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Yes. So sad. Bill Clinton said recently he thought we’d get back but it probably would take a decade. I don’t have that many decades left & it’s going to be a tough haul.

During college, some friends gave me a ride home for Thanksgiving. We’d all spent the semester protesting the Vietnam war. We turned the corner & gasped. My American Legion father had installed a full sized flagpole on our front lawn. It was a message to me. My friends dropped me on the corner.

The house I walked into then didn’t feel like home. The country didn’t feel like mine. Sigh.

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I get you 100%. Something about the total alignment of your thoughts with mine makes me feel better. If we feel this way, loads of other people must too, right? I read this morning in one of my writing prompts something along the lines of, "Hope is usually unrealistic but our only proven strategy." I liked that. Also, I have been thinking a lot about an article by Gerard Baker, a columnist for the WSJ, in which he talked about the UK being just as divided as us, but in the Queen's recent 70th anniversary celebrations showed they are still one nation. He said that we Americans do not have this. We used to have the flag but that has been hijacked by the right. That really pisses me off, BTW. Anyway, I keep asking people what symbol could unite us as a nation again? My husband said the Statue of Liberty. My friend Deb said the natural beauty, "Sea to shining sea" of our geography. I'm still wondering. Gerard Baker suggested Dolly Parton. That IS probably the one person most of us could agree on. What do you think?

The other thing I reflect on is that there have to be loads of smart people working all of our terrible problems. I still believe there are more good people than bad. This must be true. I don't know. I hope so! Thanks for writing! Peace.

Maggie Nerz Iribarne, Syracuse, NY

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You've captured how I feel. Hopeless and feeling this is NOT the country I grew up in, or thought it was. And that the Gop has lost their direction...scruples. SCOTUS's dismantling of settled law is unsettling. They voted along party lines! McConnell did a great disservice by not allowing Obama to name a judge. RBG did us no favors by clinging too long . Husband and I have also checked into moving out of country. What makes that option palatable is that I've already lost certain family members to the Trump cult.

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