My Thoughts Exactly

Before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation– the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the 'impossible,' come true.
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up*

It is possible and even desirable to simultaneously understand both Sanders and Trump: they both represent disaffection. If you cannot understand modern American disaffected politics, you really need to get out of your bubble. Get out of your DC-loving bubble.

I noticed something funny happening in Washington, DC, about five years ago when I traveled there. I wrote a bizarre blog post about it back here. It was the physical reversion I noticed -- not the progression.

I'll hold the notion that something can be both progressive and regressive for a while now and see what happens. More tension I suppose.
_____________
*h/t: rcommal for reminding me of the Fitzgerald quote.

"F. Scott Fitzgerald’s stories to be reissued with sex, drugs, and dirty words put back in"

Raw Story: “Before these stories were bowdlerised, they contained antisemitic slurs, sexual innuendo, instances of drug use and drunkenness. They also contained profanity and mild blasphemy. The texts were scrubbed clean at the Post,” West told The Guardian.

In “The Hotel Child,” for example, a reference to a character “surreptitiously feeding a hasheesh tablet to the Pekingese” was excised from the Post version, and profanity like “Get the Hell out of here!” and the antisemitic slur “Sheeny” were scrubbed from the text. The effect, West said, is that “the decadence of several of the characters is revealed more clearly because of their alcoholism, drug use, and prejudice.”

“More generally, in all of the stories, the characters use the profanity, mild blasphemies, and slang words that Fitzgerald wanted them to use. They speak like real people,” West continued. “One of the commonplaces of Fitzgerald criticism, for decades, has been that he avoided unpleasant topics and realistic language in his magazine fiction. We can see now that this was not altogether his choice.”