There have been times in my reporting from disaster zones when I have had the unsettling feeling that I was seeing not just a crisis in the here and now, but a glimpse of our collective future—a preview of where the road we are all on is headed unless we somehow grab the wheel and swerve. When I listen to Trump speak, with his obvious relish in creating an atmosphere of chaos and destabilization, I often think: I’ve seen this before, I’ve seen it in those strange moments when portals seemed to open up into our collective future.
