​In the spring of 2009, in a piece for Harper’s Magazine, I wrote that even though our newly inaugurated president probably wouldn’t solve all our problems, it felt as if Atticus Finch had finally come home. I still get that Atticus feeling when I listen to Obama. Though I’ve disagreed at times with his decisions, I’ve always been impressed – for lack of a less condescending word – by his maturity, by which I mean his intelligence, his measured calm, his sense of humor, his

Lately I’ve been binging on Trump: The Race for the Presidency, increasingly nauseated but unable to stop. It’s a hell of a show: edgy, unpredictable, full of outrageous characters and shifting alliances . . . Who knows what will happen next? Maybe Trump will bitch-slap Rubio for the “small hands” comment, or kick that rhetorical rope-a-dope thing he does up to the next level: Did lynching have its points? I don’t know . . . But I love the blacks, OK? I love the blacks. T