In no way minimizing the calamity of the moment, but I recently read the Einstein bio by Isaacson and savor this quote from a letter to his son in 1954
"Somehow [America] manages to return to normality. Everything- even lunacy- is mass-produced here. But everything goes out of fashion very quickly"
![An excerpt from "Einstein: His Life and Universe", by Isaac Walterson, Page 531
By then Einstein had finally discovered what was fundamental about America: it can be swept by waves of what may seem, to outsiders, to be dangerous political passions but are, instead, passing sentiments that are absorbed by its democracy and righted by its constitutional gyroscope. McCarthyism had died down, and Eisenhower had proved a calming influence. "God's own country becomes stranger and stranger," Einstein wrote Hans Albert [his son] that Christmas, "but somehow they manage to return to normality. Everything- even lunacy- is mass-produced here. But everything goes out of fashion very quickly."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:it5libnatnylf2c5jpr56vpr/bafkreicwguxb6cbzv6yq7zbh2pqo7sax3sccicfumkqll7dwkb7xmxyysq)
