We all have a brittle snapping point, a place where dismay ignites in anger. For Kathleen Lyle, a 62-year-old grandmother in Rowlett, that point came Tuesday.

Her outrage broke, and justifiably so, over the head of Sid Miller, the hapless boob who occupies the office of Texas agriculture commissioner. On Tuesday, Miller outdid his own colorful record of antics-'n'-gaffes when his official Twitter account issued a tweet in which Hillary Clinton was heckled with a dirty-minded, dehumanizing epithet for the female anatomy that rhymes with "punt."

If Miller — a beet-faced, cowboy-hat-wearing ex-rodeo champ who has become one of Donald Trump's most ardent surrogates — is too dense in the noggin (this is possible) to grasp that even partisan zeal does not excuse the use of this grossly offensive word, the immediate backlash brought him up to speed.

The tweet was quickly erased, and a variety of conflicting, butt-covering excuses tumbled forth: My account was hacked; a clueless staffer did it; it was a re-tweet from elsewhere in which, somehow, the offending word went unnoticed.

My weary, overworked outrage meter is idling in low gear, like persistent background static on the radio. I can only summon a tired wonder that Miller, whose newest contretemps is perhaps the most egregious but far from being the first rodeo of disgrace and embarrassment he has attended, is the kind of damage Texas keeps inflicting on itself.

For Lyle, though, it was the point at which she had to speak up or explode, to say something or go crazy.

It was, for her, that watershed moment in this through-the-looking-glass election year in which the normal rules of civilized discourse have been suspended. It's the culmination of a vulgar romp-in-the-swamp in which women in general have been objectified, insulted, and denigrated as a matter of course, and in which heretofore sensible Americans have indulged in a bizarre auto-hypnotic ritual allowing them to un-see the untenable and un-hear the unspeakable.

"You, sir, are an elected official representing the State of Texas," Lyle wrote in a letter to the commissioner, which she shared with me late Tuesday. "You do not have unlimited license to use language such as this. Hating your political opponent is not a reason or excuse.

"Do you speak to females in your family in this fashion? Your female staff members? Your mother? When you speak that word in public about any woman, you have said it to all women and about all women."

Lyle demanded an apology for every woman and every schoolchild in the state of Texas: "You are obligated to behave decently in public once elected," she told him.

It was a letter that summed up not only one woman's frustration over one elected official's outrageous violation, but spoke for countless Americans who are appalled by the ugliness, the unhinged vulgarity, the puerile bullying shoutdown to which the political conversation has devolved.

"This crass and hateful discourse is poisoning our country," Lyle told me after sending her letter — a model of restraint considering the provocation. "The most horrible aspect of this election and modern politics is this kind behavior — and how it teaches our children and adults every bad way to act."

To give him his (dubious) due, I guess it's possible that Miller really is too dim to have foreseen the impact of using that word. We are, after all, talking about the guy who used state money to visit a felonious medical con artist who works out of a beauty salon in Kingfisher, Okla., administering injections called "Jesus shots" that are guaranteed to erase all pain for life. We're talking about a comic-book buffoon who called a news conference to "pardon" cupcakes in school lunches, who makes jokes about nuking Muslims, who thinks the most urgent social problem in our nation is people who say "Happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas."

But, as Kathleen Lyle correctly points out, elected officials ought to know better. Adults ought to know better. Minimally socialized human beings ought to know better.

"I have treated you with far more respect than you have shown to women or to me," she told Miller in her letter. "Were I handing out punishment for your insulting behavior, it would be to send you to every school district in this state to tell students why you behaved as you have, and why it is wrong."

She closed by inviting the commissioner to contact her by phone or email to discuss the matter in person — but said she doesn't really expect a response.

I don't know that she needs one. Kathleen Lyle spoke up for herself. She spoke up for a lot of us.