A good reason that we nostalgia trip is that there were things back along that we loved. Places, friends, jobs, family, routines. The pandemic has unsettled them all, and the resistance we see to masking and to vaccination may be a form of denial. On another level, the resistance we see to democratic principles and practices may be a thirst for simpler ways of doing things. Life in 2021 would be complicated even without COVID.

Without strong leadership by democratic nations, primarily from the powerful U.S., our weaknesses, especially our self-inflicted weaknesses, could quickly become debilitating wounds the authoritarians will leverage, to our great loss.

If only we could resurrect the original postmaster, Benjamin Franklin, who created a system that was affordable and fast for his day. Franklin would likely be appalled at what we have today. He might even recommend stamping it out and starting over.

And this is the price we pay. A white man with a demonstrated antipathy toward Black Lives Matter protesters drives through them in a crosswalk, injures a man — and flees the scene. You’d think that would be a crime. But this is America in 2021.

So you would be mistaken.

The debt ceiling was not designed to be an important instrument of economic policy: Congress retained the power to set all spending and tax terms, as it does today. But Congress also must vote every now and then to raise the limit on Treasury’s authority to borrow. Failing to do so means the government can’t meet the obligations it has already approved.

Trying to redefine the cost of a $3.5 trillion bill as zero must rank among the most patently absurd attempts to change reality through a talking point ever attempted.

Republicans will not win hearts by insisting that they don’t have to help America repay its debts — especially since they racked up so much of them.