 While we stay mostly indoors to escape or heal from COVID, our society outside is changing faster and more profoundly than before. There are accelerants inflaming these changes. Trump is one of them, but there are others too. These are sea changes disrupting everything in a huge tidal wave of change. Much like the frog in the kettle of hot water, we don't integrate these changes into our daily thinking. But they include changes in our relationships with friends, family, business associates, strangers, and those who are wearing the power of government. This speaks of a complete reordering of our world. The problem is not so much that our government is failing us. The much more threatening phenomenon is that government doesn't care about us, and soon enough we won't care about the government, or each other. Or worse, that our officials, for their own purposes, will become more interested in exacerbating the divisions among us. Democracy can save us, but the decline of democracy and the emergence of autocracy leads to injustice and ultimately to a complete if not intentional and violent breakdown. This could happen in any country, and it can happen here. Increasingly, we seem oblivious and unprepared for it. Instead of returning to the old normal, we are entering a time very different than the one we came from. We need to appreciate the personal life experience of living in a more challenging world. To some, it's an interesting intellectual exercise. To others, it's quite terrifying. While personal ruminations on this destructive process may somehow be comforting, the end result could take us to a dark and fearful time. So we must ask ourselves what can we do to deal with the decline that is upon us. That is the greatest challenge of all. We need to realize, like the frog, that we are boiling. Then we need to join together under the very best leadership to restate our values and the rule of law, and develop and ethically deploy the best technology. Can any one person do this? No, but it is incumbent on each of us to help and do what we can. It's plain to see that we are on a road to perdition, surrounded by a red sea of deception, drowning our democracy as we race to where the lord of the flies is king. We should rather take the higher road, the road focused on protecting our institutions, our values and our people. What to do, be decent and kind, that would be an important countervailing principle in the contention at hand. Only accept what you know to be true. Don't be afraid of speaking the truth to power, and never stand by idly when you see outrage that needs correction. Complacency will destroy us all. Our country is in a state of madness these days, and more and more the inmates are running the asylum. The light at the end of the tunnel seems further away, but hope for happier days is still here. Although, frankly, right now, that unrealized hope may be all we have.