Roxane Gay has long been one of my favorite writers. Her essays and short stories are typically stark and clear about dark, awful things. Making the ugly so crystal clear is a gift.

She also has a gift of humor, of sensitivity, but her ability to make us really see life's underbelly is primary.

Wow. And are we ever in an ugly time... willfully ignorant, indignantly racist, angry and loud, violent and unforgiving. 

So, leave it to Dr. Gay to so vividly describe "the ugly truth about America." She does so in her periodic column in the New York Times, this one published Jan. 7, a day after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol during the counting of the electoral college votes. 

I hope you'll read it introspectively.

It has been a relatively terrifying week. 

My political affiliation is no secret. How I feel about the former reality TV host masquerading as president is pretty obvious. And, without question, an attempted coup during the certification of the electoral college votes was something that did not surprise me.

Stand back and stand by. 

No surprises here, but a deep, perilous hole remains where any hope of civility once was. 

Why? Because so many Americans refuse to face facts that they don't like. Because they have been led to believe falsehoods. Because they are intellectually soft and have been manipulated.

What makes us like that? This New York Times column by Katherine Stewart on the origins of Sen. Josh Hawley's rage answers that in large part. And, the answer is even more frightening that what we witnessed this week.