When I last sat down for lunch with Connie Rice it was 2023, and I was eager to get some assurance from the veteran civil rights attorney that the country was still firmly on the path of building a multiracial democracy.
A string of unprecedented events had shaken the country to the core — the election of Donald Trump, the COVID pandemic, the nationwide George Floyd protests against racism, Jan. 6. But surely, I thought, all these things together had produced lessons that would ultimately strengthen our resolve to be a better, more compassionate and inclusive nation. We had learned things. One thing we’d learned is that electing Trump was a terrible mistake, a crime against the national conscience that would not, could not, happen again.
