What happens when a people subordinates decency to the profane? When it sacrifices the principled exchange of ideas for personal and tribal advantage? And elevates celebrity over strength of character? Or loses faith in its institutions and grasps at inferior alternatives?

What happens when a people prefers palliative manipulation to honest disagreement?

How must this people feel when explaining the world, and the kind of person one strives to be in it, to a child?

Might the people not notice that a shift has even happened? That it no longer reflects the story it tells itself?

What could wake it from its slumber?

How seismic of an event will it be?