In the United States, forty million people do not have enough food. Thirty million have no health insurance. Nearly three million were evicted from their home last year, two million were incarcerated, and police killed hundreds more. In New York magazine, Andrew Sullivan, reflects on the first month of the Trump administration, and wonders what became of the “blessed space where politics doesn’t intervene.” It was with us just last year, wasn’t it?

Sullivan’s latest essay, “The Madness of King Donald,” finds him taking a break from his usual habit of insisting that the only way to save democracy is with less democracy in order to speculate about the president’s mental health. But one paragraph in particular immediately captured the attention of the political and pundit class. This “brilliant passage,” in the words of NYU professor and media critic Jay Rosen, has since between excerpted, quoted, and retweeted with a rapturous bipartisan praise that makes Rosen sound measured.

One of the great achievements of free society in a stable democracy is that many people, for much of the time, need not think about politics at all. The president of a free country may dominate the news cycle many days — but he is not omnipresent — and because we live under the rule of law, we can afford to turn the news off at times. A free society means being free of those who rule over you — to do the things you care about, your passions, your pastimes, your loves — to exult in that blessed space where politics doesn’t intervene. In that sense, it seems to me, we already live in a country with markedly less freedom than we did a month ago. It’s less like living in a democracy than being a child trapped in a house where there is an abusive and unpredictable father, who will brook no reason, respect no counter-argument, admit no error, and always, always up the ante until catastrophe inevitably strikes. This is what I mean by the idea that we are living through an emergency.