That woman is as crooked as a barrel of fishhooks, she said. Worse even than the great Obamination. The woman had blood on her hands, she was a treasonous traitor, she deserved to be shot, my neighbor said. How could she ever have got this far? Of course it was some kind of conspiracy.

I myself have never had that much interest in politics, her son said to me. Right now I don’t like what I’m seeing on either side, so I may just sit this one out. But the thing is, Mom was never like this before. I mean, she never got worked up over an election, and when I was growing up she and Dad usually voted Democrat. And Mom even used to be a feminist. I don’t mean in any active political way, but I remember her reading that book (The Feminist Mystic, he called it), and I remember her talking about women’s liberation and what a great thing it was and what a bad thing it was that more women weren’t in office.

Not to sound crazy myself, he said, but when I listen to her now it’s like while she was in the hospital someone planted a chip in her brain. She thinks Christians are under attack, she thinks Hillary Clinton is some kind of—I don’t really know what, but I’ve heard her say Hillary Clinton answers to Satan. But the thing is, Mom’s not religious, she never has been, and I never knew her to believe in Satan. So where did this come from? And how is it that, no matter what it’s about, if it’s between what Sean Hannity says or what her own son says, she trusts Hannity.

I’m sorry, he said, I know you’ve been getting an earful, but I think after the election she’ll calm down.

But after the election she did not calm down. She remained just as paranoid, just as enraged at the enemies of Christianity and of real, patriotic Americans. She took it ill when I happened to remark that Sean Hannity reminded me of Lou Costello, as if I’d said it to slander him.

But in fact, one of the strangest things about her behavior was that she didn’t really care what I said. She never paused during one of her rants to ask whether I agreed or disagreed with her, never asked what my own views of the two candidates were, and when I volunteered such information she received it with a shrug, she never made the least effort to convert me. I could watch Fox News for myself if I wanted the truth, and if I didn’t, to hell with me.