The Americans Who Saw All This Coming

[barbtries]

3. i felt like i did,

but in reality i underestimated how bad he would be. i recall my boss, a truly brilliant woman, saying that maybe he'd get better once he got to the WH. This was after the 2016 election. I said, "no he will not, he is not capable of changing."

After he'd been president for a bit, I mentioned to a co-worker that he'd stopped growing emotionally at about the age of 2, and my friend laughed. I said, I'm dead serious.

but still. so much worse than I actually imagined it could be. That I would live long enough to see democracy wiped out in my lifetime? Nope, I did not see that coming.

I think the best I can say for myself is that I recognized the pathology when I saw him coming down the escalator, and that my level of denial was less than most.