Author: John Pavlovitz

“What happened to the American dream? It came true. You’re looking at it.” – The Comedian, “Watchmen” (2009) Many of the faces were already familiar. We saw them in real-time, smashing Capitol building windows, scaling walls, and parading through the halls of Congress, beaming with self-satisfaction. We could see their every emotion as they desecrated monuments, urinated on carpets, and sat behind lawmaker’s offices as if winning something they had fought so very hard for; a treasure they had valiantly won after a long and brutal struggle. We saw their faces because they wanted us to. This was not...

For years, people have been talking about Donald Trump’s “mental state,” throwing around the term mental illness as a lazy catch-all for his erratic behavior, inexhaustible cruelty, and inexplicable recklessness. In the wake of the election, a growing choir has assembled singing the same refrain. This has always struck me as particularly damaging, because it assumes something dangerous: that all mentally ill people are vengeful, bigoted, unrepentant sociopaths. We are not. As one of the 51 million Americans who battles a brain affliction, I can attest to the reality that the vast majority of us are not oblivious to...

“The United States effectively has three parties now: the Democratic party, the Anti-Democracy Trump party, and the Pro-Democracy Republican party.” – Jennifer Rubin A brazen act of white domestic terrorism on our nation’s Capitol: thousands of people streaming toward the seats of Congress, with nothing between them but a flimsy chain link fence and a few glad-handing police officers, who essentially gave the armed insurrectionists a warm welcome, a grand tour, and escorted them with kid gloves into the sacred chambers of the most vital work of our Republic: affirming the collective will of the people to choose their...