At least a couple people in my friend-sphere are today becoming or have recently become U.S. citizens.

If you’re American and this is true for you too, I encourage you to put aside irony and bitterness and instead hold the thought: Look, see, the project is still alive. May their addition to it be a candle through the darkness.

Update: New citizens are shown a speech by the current president at their naturalization ceremony. One friend describes it as “awful beyond description; like, Lynchian”. After a friend of had to watch it earlier this year, Daniel D. Beck shared his own alternative welcome message to new citizens.