet and wonderful to talk to, quite open to hearing out my then progressive-views and arguing against it. I met him again after a decade and saw that he was a full-on boisterous Trump supporter, unwavering in his belief that Jan6 was justified. Though it was tragic to see him go off in the deep-end, I could not in good conscience write him off, because I knew him and his history. I would like to believe that even the wave of paramilitary culture can be understood, lest we make a fundamental attribution error. Likewise I wish Rayiner would more often employ the principle of charity: engage not with views of people on Twitter, but with the views of the electorate that got Biden in the white house. My best reading tells me that frustrations, particularly of elderly folks, can be traced in some part to the unfair expectation of them to always be up with the latest revision of a social code prescribed and concocted in a place far removed from their dwellings, and when they're not up on it they're quickly cast aside and sometimes demonized. Of course the slighted will show their anger, of course the left-aside will want to rise again. The temperature is hot, and there isn't a moderating force in sight. Strange times. Worrying times.