Quotes

For the truly faithful, no miracle is necessary. For those who doubt, no miracle is sufficient.

Here is a challenge for our polarized age: if you value the right to speak freely, then what about the right not to? The right to express any opinion or none at all, to inflame an audience by what you say , or what you refuse to say. Surely these rights are knit together: tug at either one and the fabric of freedom unravels.

We've now lived with prolonged exposure to constant shock, to the adrenaline jolt of hearing something we never thought from a public figure, whether about trade or tariffs or women or walls. It makes me wonder whether Trump has so accustomed us to surprise that any script, however sincere, sounds phony and forced.

Elections have consequences; so do campaigns, and Trump's never actually stopped. Unlike his predecessors, he saw no need to shift from running to serving, never moved past the performance art of his massive rallies where he could repeat the same outlandish promises over and over, thrilling the crowds, appalling the fact checkers, confounding his adversaries. The universe of political discourse swelled, crashing through boundaries of truth and, at times, decency. The audience grew too, as people never much interested in politics were drawn to the dazzle. Meanwhile, traditional gatekeepers have found themselves at a loss for how to react, other than to overreact, overread messages, overplay hands. Shared stupefaction binds us like an audience at a horror movie, our lizard brains alight.

Time is not money: attention is. It will be telling to see how people use every new tool and tactic that technology, and even Trump has delivered unto us - not to divert and divide, but to shape a more honest, more subtle, more substantial campaign than the last one. We know how easily we can be distracted. I'm counting on the candidates who show us how we can be healed