We live in a land of hyperbolic frenzy where it seems near impossible not to be swallowed up by the carnival atmosphere. But Mr. Bruni is correct. Not everything signals the imminent collapse of democracy. Not every day is the end of the world as we know it.
Mr. Trump has exhausted us with a constant barrage of inexcusable comments and an inexhaustible supply of missteps. And in the process we have lost much of our collective capacity to distinguish wheat from chaff. Bad morphs forever into the worst ever.
We have caught the President's disease of turning small into large, like his proclamation that a few hirings at Carrier or the issuance of a few bonus checks after the passage of the tax "cuts" were emblematic of a much grander, albeit non-existent, change in the country. Or one death in San Francisco as a justification for mistreatment of millions.
We cannot lose sight of the big facts and greater truths that make this presidency everything it is not: destruction of relationships around the globe, attempted environmental decimation, authoritarian acts to diminish the media and first amendment rights, unconstitutional and ill conceived actions to thwart immigration, the intentional decision to neuter his own agencies like the FBI and the DOJ, to name but a few of the more egregious disasters.
There are enough fault lines in this administration to crack it open like the San Andreas fault. But if we insist on focusing on each little fissure, we face the real risk of missing the big hole right in front of our face.
The sky may be falling, just not everywhere at once.
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