This piece, When Every Conversation Becomes a Game, We All Lose, from a recent New York Times is a very insightful discussion of the difference between a conversation, where both sides listen to and hear each other, and respond reasonably, and the more common American cage match where two adamant rivals are pitted against each other, will do anything to dominate the other, and only one can be declared the “winner”. The second style of discussion is, sadly, the dominant form of discourse in a nation of angry assholes.

Part of American Exceptionalism is, frankly, mass bullying by a handful of the wealthiest white men alive at any given time. Don’t want any more ten year-olds massacred by enraged young white men with legally acquired military assault rifles with high capacity clips? Then shut the fuck up about it, losers… there’s nothing your deadlocked, weak, historically unpopular, “democratic” Congress can do about it, and if they try — FILIBUSTER. It worked to protect slavery, white supremacy, lynching .. so what is your goddamned problem?