Obsessed with our comfort, America is in a panic that its mattress buffer against the terrible uncomfortable pea is going to be taken away. Our great army is our protection, we thought , from the loss of our comfort. But 9/11 gave us PTSD. And now Trump wants to build a wall to keep discomfort out. For over half a hundred years we have been bombarded with Pea Commercials that define the discomfort we must not tolerate. Everything is sold to pub a mattress over that pea so you will never feel it again.

But as our sensitivity to discomfort grows, as all addictions do, we need more mattresses. Our national anxiety is the fear that we are going to lose our high level of comfort. The changing world is pulling the mattresses one by one.  The terrible pea feels like a nail.