This is to say that the kind of shame suffered most sharply by proud people has been put to use to sustain this ugly economic and social configuration, too opportunistic and unstable to be called a system. It offers no vision beyond its effects. Obviously the depletions of public life, the decay of infrastructure, the erosions of standards affecting general health are not intended to make America great again. They are, in the experience of the vast majority of Americans, dispossessions, a cheapening of life.

—Marilynne Robinson (via MetaFilter), in “What Kind of Country Do We Want?”