Exposure to prolonged fear of terrible sickness and death from a highly infectious disease, against which we are largely at the mercy of others doing their part, leads to changes subtle and dramatic in the human psyche. Some respond to this reasonable fear by lashing out, insisting on their right to infect whoever they want, in the name of opposing tyranny. Others isolate and wear two or three masks in public. The endlessly morphing pandemic is terrifying, worldwide and it has changed societies everywhere. It has changed families, friendships, relations between neighbors, mostly not for the better.

At the same time, life must go on. So there was an organized attempt, coming up on a year ago, by our avatar of Covid madness, Donald Trump, to overturn the 2020 election. They did this using a daft, quasi-legal theory that, under the 12th Amendment, the defeated Vice President, whose role it is to certify the electors as the last step in the peaceful transfer of power, is actually in charge of deciding who the new president and vice president will be. You know, democracy. The president’s top lawyers who espoused this bat shit crazy “theory”, or made unfounded fraud claims, or both, John Eastman and Jeffery Boessart Clark, are now standing on their Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate themselves by answering questions under oath.

The second paragraph of a NY Times article entitled “Meadows and the Band of Loyalists: How They Fought to Keep Trump in Power” underscores the objective madness of our current moment in history. The Times ordinarily bends over backwards to present the reasonable-seeming side of utterly unreasonable situations and positions, in the interest of appearing always above the controversy in question. Last night readers saw this:

WASHINGTON — Two days after Christmas last year, Richard P. Donoghue, a top Justice Department official in the waning days of the Trump administration, saw an unknown number appear on his phone.

Mr. Donoghue had spent weeks fielding calls, emails and in-person requests from President Donald J. Trump and his allies, all of whom asked the Justice Department to declare, falsely, that the election was corrupt. The lame-duck president had surrounded himself with a crew of unscrupulous lawyers, conspiracy theorists, even the chief executive of MyPillow — and they were stoking his election lies.

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The lame-duck president had surrounded himself with a crew of unscrupulous lawyers, conspiracy theorists, even the chief executive of MyPillow — and they were stoking his election lies.

Damn, Grey Lady! You too? Never mind, good to know that at this perilous moment, even you show a bit of relatable human emotion. Unscrupulous lawyers, indeed.