Bewilderment

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THAT FIRST TUESDAY IN NOVEMBER, online conspiracy theories, compromised ballots, and bands of armed poll protesters undermined the integrity of the vote in six different battleground states. The country slid into three days of chaos. On Saturday, the President declared the entire election invalid. He ordered a repeat, claiming it would require at least three more months to secure and implement. Half the electorate revolted against the plan. The other half was gung-ho for a retry. Where suspicion was total and facts were settled with the like button, there was no other way forward but to do over.

I wondered how I might explain the crisis to an anthropologist from Promixa Centauri. In this place, with such a species, trapped in such technologies, even a simple head count grew impossible. Only pure bewilderment kept us from civil war.