>We have a very difficult time in telling the
>truth and acknowledging wrongs in this country.

That's a really appropriate way to put it, and I like it even more because it understands our current political state as one of continuity, not rupture. Trump is more overt, more crass, and potentially more dangerous for his shamelessness. But our long history of unaccountable violence here and abroad means he's not new. And when we ignore our horrifying past, it permits us to characterize Trump as uncharacteristic lapse in traditional American values rather than a cartoonish-but-consistent articulation of those values.

One day he'll be gone. Defeated in an election. Leaving in a helicopter after two miserable terms. Dead on a toilet from natural causes. Resigned. Impeached. But if we've continued to use him as a shield from our past, then there's no future that's meaningfully better. I'm not good enough with political theory to engage Marx on the terms that he deserves, but one thing that is inspiring about his work is the clear-eyed understanding of our role in making history. We relentlessly characterize things like the suffocation of capitalism or imperialist war as natural forces like gravity because they were there yesterday and the day before and the day before and we can't imagine a world without them. But an actual political effort to re-understand, confront, and reckon with our past reframes Trump as somebody who is congruent with American values but, most importantly, doesn't have to be tomorrow.

I don't quite yet share your enthusiasm for Gabbard, but the presidential race and American politics needs her voice so I hope she hangs in there for awhile.