Editorials & Other Articles

Americans like stories about individuals. We aren't good at understanding the big picture. (There are some very good historical reasons for this.)

The average American may think that "deporting criminals" is a good idea, especially if "those people are here illegally." Americans are very quick to blame whole groups of people. (Again, historical.)

But let an individual story get into the national consciousness - such as the story about the nice people in Uncle Tom's Cabin who are abused by cruel slave owners - and Americans are suddenly very much on the side of the brave and the oppressed.

Abrego Garcia's story is about a brave and oppressed man who is separated from his family. He's been held in a concentration camp in one of those countries Trump taught Americans to fear. He wife and children cry on camera for him. His senator went to see him. Americans were enthralled. "Is he alive or dead? Did the senator get to see him? What happens next?" "What IS this place?"

All of this is devastating for the Republicans' attempts to keep Americans blind to the individual stories and focused on the big lie.

That's why we started to see fake tattoo pictures, and now Kristi Noem's supposed purse snatcher is "an illegal."

I expect a big national emergency or event soon to get the rubes back in line.