“Democracy is a discipline, like diet and exercise, strenuous and irksome. Sooner take a pill or eat cake.”
— “From, To,” by David Bezmozgis, story in April 14th New Yorker

Yup. That’s democracy these days. Strenuous and irksome.

And those of us born into democracy have been taking it for granted, like we take our bodies for granted when we slack off on diet and exercise.

We’ve put the health of our democracy on auto pilot, thinking it would take care of itself, like we hope our bodies will take care of themselves, and now we’re wondering how in the world our democracy got so sick.