Not so Bad. Better Than You Think. But Vote.

From up here it doesn't look too bad. There are maniacs out in the hinterlands hunting down the enemies they see everywhere. The woods here just have hunters out for deer. Of course they're using AR-15s now, and that's a good look for Trump and his brand.

But he's going down. It's not sustainable, that level of hate rhetoric. It burns itself out. Based on lies, how could it not? I mean, in the 1930's sure, half the people probably believed in witches and what not, and they were just coming out of the Great Depression and standard of living had pretty much held steady since the Black Plague. But our lives, I mean even the poorest quintile of Americans have cell phones, Spotify play lists, wear fleece and sneakers like bosses, have at least been through high school. Nobody starves, on the contrary -- obesity is a sign of disconnection from quality nutrients. Yes. income inequality is a thing, student debt is a thing, climate change is a thing, and the rich have rigged the political system. But it's not that bad, really. Problems are all solvable. Things are getting better all the time. The problem is we have a negativity bias and that's not the fault of the media, it's the fault of our lives being so flattened of meaning by the comfort and routine of modernity. We get all of our cues from the media instead of an immediate and ever-widening circle of face-to-face contacts, and you never see a headline about long term trends, just the latest news with the killers and the addicts falling asleep at the wheel. The outliers. You'd think it couldn't get any worse when in fact it's getting better, just behind the scenes, out of the glare of the news cycle.

So get up a tree in the fall and have a look around. Have a conversation with a neighbor. And even if it doesn't, vote as if your life depended on it. Because the purveyors of dystopia are lying. It's not so bad. It's better than you think.