I remember some time after 9/11, an American friend told me that he'd seen their country's burning of the reichstag.
I didn't know what he meant, maybe thought he was thinking it was a conspiracy. He was a very bright kid and certainly back then more worldly wise than me.
I'm pretty sure I do now. It was the moment a country splits in beliefs, and enters a prolongued psychotic phase. Violence and narcissism, attacks on truth, the dereliction of the rule of law as inconvenient. Posed against an opposition that folds in on itself.
George W Bush starts the war on terror. Repurposes the word 'Freedom' And memorably states, 'You're either with us or against us'.
That is how you break reality. It's literally an exact parallel as to what happens in the minds of people with certain mental illnesses.
I'm of the opinion that Trump has merely leveraged those faults.
Walk carefully. How this is resolved matters. If the events of recent days - including the violent murder of a policeman caught on camera - isn't used to get back to fundamentals that pre-date modern concerns, some of which we might not find as comfortable as how we've allowed ourselves to think and act in later years, then we'll never get another chance anywhere near as good that we can use to heal and make things stronger.
Not without incredible violence and suffering, of the type we formed these societies to prevent.