Notes from Surreal Land

Rachel Maddow reported that a recent poll indicated that 78% of Republicans believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by Biden, up from 70% in April. This is an utterly whacko belief, right up there with the Earth is flat and not far behind the moon is made of green cheese, yet it is cultivated, perpetuated, and elaborated upon, for example with fanstastical orchestrations such as the faux audit of election results in Arizona, now being copied in other states with Republican-controlled legislatures. Our country faces multiple critical challenges. Our ability to deal with them is being hobbled by, to evoke Yeat’s poem “The Second Coming,” “the worst,” who are “full of passionate intensity.”