Our problem is not political, but moral.

We are offended only by those who are boorish in the way that working class people are boorish, not by those who are boorish in the way that our powerful classes are boorish.

Worse -- much worse -- while complaining about boors, we are undisturbed by tyrants.

Tyrants, who fire and blackball people because they disagree with them.  Who raid their homes and indict them for what are not crimes.  Who circulate their residential addresses and the schools their children attend on social media, encouraging people to threaten and harass them.  Who apply different standards of law to different groups.  Who make mock of due process.  Who think hard work and merit are elitist.  Who ruin the lives of those whom they despise, destroy their families, and obliterate their livelihoods.  Who require applicants for teaching jobs to submit statements affirming  belief in the reigning ideologies.  Who attempt to compel unconscionable acts by people of faith.  Who encourage race war.  Who trim even language to fit their ideologies.  Who unjustly make weapons of the most powerful instrumentalities of justice.

Tyrants, who think they are virtuous to do so.  Who praise depravity.  Who take vice in stride.  Who think evil may be done so that good will result.  Who lie so much that lying is a reflex with them.  Who no longer have to think about it, because they lie even when it gives them no benefit.  Who find doing so clever and even amusing.

Some say none of this is happening:  That to say so is all paranoia, partisanship, and conspiracy theorizing.  Others see well enough that it is happening, but are so jaded that they regard it as politics as usual.  Still others ask “Who is to say what is just or unjust?”  Not even the barbarians thought that way.

Considering that we think lightly of character assassination, how long will it be before we think lightly of literal assassination?  Mark the day, because we are only a hairsbreadth away.  In the noon of their pride, nations crumble.