America Feels Like a Codependent Household

America feels like an alcoholic household—crazy with grievance, accusation, irrational rage, screaming in the middle of the night. The children lie in the dark, wide-eyed, listening. In the morning, the family comes downstairs trying to pretend that everything is normal. There’s a lot of pretending: The southern border isn’t wide open; unpunished crime is social justice; the president of Harvard deserves her job.

Things aren’t normal. Everyone knows it. The country doesn’t quite recognize itself. America has gone astray in a strange new landscape. It’s a different America all right.