LITMIR.BIZ

      Preface

      During the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, while I was finishing this book, my wife and I were self-quarantined in a hamlet far out on Long Island, New York. I would take a noon break to tune into Governor Andrew Cuomo’s daily update on the pandemic that was devastating the state more than any other. Following his remarks and before taking questions from the press, he would recite a variation of a mantra: “New Yorkers are tough, smart, united, disciplined, and loving.” The refrain was not just a grace note; his congratulations were a reminder to his fellow citizens of their responsibility for a working democracy.

      Toward the end of each day, I would put away the manuscript and watch Donald Trump’s briefing from the White House. His objective, as always, was to congratulate himself. His toughness is that of a bully. He made sure that the world thought he was a genius who could outsmart the experts. Divide and conquer has been his grand strategy. Discipline meant absolute fealty to his caprices. His self-love is so cavernous that there is little space for anyone or anything else. He spews hatred at those who oppose him or get in the way of his personal vanities and goals.

      These deformations were also on gruesome display when a Minneapolis police officer choked to death George Floyd, a Black man, in broad daylight. Trump urged an indiscriminate crackdown against mostly peaceful protests and threatened to put the country under martial law.

      There was an eerie overlap between a global pestilence and another case of lethal police brutality against a Black person. As American fatalities rose beyond a hundred thousand, many of the victims died because, like George Floyd, they couldn’t breathe. His last

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