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Two opposing<\/strong> but not mutually exclusive stories about our current political scene appear in this issue, an apt way to begin a year that will be the gathering before the storm. Let\u2019s start with one perspective: optimism. As Eric Lutz reports in his column \u201cFrom the Brink,\u201d in the places where election denial was on the ballot during November\u2019s midterm elections, many of those candidates not only lost, they conceded as much. Granted, that\u2019s a low bar, but considering what happened on January 6, 2021, we\u2019ll take progress where we can get it. Three cheers for democracy!<\/p>\n Now for the darker view, from Jeff Sharlet\u2019s road trip through Wisconsin<\/a> following the Dobbs<\/em> decision, when, as he observes, that state \u201cbecame the only \u2018blue\u2019 state in which abortion is now effectively illegal.\u201d Plumbing the depths of Trumpism\u2014and confronting its signs and symbols in an eerie exercise of door knocking\u2014Sharlet finds currents of fascism less nascent by the day amid talk of a coming civil war. It\u2019s not a hopeful picture. But only by seeing that America clearly can we come to grips with it. I took heart from the teenagers Sharlet meets at the end of the story, out protesting the court\u2019s ruling. As one of the girls says, the only alternative to pushing back is to \u201csuffer like this, our rights stripped away from us by the minute.\u201d They\u2019re not scared; they know they\u2019re worth fighting for.<\/p>\n