Yeah, that is a sad piece, especially given the source. Pavlovitz is normally pretty good about putting a positive touch on otherwise disappointing stories. Here, it's like he's posting a negatively framed argument, designed to elicit a particular outcome. The respondent is either in denial for not accepting that all is lost or putting their despair on display for conceding defeat. One of the news programs here has been doing the same thing with a series they're running, titled Is Portland Over? Between Covid and the riots (very rarely exceeding more than about 4 blocks), downtown has been reduced to a burnt out husk of its former self. Businesses are running at reduced capacity, with employees either working from home or falling to staffing cutbacks and there's a definite reduction in traffic flow in town. It definitely puts a dampener on the city's vibrancy and normally upbeat vibe.

The funny thing is, the U.S. is about to become a quasi-democracy, by slipping into one-party rule, a country permanently controlled by religious fascists, who will gradually turn it into a thinly-veiled theocracy, and most people won't even notice.