This place is so broken. Technically today is one of ten federal holidays for which non-essential federal workers get time off with pay. FDR declared “Columbus Day” in 1934 formalizing a New York City tradition first celebrated with a parade in 1792, three hundred years after Christopher Columbus reported landfall in the “New World.”

The holiday is no longer. Fourteen states renamed it “Indigenous Peoples Day” and several more simply don’t celebrate it. Most of the southern States (excluding Alabama) do still rigorously celebrate it, and President Trump just championed it:

“Sadly, in recent years, radical activists have sought to undermine Christopher Columbus’s legacy,” Trump said in his proclamation. “Rather than learn from our history, this radical ideology and its adherents seek to revise it, deprive it of any splendor, and mark it as inherently sinister. They seek to squash any dissent from their orthodoxy.

“We must not give in to these tactics… We must teach future generations about our storied heritage, starting with the protection of monuments.”

Our national radio network hasn’t yet once mentioned “Columbus” or the holiday, and it’s going on noon eastern time. Instead, it used the day to highlight a State of California lawsuit against Silicon Valley companies for discriminating against Dalit Indians (“Untouchables”).

This is a perfect example of how divided this country is. The President rants terror over a stale holiday while his national radio network thumbs its nose at him by airing a story about mistreated peoples that broke more than three months ago.

This place is broken.

Its halves are so similar in size and loyalty that power swings precariously between them. Until and unless one side achieves effective power (executives, legislatures and courts) this fractured society will crumble more and more until its pulverized dust evaporates out of history.