Today is the anniversary of the Chinese government crushing popular dissent at Tiananmen Square.

This anniversary is happening in the midst of a week in which the President of the United States has militarized Washington DC and is calling for the crushing of dissent here in the United States.

Trump campaigned on nostalgia for the past, with a slogan calling to make America great "again."

And, indeed, he has re-created many of the most notable moments in past American history.

He's brought back the pandemic of 1918, and the widespread death associated with it.

When you tell people they won't be held accountable for their actions, it almost always ends badly. That's what's happened with our police and our social media, two institutional pillars of personal and political society in America today.

Every advanced democracy in the world has its coronavirus epidemic largely under control except the United States. And we're on the verge of melting down again because a substantial minority of Americans simply don't know the basic science of how an epidemic works and why wearing masks is part of breaking the epidemic chain.