November 2018

Progressives woke up the day after the election anxious and downhearted. The Blue Wave had turned out to be a Blue Trickle, and progressives, so accustomed to losing, felt predictably lost. Trump, using his deflect-attention-from-his-failures tactic, shrugged off his midterms disaster and promptly fired Jeff Sessions, naming a Trump loyalist (under FBI investigation!) as the acting attorney general who would close down or sharply limit the Muller investigation. Then Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg fell and fractured three ribs, and progressives thought oh god oh god Trump will now get to make three Supreme Court appointments! And then a white (again) male (again) killer slew 12 people in yet another mass shooting, this time in California (again). Not to speak of that state being on fire (again). Progressives were pretty depressed. OK, progressives! Time to wake up, sit up, and perk up! Democrats won the House of Representatives—by a little at...

This is a thought experiment, an exercise in imagination. No, it’s not touchy-feely, and there's nothing mystical about it. Imagination is a precious capacity we humans have (I suspect and hope other animals do too), although we often waste it on petty or even nefarious purposes. Only children and artists (and some scientists and inventors) stay in constant touch with the profound power of imagination.