The transcendent issue of this time — no matter the specific raw material of any given news cycle — is the belief that one half of the country suspects the other half is contemptuous of them, and responds with contempt in turn. “Seinfeld” was not really, as was often said, “a show about nothing.” It demonstrated instead that with the right characters and frame of mind, you can make a show about anything that might happen in daily life. Donald Trump has shown that you can use the same approach to create a national crack-up. The violent rabble that crashed the Capitol a year ago showed that crack-ups are fertile ground for crackpots.

Are you starting 2022 in an optimistic mood? You might take solace in the argument that it’s hard to have a real civil war without a real cause — a great question that will be resolved by the outcome. Trump’s moment in national life will die out because he always has lots to say but no longer has anything meaningful to say.

Or perhaps recent years have steered you toward escalating pessimism. Perhaps the squalor of modern politics flows from ancient truths of human nature. People are easily manipulated with appeals to prejudice and paranoia, never more so than when technology has led to massive growth in the industry of commercialized contempt. A country that can have a civil war with no one really knowing what the conflict is about is one in which the muscles of governance are pitifully atrophied.