A loaded gun

LA Times columnist Anita Chabria offers advice on how we need to think of this election: 

So what’s a democracy-loving American, Republican or Democrat, to do?

You have to listen to Trump.

If we don’t know what the MAGA folks are saying — and believing — we lose the ability to see the bigger picture of what is happening.

If we don’t pay attention to the lies Trump is telling about FEMA [in hurricane ravaged North Carolina], we can’t understand how significant it is that a lone man with a gun is threatening aid workers.

That man is the intended result: A person so removed from our shared reality that no impartial fact can sway him from his fear, rage and commitment.

With or without weapons, we will see more of these desperate Americans in coming days.

In Congress, in state governments, in local election boards, MAGA believers are being asked to prepare to contest the election — operating on the notion that fraud is inevitable, and Trump needs their help.

Those asks include going to polls to monitor and even record voters — to expose the voter fraud they so firmly believe stole the last election. They are being asked to watch poll workers as they open mail-in ballots, to check signatures as much as elections officials will allow and look for malfeasance. They are being asked to keep a close eye on Black and brown people who they believe are being paid or compelled by Democrats to illegally vote.

... Nov. 5 will not liberate any of us from this post-fact reality — the election will not vanquish it, one way or another.

But ignoring it is like turning our backs to a loaded gun.

It's all horribly exhausting. This election is a test of our national resilience. Those who came before found their inner strength when they needed it. We wouldn't be here if they hadn't. Can we find ours?