This Can't Be Broccoli

Nine years ago today, the last Harry Potter book came out and I was going through one of the worst periods of my life. I remember thinking--I know what I'll do, I'll go to one of those midnight book release parties. I'll be surrounded by happy, smiling people and I'll feel better about everything. I specifically didn't get any of the "save your place in line" tickets, because I wanted to throw myself into the chaos of the evening. I had read all the Harry Potter books, but I wasn't as diehard a fan as a lot of people, so this was meant to just be a nice distraction. When I got to the bookstore, it was pandemonium. Okay, I thought, you wanted chaos as a distraction, here you go. I waited in line...and I waited....and I waited. Then the sadness I'd been wrestling with kicked in, and the little voice in my head started saying, "This is stupid. You can get one of these books some other time. Let's just go home and crawl under the covers...

The Nicolle Wallace interview with Jeb Bush last night was so many things--sad, irritating, and also just plain fascinating, because the same question kept coming up--"How did we get here? How did Trump end up being the nominee?" I can see why they--along with so many other people--are so confused. Up until very recently Trump was known for being pro-choice, critical of the 2nd amendment, and not very religious. He seems to go against everything the GOP stands for, but there's one thing he has going for him that Jeb and a lot of the other Republican Presidential candidates didn't have-- He infuriates liberals. There's something we have trouble saying in America--and it's that a lot of us want to see our enemies fail more than we want to see ourselves succeed. Or maybe I should put that a different way. Let's say you were given two choices: You can have a life where you achieve tremendous success but everyone you don't like achieves the s...