It is worrisome that there is deep sentiment in some quarters of this country for nothing more than a return to American life before Trump. I find this feeling dangerous, because often it is not merely a response to the damage that Trump has wrought on the country—and on the American psyche—but also more subtly a reaction to all the long-standing and difficult questions Trump’s presidency has brought into view. The way he treats black people prompts open discussion of the way black people are treated in America generally; it makes the painful confrontation with the value gap unavoidable. The
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