Perhaps my view on domestic politics is a bit like Ovid's perspective on the city, as he looked out (the other direction) over the Black Sea. Distance does give some perspective. Reading the domestic newspapers, it's virtually impossible to determine where the news section ends and the entertainment section begins. (One of my conservatory mentors, a Czech scenographer, had a standard talking point on the relegation of the arts section to the middle of the entertainment section.) Events on scripted television series are considered news. That's simply flabbergasting, and probably why a reality TV star is running the show.
Considering the American mind, the most dangerous thing is that the entire sequence of thought, political and otherwise, now seems off-kilter. It begins in this matrix of news and entertainment and lattes, and while it used to reach back into the fabric of existing things, the exercise of thought now moves away from the fabric of things. Deliberate thought used to have a recuperative effect on the mind and the discourse.
And this isn't just about political discussions and thinking. Matters large and small miss the mark, but the frozen hamburgers roll into the small town every week nonetheless.
I think if I were to land back there now, I would be a bit like Sam Beckett, watching them silently, waiting for them to land in reality, to find the way things are, like they used to be able to do, if only for a moment.