The nation is in a collective sleep with the internet as its blanket

The internet now resembles that chaotic state when our minds assemble dreams while we are asleep, mysteriously pulling dreams together from fear, desire and bits of experience. Someone recently claimed that Melania Trump is not the real Melania Trump. It went viral. No one knows why any more than anyone knows where last night’s dream came from.

The country is asleep under a deep blanket of smugness, a comforter under which some luxuriate in the belief that the only real issue facing the nation is abortion or the Second Amendment or football players taking a knee or taxes. Afterall, such well-intentioned dreams can’t hurt. We’re the greatest nation on Earth. We’ve survived this long and we will continue to do so. Won’t we? Donald Trump, the slumberer in chief, doesn’t seem to take even his own presidency seriously. Sure, his mouth is out of control but thennothing he says can really hurt the country, can it? So throw things against the wall and see what sticks on the internet.It’s kind of fun.

Every day we wake up and the world seems pretty much like the way it was the day before and the day before that. The collective nightmare hasn’t arrived. So what’s the problem?

Meanwhile, the engines of fear and greed grind away at the foundations, troubling the sleep only of those in the immediate path. The casualties show up only in mass murder, opiate addiction and declining participation in the labor force. But that’s OK. Just log back on. And go back to sleep. ROBERT SUPANSIC

McKeesport