Do you think that everyone who voted for Trump is a MAGA adherent?

[yardwork]

13. This is going to sound harsh.

The fact is, anybody who votes on that basis - and I know many who do - don't deserve to live in a democracy.

Sustaining a democracy requires effort from citizens. It requires the recognition that being informed is a sacred obligation. It requires the discipline to do the work of becoming informed, and voting accordingly.

Too many Americans got too soft and complacent. Too many of our fellow citizens stopped thinking of themselves as citizens, and started thinking of themselves as privileged consumers who deserve whatever they can get.

Too many Americans chose to listen to hate radio, Fox News, and shady websites because they heard what their lizard brains craved: "All your problems are the fault of liberals and "those other" people. (Dog whistle, wink, smirk.) You deserve to be rich. You don't have to work hard. Trump will make you rich by taking your money away from "those people." Oh, and they're all criminals, too."

Let's not pretend that middle class white Americans (who voted for Trump overwhelmingly) don't know how to access accurate information. They know how to use the internet. They could have read Jack Smith's indictments (published online, free to all). They chose not to.

All those wealthy business owners, the CEOs of big companies, all the tax accountants and financial analysts, the billionaire owners of our "News" media all chose to pretend everything was fine.

I don't know if our democracy can recover. It might be gone. Too many people abandoned it.

A democracy takes hard work.