Stormy Daniels, Lies, and Pee Tapes . . . oh, and taxes. P.S. Comey

It's a measure of humanity that we don't want to know what we don't want to know. Trump's base is solid even though or maybe because he did it with Stormy Daniels--he's just a man, after all, and the Lord will forgive him. She's a tempter, like Eve, and the Lord will punish her. And those tapes of him with Russian prostitutes peeing on the bed the Obamas had slept in? That's just a nasty story. Shhh. Don't say such things around children. His taxes? What taxes? He's just like us, only he has more money. He makes it okay not to pay your taxes. That Michael Wolff, he's a scandal-monger, and we don't like them. Same for that James Comey. Don't need their books--it's all gossip.

And in the opposite corner, people like me who read both, who would rather have books that at least record, for posterity, the fall of American civilization. Who listen to Madeleine Albright. Who can't believe any of this is happening as it unfolds before us, the forest fire that is the Trump presidency, as Comey put it.  I consider the Declaration of Independence, the founding belief that "all men are created equal." Back in 1776, "all men" did not include women or anyone whose skin wasn't white. "All men" meant men with money and power; "all men" meant men with land. Jefferson owned about 200 slaves. Over time, the original meaning changed, and it's clear from Jefferson's letters that he wanted an aristocracy of "talent and virtue" not one of "birth and wealth." But in today's American oligarchy, "all men are created equal" if they are men, like Donald Trump, and rich, like Donald Trump, and willing to support him, so he increases their wealth. Perhaps, as a young student remarked, "all men are created evil." Maybe we should listen to Dee Dee Myers, an American political analyst who, after distinguished service as the White House Press Secretary during the first two years of the Clinton administration, wrote Why Women Should Rule The World (2009). Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton, Dee Dee Myers, Oprah, women of Hollywood, women in business, anybody but Ivanka: save us. At any rate, restore democracy.