Many here will recognise the formative childhood experience of having done something forbidden and getting caught doing it by their parents where, for the first time, instead of the usual response - their getting angry - you are taken completely by surprise when they simply say "I am so disappointed in you" or similar, accompanied by some expression in the realm of abject futility.

This is one of those.

That this could have had any realistic chance of happening at all says a lot about the current state of the US populace.

I find reading any political news out of the US to be particularly distressing: the extent of the echo chamber effect is very prominent and highly persistent. Admittedly, this is part of a more general phenomenon with regard to news today, given that people can construct their own echo chambers much more readily than in any other time of history - but it seems considerably worse in the US. I'm not quite sure why. Perhaps because the FPTP political system encourages game-theoretic strategies which unfortunately effectively optimise for polarisation and related properties..?