A few days ago, when I was riding the train, my girlfriend asked me for a debriefing on the big news of the last week. So I told her: death of a Supreme Court justice, and no one’s sure how he’ll be replaced; battle between giant tech corporation and giant law enforcement agency over the fate of your smartphone privacy; increasingly real possibility that an openly racist reality TV star will take the Republican presidential nomination. “Now I’m feeling really depressed,” she answered. “I wish I hadn’t asked.”