“In seasons of pestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the disease–a terrible passing inclination to die of it.”

— from Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities”

Photo credit: By Hu Nhu – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90811047

“Fire at the Château d’Argenteuil.”

By now you have probably heard Donald Trump’s open refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power should the vote not favor him in November.  (And his statement arrives at the same time as that frightening Atlantic article about how he could bypass the election results altogether.)

I swear that I cannot believe the things that I am hearing. No matter whether there is any substance or viability or real commitment behind Trump’s stance, this is … historic (in a terrible way.)

Yes, a lot of us (including me) saw it coming a million miles away. But it doesn’t diminish the gravity of it.

Before 2016, who would’ve thought we would see any American president — left or right — act like this?

Attacking a free press and attacking free elections are not “American” impulses. There will always be some small part of me that will experience cognitive dissonance when I see Trump supporters carrying an American flag.

They are not patriots, they’re authoritarians — because they are not supporters of our country, they’re devotees of a man.